Neal Mohan is an American businessman who has been the CEO of the online video-sharing platform YouTube since 2023. He succeeded Susan Wojcicki and managed several of its segments, such as YouTube TV, YouTube Music, and YouTube Premium. He was one of the driving forces behind the introduction of a content moderation policy, especially prohibiting content that glorified violence.
Neal Mohan was born in Lafayette, Indiana on 14th July 1973. His parents Aditya and Deepa moved from Lucknow to the USA in the early 1970s. Neal grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan but his family moved back to India in 1985. He finished high school at St. Francis’ College where he learned Hindi and Sanskrit. He soon returned to the USA and attended Stanford University majoring in electrical engineering. Neal started working at Accenture and then joined NetGravity, a startup. He then returned to Stanford in 2003 to pursue his MBA.
Neal Mohan – Career Highlights
After Neal completed his graduation from Stanford, Neal joined Accenture. In 1997, he joined NetGravity, became a prominent figure in the company’s operations, and helped expand its prominence.
In 1997, his company NetGravity was acquired by DoubleClick and Neal moved from California to their headquarters in New York. In the next couple of years, he became more involved in the operations and DoubleClick turned to him to help cut costs during the wake of the burst of the dot-com bubble. Soon he was appointed as the Vice President of Business Operations.
In 2003 while he returned to Stanford to pursue his MBA, DoubleClick faced serious problems when acquired from Abacus Direct in 1999. The merger was de facto annulled by Hellman & Friedman, who acquired DoubleClick and then split Abacus Direct from it. They requested the longtime executive David Rosenblatt to be the CEO, who then enlisted Neal under the condition that he would stay in California.
Rosenblatt and Mohan jointly created a plan to shift DoubleClick into a company built on advertising exchange, core ad tech situations, and extensive ad networking. This concept was outlined in a 400-page PowerPoint presentation and presented to Hellman & Friedman in December of 2005, who approved it.
Google
On April 13, 2007, DoubleClick was acquired by Google for $3.1 billion with Susan Wojcicki orchestrating the actual buy-in. Neal formally joined Google, and for the next 15 years, they both played a key part in integrating DoubleClick into Google’s family. In Google, Neal was responsible for the 2010 acquisition of Invite Media for $85 million. He soon became the Senior VP of Display and Video Ads for Google, and then moved to YouTube.
In 2011, Rosenblatt, who became a Board Member of Twitter, tried to hire Neal as the Chief Product Officer, but Google paid him $100 million to remain with them.
In 2015, Neal joined YouTube as the Chief Product Officer. At the time, he was managing several segments through the later 2010s and 2020s, which included YouTube Music, YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, and YouTube Shorts. In September 2020, Neal appeared before Congress where he introduced the new content moderation policy that was aimed at addressing violent extremist content on the platform. This policy would target groups such as ISIS and other extremists, to prohibit any content that glorifies violence or recruit or fundraise for such organizations. Currently, YouTube also has a media literacy campaign that will help viewers recognize manipulation techniques used to spread misinformation.
On 16th February 2023, Neal succeeded Susan Wojcicki as the CEO of YouTube. Under his leadership, YouTube has become the go-to platform for digital content and its brand value reached $31.7 billion in 2024.
In celebration of YouTube’s 20th anniversary, Mohan shared four key plans for 2025: continuing as a cultural hub, empowering creators to grow like Hollywood startups, strengthening its role as the new TV, and leveraging AI to enhance content creation and the user experience.
Neal Mohan has received multiple awards and recognitions such as:
Ad age’s 10 Most Influential Players in Marketing – Neal was recognized for his part in marketing
ADWeek’s 12 Stars of Ad Tech: Awarded for his work in ad tech
Neal Mohan – Facts
In school, St. Francis’s College in Lucknow, Neal received the National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) scholarship.
When studying at Stanford University, Neal was a member of the Engineering Honour Society.
