How To Become A YouTube Superstar

At Third Tuesday in late June, I was standing in front of my social media friend Eric Buchegger and (of course) looking at Twitter on my phone when I saw him tweet out something about a YouTube workshop the next night. I turned around, pointed to the tweet and asked him about it when he mentioned that our mutual friend in social media, Roberto Faria was involved with organizing it. A few tweets the next day and thanks to Roberto I was on my way to OCAD University to attend this invite-only workshop, presentation and networking cocktails. I didn’t know at the time, that the event was being organized as part of a cross-Canada tour through Achilles Media.

YouTube’s Brandon Gross and Andres Palmiter lead an informative presentation to help attendees understand what it takes to ‘go viral’ reach the right audience and ultimately monetize your video content. Brandon is a senior strategist with YouTube’s Next Lab, where he works with funded partners as well as identifying new talent to grow on the platform. Andres specializes in audience development at YouTube and helped create the YouTube Creator Playbook, a constantly-updated leading edge resource featured on YouTube.

As with most events I attend, I didn’t know what I was in for, who I might meet or what I would learn, but I am so happy that I did attend! They had an amazing presentation that outlined in detail the recommendations for creating video that has a chance to grow viral legs and how to become a YouTube partner (superstar), who owns monetized channels and earns a check from YouTube for creating videos that attract viewers.

The presentation covered:

• Case studies and best practices from leading YouTube partners
• Page optimization
• Strategies for developing a loyal audience
• Creating meaningful dialogue with your community

The special YouTube guest star was Corey Vidal who I have to admit I hadn’t heard of before, but I am so glad I was there to listen and learn!

Corey shared with us the story of how he was virtually broke, sleeping on a friend’s sofa, making YouTube videos he loved, when he made a smash breakout hit video:

Star Wars (John Williams Is The Man) A Cappella Tribute

This video alone now has more than 17,000,000 total views.

Creating this video helped Corey gain a lot of attention, and even though he was still broke (YouTube would pay him more than $10,000 to place advertising on his video, but it wasn’t processed for a few months), he was invited to attend the 35th Annual People’s Choice Awards on CBS when his video was nominated as “Favorite User Generated Video” of 2008. His video faced competition in its category from other viral videos such as Barack Roll, Fred Goes Swimming, Where the Hell is Matt?, and Wassup 2008. Corey attended the red carpet event in Los Angeles on January 7, 2009 and in many ways, it launched his career.

Corey now employs dozens of video creating friends who all are paid by YouTube and that has become his full-time job, business and career.

Unfortunately for you and me, I had taken some notes on my iPad from the presentation, but they have disappeared since then and I was REALLY struggling with my hardware to transfer the video of Corey Vidal telling his story, until late this week! At 22 minutes long, it crashed my computer mid edit, save, upload probably as many times. But I have to say it was well worth the effort. At least the videos from the presentation are available here.

It’s a 22 minute long video of Corey telling his story from 2008 to now, so grab a coffee and settle in. If you like this article, video, if it inspires you (like it did me!) or you learn anything new, please let me know in the comments below.

Want to become a YouTube partner yourself, and monetize your YouTube channel earning from the videos you create? Click the image below for the link.

Whitepapers and Playbooks referenced in this blog post are available free to download and share in my Social Media Concierge Public Resource Library on Google Docs.

Want me to attend your event, document or review your valuable content? Email me at [email protected] or request to join my Wednesday 8pm weekly meetup on Google+ Hangouts on Air by sending me a message at [email protected]