8 Ways to Make Money with Your Camera

- Hey guys, what is going on? In this video, I'm talking about eight ways that you can make money with your camera right now. (upbeat music) So it's never been a better time to be a photographer, or a filmmaker because there's so many outlets in the world right now to make money off of your camera. So I'm gonna go through eight different ways that I personally make money using my camera and some of the things that you guys can do right now to start making making money as well. As creators, we obviously wanna shoot the things that we wanna shoot but sometimes it always doesn't work out that way because we still have to pay our bills. However, with social media and YouTube, Instagram, all that good stuff, there are so many ways that you can make money through these channels. So the first one is to start a production company or a photography business and pick up clients. This is obviously like the main way that you can make money using your camera, start a business, pick up clients, make some money. So a tip to be successful doing this is pick a niche.

When you're thinking about what it is that you wanna do as a production company or as a photography business, think about if there's a specific niche that you wanna be in. Do you wanna do weddings? Do you wanna do corporate videos? Do you wanna do headshots? Do you wanna do portraits? So think about what it is that you like doing and then really gear your business towards that niche because you will become an expert, you will stand out above the general kind of production companies and people will hire you for your skillset. Okay the next way that you can make money is YouTube.

YouTube has given us so much opportunity to build a business and just off YouTube alone you can make money off of the ad revenue. This might take a while, it does take time to build up your following, and to build up your amount of views per day but it's just one of those things you keep putting videos out, you keep growing, and eventually the ad money will keep coming in. Personally, I've gotten to the point where all my bills and all my expenses are paid off YouTube ad money which is crazy because I've only been doing YouTube for about three years. It did take a year and a half of just producing content all the time before I started seeing more subscribers come in and my views started to take off.

One tip for YouTube is that solve people's problems. So think about what people are searching on Google. They search questions, so if you have the answer to people's questions, you're gonna end up getting more views which will turn into subscribers. So when you're creating your YouTube, think of what niche that you're gonna put your YouTube in. Are you gonna be a makeup, or are you gonna be film, are you gonna be travel? And then within that niche, make sure that you answer people's questions so that not all your videos are vlogs because if you don't have a following, vlogs are not the most exciting. If you have an engaged following, vlogs become more exciting. So you need to have a variance in types of videos, some answering people's questions and then others that are fun videos, stuff that you really want to produce and then you'll start building a following and get people engaged and people that want to watch all your videos.

So the next way is not necessarily money in your pocket but it's products. So you can get paid in freebies. This week alone, I've gotten a bunch of different things sent to me, I got a stabilizer, I got motion control system by Syrp. And basically when products get sent to you, that is money in your pocket because you're not going out there and purchasing products. Now this isn't gonna happen overnight right when you start creating content on YouTube or Instagram or any social network, it does take time and it takes having a following for companies to wanna work with you.

But as you get bigger, it doesn't hurt to start reaching out to companies and start getting some free products. It might start small but as you get bigger and bigger, more companies wanna work with you and you'll get more freebies. Personally, I get a lot of film making gear and I also get a ton of hotels and adventures when we're traveling. So that's money that I don't have to spend and it's great because I get to try things, I get to do things that I wouldn't necessarily have paid for.

We've been to some places and gone to some hotels that we would have never booked ourselves. So there's definitely benefits to building your following and getting the freebies. So the next way that you can get paid is through affiliate programs. And what an affiliate program is it's basically, if you like a product and you share it, you can have a link where you get a kickback every time someone buys a product. So Amazon Affiliates is huge, that's one of the biggest money makers for me as Amazon Affiliates.

I use kit.com which kit.com allows me to put all my gear and everything that I use in one place so that if someone ever asks me what cameras I use, what equipment I use, I just send them there and if someone decides to buy a product through that site, I end up getting a kickback. Another big place that I get a lot of money through affiliates is DJI through some of my videos when I do drone videos, I'll have affiliate links to the drone itself and if someone decides to buy it using my link in my description, I end up getting a kickback, which is awesome because right now I have a bunch of money sitting in my DJI account so whenever DJI releases another product that I'm interested in, it's gonna just be free. Another way that you can make money with your camera right now is create a digital course. So if you have a topic that you could teach other people on, you could create a digital course. Digital courses are super easy to make and there's little to no overhead when you're actually making a digital course.

