Should edupreneurs choose a video monetization platform over social channels like YouTube or Instagram?
As edupreneurs, it can be tough to get your content out to an audience who is actively interested in your teaching topic and be able to make money off it.
Social media channels like YouTube have dominated the video market for many years. Many creators, teachers, and instructors use it as their go-to platform. In contrast, video monetization platforms are still relatively new to the game.
The truth is that many YouTube creators have made a serious name for themselves on the channel (and others) over the years. Think of the great tech YouTubers we watch today – many of them started at their desk in their homes at the age of 16.
Instagram has also become a popular channel for influencers, small business owners, and creators. The rise of IGTV has created a new way in which video can be used creatively. People are now able to create tutorial videos and host Q&A sessions on IGTV. Statistics from IGTV show that 77% of digital marketers have used IGTV at least once for marketing purposes.
Social channels sound like suitable mediums for edupreneurs to start their business. They’re free and already have a massive audience on them.
Here’s the catch – social channels may have volumes in terms of audience, but they also have volumes of content. This may sound like a good thing – but for edupreneurs, it can cause more harm than help. How? Think about the number of videos uploaded to a channel like YouTube daily. Your videos are amid this plethora of content. How exactly can you target your content to the users who will be interested in your niche?
Social ads are one way, and they have very advanced targeting capabilities today. But advertising can get very expensive very quickly. So, what other options are there? For one, you can choose to try using a video monetization platform.
In this article, we’ll be sharing a few reasons why you should consider a video monetization platform over social channels like YouTube or Instagram and discuss which option is best for edupreneurs as a long-term business tool.
Why Create a Video Monetization Platform?
Did you know that the global eLearning market is expected to reach $374.3 billion by the year 2026? Online learning has become more popular since the pandemic – today; it’s necessary for most learners.
Learning from home means that people can have an extremely flexible schedule and still learn the things they enjoy. The days of worrying about whether or not you can fit a yoga class between work and home schedules are gone.
The global interest in learning at any age has pushed edupreneurs to fulfill the knowledge need rapidly and efficiently – and video monetization platforms are complementary tools to this goal. With video monetization platforms, learners can sign up, log in, and access exclusive online learning content with no issue.
Creating and selling video content online can be much more rewarding than managing a social account and uploading content to it. Video monetization platforms do exactly what the name says – it helps you monetize content in the most seamless way possible. Whereas with YouTube and Instagram, much of the monetization needs to happen via a third-party entity like Patreon.
As many experienced edupreneurs say, online courses bring much to the table for them; they’re flexible, profitable, and easily managed.
Still not sure if online video course platforms are the way to go? Here are seven reasons why you should try them as your primary teaching platform:
7 Reasons why a Video Monetization Platform is Better than YouTube or Instagram
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More tailored footprint
Your services are offered online when you work from home or at any preferred location. This means that your footprint is global. Devil’s advocate would say that the same goes for social channels, and that’s true. But social media platforms often have so many creators and instructors uploading videos to them that your videos may be lost in the crowd.
This isn’t necessarily true for all educational topics and content, but if you choose to share your content on YouTube or Instagram, be prepared to pay for ads to get your content served to the right people.
With video monetization platforms, you can create your website and online courses and target them to your niche with robust tools. Yes, you may have to spend some time and effort getting your website marketed. But you’ll also have the help of your online teaching platform for parts of the business that are the most time-consuming – like marketing and reporting.
Once you have a few members signed up, you’ll be able to start building intelligent marketing campaigns via your video monetization platform, such as “refer a friend” programs or offering prospective members discount coupons. These marketing tactics are difficult to manage on a social channel and often need to be done on a third-party website instead of within the platform natively.
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Recurring revenue
Video monetization platforms provide you with more than passive income; they provide you with recurring revenue.
You may have heard of the term “SVOD,” which stands for Subscription Video on Demand. Similar to Netflix and Amazon Prime, SVOD is where a company charges its members a monthly or annual subscription fee for unlimited access to their entire library of content.
