The best niche category to make money on YouTube in South Africa
Truth is, any channel topic channel can make you money. Youtube has been changing so many lives; that is, making it possible to work from home, create an organic audience or to make you have a concentrated group of people who are like-minded that will add value to you as a content creator or enable you to effectively monetize your content or other product offerings to your viewers.
At the moment I have a local social commentary channel that is 6 months old and has been monetized via Adsense for 2 months. In just these two months of being part of the Youtube partner program, I have seen growth each month in terms of viewers, subscribers as well as money. At the moment I would say I am making around $500, which is not bad for a side hustle that had little to no start-up capital required. However, with all this growth, it has come to my attention that my niche which is social commentary that falls under “entertainment” which unfortunately means that it has the least possibilities to be monetized and also has the lowest CPM on the adsence grading. This simply put means that for entertainment content, you get paid the lowest amount from youtube which is a huge bummer because the way I see things, you put in the same amount of work (most times) that is. Fact is… CONTENT IS UPLOADED CONSISTENTLY!
Clearly this means that there are other niches; categories that bring in more money. Quality viewers that also mean more revenue, more loyal subscribers and generally a bigger audience to sell other products or to have a meaningful influence on. After hours of seeing reviews of income reports from other Youtubers as well as a through deep dive by Monica Church (Please check out her channel), I too have come to the conclusion that these categories bring in more coins! (Money).
Youtube Growth/ Content management Channels
There are a number of channels that have helped and inspired me during my Youtube growth. A few that I can mention are Erinondemand, Sunny Lenarduzzi, Vanessa Lau and TheContentbug (Please check them out on Youtube). Their channels are for anyone looking to start their social media journey to make money or to use it as a sales funnel to make even more money on their linked business that they have going. These three creators are consistent and they also offer free and paid classes that are tailored. Now, because their content is deemed as educational and they get quality companies with money that genuinely want to advertise on their platforms because they know that the audience on those channels is for growth as well as business-minded.
Money making/ Saving/ Entrepreneurial Channels
Now, these are actually my favorite channels. These channels or this niche is purely for people who are keen on making money. There are loads of different creators in this niche. Some assist you to be debt free, help you with saving, and if you are thinking of starting a business… other content creators actually take you on a journey in their business. This type of content brings in more revenue as well as more chances of good sponsors because the consumers of this content has a higher chance of purchasing the advertised goods. In this niche, my favorite creator is Karin Bohn. She runs an interior design company with a very young vibrant team and I am here for such inspiring content from a “boss lady”. Her content is constantly being sponsored by like-minded companies that supply her with free material, magazine features and loads more paid partnerships. So, if you already have your own small business, consider starting a channel for more spotlight around your business as well as making sure that you are also making money doing the work you might not have been paid for. A lot of people watch the “Day in the life of a business owner” videos… (Really, it does not matter what your company is about)!
Real estate, investing, trading Channels.
These channels are quite similar to the money-making channels but are more on the investing side. Everyone is quite keen on real estate. The passive income trend that is being encouraged by millennials make these type of channels very profitable. To add on, because they fall under educational content, the CPM is quite high. In this niche, my favorite channel is Stephan Graham. He focuses on real estate, investing, how to save and the best banks and credit cards to use. He even has a second show called Millennial Money where he discusses or analyses how people use their income
So, if you are thinking of starting a profitable Youtube channel, consider an educational one. Teach people something. This then brings up the issue of binge-able content which I will discuss in another blog!