Youtube liveaboard stars?

[dwedeking2]

A little research on Google Trends shows that the "minority" is quite small when comparing travel searches vs sail searches. Just as an explanation of why a vlogger that has a goal of financial success will push more content that is destination oriented.

My own personal taste is that I wish they went a little more into customs clearing (I don't like dealing with bureaucracy so would like to be more familiar with the varioius processes) and into the work on the boat to get a feel of the amount of work involved in day-to-day cruising.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

and into the work on the boat to get a feel of the amount of work involved in day-to-day cruising.

Plenty boat work on here, though maybe not quite a 'normal' cruising boat...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LqVWC_bY-w

[ProteusRising]

A couple of channels you may have missed is Abandon Comfort and Sailing Uma. They are doing it through old-school savings and being frugal and thrifty.

We're also huge fans of Sailing Prism, Ran Sailing, and Follow the Boat.

I think for the most part all those channels share the same quality -- stepping beyond the fear of leaving life as we know it and going for it.

We plan to document our trip, too. Just two Empty Nest Gen X'ers throwing off the golden handcuffs and going from land to sea and all around the world.

[ProteusRising]

Us, too!

[Cherod]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

A little research on Google Trends shows that the "minority" is quite small when comparing travel searches vs sail searches. Just as an explanation of why a vlogger that has a goal of financial success will push more content that is destination oriented.

My own personal taste is that I wish they went a little more into customs clearing (I don't like dealing with bureaucracy so would like to be more familiar with the varioius processes) and into the work on the boat to get a feel of the amount of work involved in day-to-day cruising.

Questionable reasoning there , I believe the amount of interest in travel videos on you tube is rather small when compared with children’s cartoon videos , ( or blogs of dead bodies in Japan !! ) I hope la Vag etc don’t decide to totally capitulate !!

[Cherod]

Originally Posted by conachair

Plenty boat work on here, though maybe not quite a 'normal' cruising boat...

This two deserve a medal for ever having gotten into the water !! ( still not watched them all the way home yet )

[dwedeking2]

Originally Posted by Cherod

Questionable reasoning there

Nope. I'm a consultant of online marketing as a day job. I talk to people all the time who start out a blog or business catering to a super-micro-niche. There's just not enough traffic to do anything interesting with marketing or monetization. They either drop the idea after a while or look at ways to expand the audience.

Granted this is only looking through the perspective of it being a business. Plenty of people produce content just for the enjoyment of sharing their experiences. I was trying to give an explanation of why you see the subject matter of the content steer away from being entirely about sailing.

Not that I'm a big fan of sailing vlogs. There's one I watch each issue like it's a tv show (every week when it comes out) and a couple that I'll watch if I'm bored at work, and rarely do I get all the way through an episode in its entirety.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

Nope. I'm a consultant of online marketing as a day job. I talk to people all the time who start out a blog or business catering to a super-micro-niche. There's just not enough traffic to do anything interesting with marketing or monetization. They either drop the idea after a while or look at ways to expand the audience.

Granted this is only looking through the perspective of it being a business. Plenty of people produce content just for the enjoyment of sharing their experiences. I was trying to give an explanation of why you see the subject matter of the content steer away from being entirely about sailing.

Not that I'm a big fan of sailing vlogs. There's one I watch each issue like it's a tv show (every week when it comes out) and a couple that I'll watch if I'm bored at work, and rarely do I get all the way through an episode in its entirety.

A niche market sells itself as people interested in the niche search you out but as you say, not enough people to make big bucks. On the other hand, I can use cellphone video and open source editing software to create the content and have no risk of losing money.

A wide broadcast market you have to do a lot of marketing and put out a really top notch product to get any traffic. The problem is the costs of marketing and doing a higher end product put you at real risk of it being a money losing venture. For every $100/month you dump into marketing, you need to make $100/month in profits just to break even. Good cameras and editing software can set you back thousands and there is no guarantee you will be successful.

This explains why a lot of the money making vlogs go T&A and/or get away from practical cruising info. They need to make enough to feed the marketing and production beast and how to troubleshoot the old atomic 4 doesn't cut it.

[mikedefieslife]

Originally Posted by Cherod

...the vids are turning into little travel shows ( / blogs ) with the boats just as a means of travel,, ok that might suit some viewers and ( more importantly ? ) the donators , ( i am sure they know their targeted " market " very well....

They aren't turning into that (this is in reference to the Wynns), that's what they've always been. The Wynns channel has at no point ever been a sailing channel. It's always been about sharing their adventure, which of course started with an RV.

[Cherod]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

Nope. I'm a consultant of online marketing as a day job. I talk to people all the time who start out a blog or business catering to a super-micro-niche. There's just not enough traffic to do anything interesting with marketing or monetization. They either drop the idea after a while or look at ways to expand the audience.

Granted this is only looking through the perspective of it being a business. Plenty of people produce content just for the enjoyment of sharing their experiences. I was trying to give an explanation of why you see the subject matter of the content steer away from being entirely about sailing.

Not that I'm a big fan of sailing vlogs. There's one I watch each issue like it's a tv show (every week when it comes out) and a couple that I'll watch if I'm bored at work, and rarely do I get all the way through an episode in its entirety.

so following your rational , of pandering to the lowest common denominator market , eventually all that will be left is pornographic cartoons on a sail boat,, there has to be a a higher ground.

[dwedeking2]

Originally Posted by Cherod

so following your rational , of pandering to the lowest common denominator market , eventually all that will be left is pornographic cartoons on a sail boat,, there has to be a a higher ground.

No. Your pandering to a large enough market demographic to have a financial reward for your time and effort.

People are still going to create content at all skill levels and for all interests, it will just be limited on the ability to monetize.

People don't realize how much traffic you need to get to produce $$. When I owned my online store for a niche market I needed 3000+ visitors to get 10 orders per day. Look at the successful vlogs, # of views to get a smaller # of subscribers to get a relatively tiny # of paid followers. Graph it out and its a steep cliff.

[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by dwedeking2

No. Your pandering to a large enough market demographic to have a financial reward for your time and effort.

People are still going to create content at all skill levels and for all interests, it will just be limited on the ability to monetize.

People don't realize how much traffic you need to get to produce $$. When I owned my online store for a niche market I needed 3000+ visitors to get 10 orders per day. Look at the successful vlogs, # of views to get a smaller # of subscribers to get a relatively tiny # of paid followers. Graph it out and its a steep cliff.

If you want to know some actual number; In December, we got 260,000 views on Youtube and made $930 in ad revenue.

Matt

[GARRYOWEN]

RAN Sailing is my favorite

[rallyman1122]

Originally Posted by funjohnson

If you want to know some actual number; In December, we got 260,000 views on Youtube and made $930 in ad revenue.

Matt

There speaks the actual voice of experience. And given some of the points made in this thread, now that Elements of Life is now on the water and sailing to new locales, there vlog will no longer be interesting to some that post here.

Each of the YouTube creators develops their own style. Some are more successful than others. For La Vaga, the move to a catamaran doesn't seem to have hurt them financially.

[mikedefieslife]

Erik Aanderaa is one of my favourites in terms of pure sailing. Simply because it's very much the opposite of what I'm doing, so it's good to see a change from time to time.

He took a break for a while but is back.

https://www.youtube.com/user/kjolevannspumpe