There's sites out there where you could start making a course right now and just using your camera, you could put together a course and start selling it on their platform. Udemy and Skillshare are great places to start because you can build it without any money out of pocket. Personally, I build all my courses on Thinkific because then I have complete control over everything I want to do. The down side is it's an independent site so I'm not on a big library site. So people can't just discover me that way, however there are a lot of benefits to being able to create my own site and really customize it however I want. The next way to start making money with your camera is stock footage, stock photography. This is something I've talked about a lot but there is definitely money to be made in selling stock. So whenever I'm out shooting, I always have in the back of my mind what I could sell out of this situation as stock? So last night, I was out shooting a video for a free gimbal that I got, a little tutorial about doing some gimbal stuff.

I'm gonna do a review about the gimbal as well within that tutorial. I was also thinking how could I get some stock shots out of what I was shooting? And so, I shot some different shots that I could use as stock and these were all shot in 4K which could be sold anywhere from $20 to $200 a shot. It's pretty incredible what stock footage will sell for and you don't have to have the most amazing footage to sell it as stock. So if you're interested in stock footage, I highly suggest checking out a couple of the other videos on my YouTube channel. I talk about stock footage and the industry, it's a great way to bring in some extra money. However, it's not gonna be instantaneous, it's like YouTube, it takes time to build. But if you keep putting the time and over the next few years you'll have a big stock library that will bring in sales everyday. Okay, so the next way builds on the freebies that I was talking about. And this is paid products and paid trips. So as your following grows, more companies will be interested in working with you.

And they'll actually pay you to show up at their hotel or to promote their product or service. So there's definitely been some trips that I've gone on where a client has paid me to show up and shoot footage for them. I also produce some content for here on YouTube or my Instagram. What happens is they end up wanting marketing material, and they find you through your social media. Now depending on the client, there's gonna be a different contract involved, but a lot of times, what they want is content for their social media. So they're asking you to produce whatever it is that you like producing and then share it all with them that they can use freely for any of their marketing.

And it works out well because you get a paid trip or a paid activity and then you're also creating content that you can use for yourself. So it's a win-win. And when it comes to products, there are companies that will pay you to advertise on your YouTube or your Instagram. I have a friend who makes a living entirely off just promoting products on his Instagram. Which is crazy. As you build your following, and as you grow, what happens is there's different sites where that can connect you with advertisers. You just sign up with all these sites and even if you have a small following, there are products that will work with you for a little bit of money.

As your following grows, the amount of money you make per post will grow. Eighth way to make money off your camera right now just goes alongside with all the social media and that is create products. If you're a photographer, make products out of your photographs, so sell prints, put them up onto different websites that allow you to sell your photography as prints, people will discover it, people will buy it. If you have cool designs, you could sell them as merchandise as shirts, hats, all that good stuff. This is my logo, this is a hat I just made, I might start selling something like this. So there's different ways that you could go out there and make merchandise out of what it is that you're doing. Now, I'm gonna give you one more bonus way to make money off of you camera and this really goes down to what you're passionate about. So for me, personally, I love shooting documentary films. I'm working on a documentary with some friends and we're doing this because we just love creating films.

However, you can make a lot of money if you sell a film. So there's some many distribution outlets out there nowadays, you can sell your film to somewhere like Netflix or Amazon. Or if you don't end up selling your film, there's so many methods that you can go out there and self-distribute here online. So it's never been a better time to be a content creator because there is so many ways that we can make money doing the things that we wanna do. When I first graduated film school here in LA, it was very limited on what I was gonna do with my film career. I first went down the blockbuster path, I was working on big features, big motion pictures and I realized that that wasn't for me. I enjoy self-producing, I enjoy doing stuff like this. So I started a small production company with my wife and we produced for clients. But I always had in the back of my head that I wanted to do some of these passion projects. I really love travel and doing all this so I started my YouTube channel, I started the Instagram, and as this has grown, this is now becoming a career path just as my production company is a career path.

And you can make money doing both. So guys, I'd love to hear your thoughts on these tips on how to make money with your camera right now. Are you using some of these tips? Is there things that I didn't cover in this that you personally are using to make money off of your camera right now? I'd love to hear some tips that you guys have for me. Alright, if you're new to this channel, make sure you hit that subscribe button. There's a lot of awesome film making tutorials, I've got some cool content when I travel, do the adventure stuff.