In 2012, Neal joined the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a media company, and worked there till 2016.
Neal served as a Board Director at Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) Global, a New York-based marketing agency.
From 2017, he has served as a board member for 23andMe.
He was a member of the management board at the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 2013 to 2017 .
Neal joined as one of the Board of Directors at Stitch Fix in 2020.
Neal Mohan – Personal Life
Neal Mohan is married to Hema Sareen Mohan who has been a part of the public welfare and non-profit sectors for over two decades. They were married while he was working in New York for DoubleClick. His favourite sport is basketball and he supports the Golden State Warriors.
Neal Mohan is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of YouTube.
What is Neal Mohan’s role at YouTube?
As CEO, Neal Mohan is responsible for overseeing all aspects of YouTube’s operations, strategy, and growth. This includes product development, content partnerships, and business operations.
What is Neal Mohan’s education?
Neal Mohan holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University (1996) and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (2005).
Social media has drastically changed the lives of everyone across the globe in the last twenty years. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat have connected people and brought them closer. The yawning gulf in terms of geography is now nearly non-existent.
Amidst a huge number of social media and video streaming platforms, YouTube has carved a league of its own as one of the oldest and leading video-sharing platforms. YouTube is also popularly hailed as the most visited website in the world after its parent organization, Google.
The founders of YouTube were Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chan on February 14, 2005. They are also popularly known as the inventors of YouTube. Jawed Karim is an American software engineer and entrepreneur. He is of Bangladeshi and German descent. Jawed Karim was there with YouTube right from the first ever YouTube video uploaded, the revenue of which was last estimated to be over $29.20 billion in 2022. His contribution to the growth of YouTube is simply indispensable.
Anyone with internet connectivity would have seen videos on YouTube at least once in their life. YouTube is the platform that gave birth to many sensations; without the video-sharing website, there would have been no T-Series, Pewdiepie, CarryMinati, and thousands of other video creators. The current YouTube CEO is Susan Wojcicki, who became the CEO of the American online video-sharing and social media platform in February 2014.
Do you know that the first-ever video posted on YouTube was “Me at the Zoo,” which was uploaded by none other than Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005? The first video ever uploaded to YouTube has been watched over 224 million times as of March 2022.
Let’s look at the success story of the co-founder of YouTube, Jawed Karim. We will discuss his net worth, education, personal life, investments, and more.
Jawed Karim – Biography
Name
Jawed Karim
Born
28 October 1979 – Merseburg, East Germany
Net worth
$310 Million
Nationality
American/German
Parents
Naimul Karim, Christine Karim
Siblings
Ilias Karim
Education
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (BS), Stanford University (MS)
Occupation
Entrepreneur
Known for
Co-founder of YouTube, Uploader of the first video ever on YouTube
Jawed was born onOctober 28, 1979, in Merseburg, East Germany (Present-day Germany), to Christine Karim and Naimul Karim. His father is a researcher from Bangladesh who works at 3M, an American multinational conglomerate (originally known as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company), which was founded in June 1902 and headquartered in Maplewood, Minnesota, United States. Karim’s mother is a German scientist associated with the University of Minnesota as a Research Professor of Biochemistry. He has one sibling, Ilias Karim, who is younger than Jawed.
Though he was born in Merseburg, Jawed Karim grew up in Neuss, West Germany. He had to cross the border of inner Germany along with his family in the early 1980s due to increasing xenophobia there. However, he had to face several other episodes of xenophobia in Neuss as well, which is why he again had to move with his family to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1992. It was from Saint Paul Central High School that Karim graduated in 1997.
Jawed enrolled at the University of Illinois in the Department of Computer Science. Jawed left the university before completing his graduation and joined PayPal; he was one of PayPal’s earliest employees. He later completed his graduation and obtained his degree in Computer Science in 2004. Jawed eventually joined Stanford University and earned his Master’s degree in Computer Science, but that was after YouTube was founded.
