Surviving YouTube

Hewlett Diary: What marketing campaigns work for you on YouTube? I need to figure out how to sustain this Fanatical Entertainment thing that we’ve got going here and really want to keep my focus on the YouTube platform. I’ve been working in film and television for years…and have a film Debug reading for release, but this is very different. When it comes to film and television there are generally pretty clear and cut paths to getting projects made. For us it was financier, telefilm funding, OMDC funding, Canadian tax credits and big deferrals (by us!). It’s not an easy process, and it can be incredibly frustrating, but there is a proven business model that allows people to assess the kind of risks they’re getting involved with. The reality is that a lot of film financing comes from people who have the money to get into the film industry because that’s where they want to be. YouTube doesn’t have that clearly understood structure…even though they are very good at spelling out the way advertising works on the site. It’s just not as sexy as film and tv…yet! It seems to me that the best way to make things happen here is to bring in companies that want to use it to engage with potential customers. But that’s difficulty for me. How does “selling things” work on such a public and yet personal community like YouTube. Advertising makes the lot of sense, but it’s not enough to sustain full time involvement in creating content for most of us….and I’m operating with the advantage of an existing fanbase!

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