Along with the upsurge in internet consumption, the digital platforms have also experienced a rush in viewers. There is an ever increasing demand for content. The world’s largest video sharing platform, YouTube is not an exception.
As the time consumption on social media and digital platforms has increased manifold, this Google-own App has seen an increase in the subscribers base in the country. Though the lockdown has facilitated the content creators to invest more time on their dream channel, it has also become an obstacle for many.
For those who require a huge crew for shoot and also mostly complete shooting in outdoor locations, the lockdown had played a spoilsport for them.
Anirban Bhowmik of Tripura’s one of the famous YouTube vines channel ‘Funholic Chokrey’ said, “since most of our contents need outdoor location, the lockdown has been a challenge for us. I and my team members are staying in the same locality but it would have been a bad idea to violate the rules and go for outdoor shoot during the lockdown. Now the lockdown has been lifted but looking at the situation we can’t take risk at this moment. I have prepared the scripts for our upcoming projects so that we can resume our work as soon as the situation becomes normal.”
On a similar note, Subhajit Paul, popularly known as ‘Freakyy’ said he had plans for three video shoots for his raps but he had to postpone it due to lockdown. So, he was engaged in preparing lyrics for his future projects.”
The lockdown has definitely been a tough time for the YouTubers but it seems that they utilized it for their future contents with a hope to resume work soon. We often consider YouTubers as social influencers because they reach out to people for voicing various issues. Many YouTubers did a good job of making people aware about the pandemic.
Partha Saha, a YouTuber from Tripura made a ‘social distancing motor bike’ to promote the precaution we need to follow at this moment. During a bite to one of the news portals, he said that it was not for any commercial purpose. He wanted to make people aware about social distancing. Freakyy also contributed to this awareness drive through one of his videos on YouTube and he was actively communicating with his followers through his facebook page.
On asking about their initiatives on making people aware of the prevailing situation, Anirban said “We could not reach people through youtube videos. So, I thought to keep my audience engaged through my personal facebook page and I also tried to make them aware through my page up-loads’.” This lockdown has experienced many logins from new YouTubers. It is good to see that people are spending time on their hobbies and also making them available to others. There are also people who have chosen YouTube as an alternative option for earning. Anirban and Shubhajit seem to have similar views on this as they both opined that if anyone wishes to open their own YouTube channel with a motive to earn money then that is a poor idea for earning. So, earning on YouTube is not easy. Along with good numbers of views and subscriptions one needs to draw the attention of sponsors to earn a good sum. There are four types of advertisements through which one can earn from YouTube – Skippable and Non-skippable ads, banner and display ads. Among them the rate of non-skippable ads are a bit higher though rates vary from country to country.
YouTubers also earn from paid promotions but one should fulfill the criteria of having a huge number of viewers. Now, naturally for a considerable number of viewers, one needs to have unique contents. While having a conversation on this with Anirban, he added “You need to keep in mind that viewers are not foolish. So you have to focus on your content to engage your audiences. And also people focussing on camera or voice quality should understand that content matters the most.” and Subhajit added an important tip for new youtubers. He said “Nowadays there is a noticeable trend among people making ‘roasting videos’. I would like to suggest new youtubers to come up with their unique ideas rather than spending time on bashing someone.”
*Dipanjali Sarkar may be contacted at dipanjalisarkar.22@gmail.com