We can see that the SVOD revenue has risen from $1.6 billion in 2011 to $25.27 billion in 2021. It’s no secret that the model is popular within the entertainment world, but it’s also becoming increasingly popular in other industries, like online learning.
This revenue model is famously used because creators can enjoy spending their time creating the content they love the most while consumers pay a fee to access it each month. Edupreneurs can count on their video monetization platform to handle the recurring income as most of them integrate with platforms like Stripe, PayPal, or RazorPay. It also means that your revenue is tracked and managed through one platform, so creators don’t have to keep folders of Excel spreadsheets to track their income.
Recurring revenue is the best type of revenue any creator can have. But when it’s managed through an all-in-one platform, it’s ten times more efficient.
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Customer segmentation
When you have a specific topic you’re attempting to teach, you need to appeal to the correct audience. There are two pieces elements to this targeting:
- People who are interested in your educational topic.
- Segments of customers within your target audience.
If you think about segmentation like an orange, it’s easy to see how in-depth targeting can get,
For example, your entire target audience (part 1 above) is your entire orange. Your several customer segments (part 2 above) are your separate segments of the orange.
Together, they’re working to achieve the same business goals for you, but they need different types of learning, content, messaging, and teaching methods.
Let’s take Pilates as an example. If you’re a Pilates instructor specializing in Aerial Pilates, you want to appeal to everyone who wants to learn this niche. Now that you have your target audience identified, segment your customers based on the following:
- Age
- Hobbies and interests
- Experience level
- Membership type
These are just some ways to segment your customers and create different messaging based on their segments. Now, your message is more personalized and accurate. Video monetization platforms allow you to do this by using several email templates for various customer bases you create. With social channels, you define your target audiences mainly according to demographics and interests and not much more. So, trying to get to the right people may be a bigger challenge than with video monetization platforms.
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Simple management
Our world has made learning become extremely simple for people to access. This means that edupreneurs have the opportunity to create content to empower anyone interested in their educational topic.
It also means that once you have a decent number of subscribers on a monthly basis, you need to maintain a steady amount of content and classes for them. This can be extremely time-consuming, but it’s also what creators love doing.
So, how do you manage your time well enough? Simple – get a video management platform that takes care of the operations for you.
Video monetization platforms are designed to manage a range of areas for your business:
- Video hosting
- Single or multi-page website
- Course creation and maintenance
- Customer management
- Revenue management
- Reporting and analytics
- eCommerce
- Email marketing
These features are all standard on advanced video monetization platforms and can sometimes be further customized. With social channels like YouTube, you have the ability to ask people to subscribe to your channel and visit your Patreon link or website link, but you’ll have to manage those platforms separately. Online course platforms have created a space where creators can handle all aspects of their business in one spot. Tasks are simpler thanks to templates, reports, and dashboards.
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Interactive experience
This is probably one of the most significant reasons why you should invest in a video monetization platform. It’s interactive!
We all know that social media is something that is close to many of our hearts. Every day includes some time spent scrolling on Instagram, Tik-Tok, or watching a YouTube video. But almost everything watched on social is a passive learning activity.
Let’s take a tutorial video as an example. If your fire alarm goes off and you have no idea how to switch it off, search how to reset your alarm on YouTube. You watch the video and then fix the alarm according to what the said creator has done in the video. But here’s the thing – what if their methodology didn’t work for you because the alarm is different and you can’t find a video related to that particular model number?
With video monetization platforms, you can host on-demand content (like YouTube), but you’ll also be able to host live classes. This is where members can log into a live session and learn as they demonstrate their skills. This way, if they have any questions, they can ask you right then and there. Most online learning platforms integrate with Zoom, so the communication and live stream are reliable.
When people are learning something new, they want to feel heard. Edupreneurs that follow this policy are generally the most successful.
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Personalized marketing
Did you know that 90% of consumers in the U.S. feel that personalized marketing content is “somewhat to very appealing” to them?
That is a massive number that simply cannot be ignored. Marketers and business owners must have personalization in mind when creating messaging. How?
Use your data! Yes, we all know of the term and sometimes hear it on a daily basis. But data is where the heart of your marketing messaging should come from.
You should review data in relation to what you send out to customers. For example, if you send out an email with a coupon code, how many members used that code? Or, if you send out a refer a friend campaign, how many new members signed up?
This data will help you understand whether you’re appealing to your audience. Video monetization platforms help track this data for you so you can easily see the emails and text campaigns that worked well. If they did perform well, use the same concept for future campaigns. If not, send out a communication to your clients to ask why it didn’t appeal to them. Feedback is the most valuable thing you can gain from customers.
As you track data and refine your messaging to several customer segments over time, you’ll see that your offering will be more accurate and received positively by your target audience.
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eCommerce capabilities
The eCommerce world is booming, and since COVID-19, it has really picked up. In years before, users were still hesitant to make payments on sites they weren’t familiar with. Today, Shopify reports that the global eCommerce market is projected to reach $5.5 trillion this year. What’s more is that figure is expected to grow further in the next few years, showing us that ecommerce across borders is profitable for retailers, teachers, and more.
But, how does eCommerce link back to video monetization platforms? Well, they’re linked because some online video platforms allow you to sell digital and physical products via their platform. That’s right – you can sell apparel, digital downloads, and other merchandise from the same platform. Your payments will be integrated, and your shipping and taxes are all tracked in the same space.
We know that Instagram allows you to have products listed on your profile (usually, this is integrated with your Facebook Business account) which customers can view and purchase. But a lot of the time, these products are linked to the creator’s website, which means that the user will have to make a payment on an external website, which some people aren’t comfortable doing.
But with video monetization platforms, your products are tailored to your members who are already on the platform – so you save advertising budget and attract the right customer.
eCommerce is a great way to ensure that you upsell to members on a monthly basis. It’s a great way to earn passive income while still teaching—a win-win situation.
Mastera: A Premium Video Monetization Platform for Edupreneurs
The truth is that one platform will never truly and fully replace another – because each online platform (whether teaching one or social) is designed for specific things. Instagram may work very well for influencers, but not teachers. Or YouTube is great for tutorial videos, but not fitness sessions. No matter what the result, remember that your platform should work best for your business goals.
So, if you’re an edupreneur looking to take action and get the best platform for your teaching business – then a video monetization platform could be the one for you.
Here at Mastera, we’ve built a premium online teaching platform for any creator, entrepreneur, teacher, or freelancer to become empowered and start teaching their passion with ease. We created a platform we wanted others to see as modern, simple, and affordable. Mastera allows you to host videos to an unlimited number of customers and market to them via email or text. The platform also offers a dashboard and course builder to streamline your course creation process. You can also sell merchandise, chat with members, and manage your income via the platform.
But the best part about Mastera is that it’s a platform designed to take care of all your operations, so you can spend the time doing what you do best – teaching.
Ready to learn more about our video monetization platform? Get started now.
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Should edupreneurs choose a video monetization platform over social channels like YouTube or Instagram?
Here’s the challenge:
Getting your content to an audience who is actively interested in your teaching topic can be tough.
Making money off these audiences is even tougher.
Social channels sound like suitable mediums for edupreneurs to start their business. They’re free and already have a massive audience on them.
Here’s the catch – social channels may have volumes in terms of audience, but they also have volumes of content. This may sound like a good thing – but for edupreneurs, it can cause more harm than help because your content may get lost in the crowd.
With video monetization platforms, your content is targeted and controlled. Here are 7 reasons why you should consider a video monetization platform over social channels like YouTube or Instagram:
- Provides a tailored footprint
- Gives you recurring revenue
- Uses customer segmentation
- Includes an easy-to-manage platform
- Provides an interactive experience
- Allows you to personalize your marketing efforts
- Has eCommerce capabilities
Co-Founder, Gleantap & Mastera