Jawed Karim – Career
Karim started his career in his university days with an Internship at Silicon Graphics, Inc. He had worked there on “3D voxel data management for very large data sets for volume rendering, which includes the data for the Visible Human Project“. However, he soon dropped out of college and joined PayPal, and it was there that he met Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the future co-founders of YouTube, in 2002.
Jawed Karim – How he founded YouTube?
Founders of YouTube – Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim
At PayPal, he met Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, the other two creators of YouTube. The absence of video clips of Super Bowl XXXVIII and the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami gave Jawed the idea of a video-sharing platform. The controversial half-time segment of the Super Bowl with Janet Jackson was a rage at that time that everyone wanted to have a glimpse of. However, Hurley and Chen have mentioned the website Hot or Not, a rating site that allows users to rate the attractiveness of the photos submitted voluntarily by the users, as the motivation behind creating YouTube. These three people who made YouTube also stated that they had an online video version of a dating site in their minds when they decided to launch YouTube.
Now, if you are wondering whether YouTube was the first video-sharing website on the internet, then it was not the first of these sites. This is because Vimeo was launched in November 2004, before YouTube, but as it was a side project of the developers of the Los Angeles-based internet comedy company CollegeHumor, Vimeo failed to grow that fast.
YouTube as a Dating Site and Why it Didn’t Work Out!
YouTube, as mentioned before, was originally thought to be set up as an online video dating site, with “Hot or Not” as a major influence for the founders, but that didn’t work out well. The founders even tried to post on Craigslist and request attractive women to upload their videos on YouTube in exchange for $100 for each such video post. However, they failed to pivot on the same plan due to the lack of enough dating videos. The website’s founders then changed their plans and began to accept videos of all sorts. Whatever may have been the inspiration, we are glad to have YouTube today!
After the necessary measures and steps were in place, the ‘YouTube’ domain name was activated on 14th February 2005. After receiving the funding of $3.5 million from Sequoia Capital, they launched the YouTube beta site in May 2005.
A series of developments followed. The company eventually commenced as a venture capital-funded technology startup. YouTube then continued to receive funding from several other investors, including Sequoia Capital, which poured in $11.5 million, and Artis Capital Management, which funded the platform with another $8 million, the largest of the investors for YouTube then. These fundings massively helped YouTube to scale fast.
Initially, the company was headquartered in San Mateo, California, right above a pizzeria and a Japanese restaurant, before it expanded its headquarters in San Bruno.
The first YouTube channel was “Jawed,” which was created by Jawed Karim in 2005, and the first-ever video on YouTube was a video uploaded by him titled “Me at the Zoo.” This video was recorded by his high school friend, Yakov Lapitsky. The YouTube owner’s video featured Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video has more than 343 million views as of December 2024.
First Ever YouTube Video – Me at the Zoo by Jawed Karim
Jawed Karim – Growth of YouTube
In 2005, YouTube got its first one million views video, a Nike advertisement featuring the legendary Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho. The video showed Ronaldinho receiving his pair of “Golden Boots.” YouTube was launched officially on December 15, 2005, when the site was already receiving more than 8 million views a day. However, at the start of the platform, YouTube only accepted videos up to 100 megabytes, which are mostly limited to 30 seconds of video footage.
YouTube’s First One Million Views Video – Nike Advertisement
NBC-Universal’s Saturday Night Live broadcasted a skit named “Lazy Sunday” by The Lonely Island, which was during the same week of YouTube’s launch. Thus, it was Lazy Sunday, which quickly started to be unofficially uploaded on YouTube. This not only boosted the ratings and contributed to the long-term viewership of Saturday Night Live but also hugely helped YouTube gain recognition, turning it into one of the earliest viral videos on YouTube. The unofficial uploads of the skit on Youtube rose up to 5 million views when recorded in February 2006, after which it was eventually removed two months later following the request from NBCUniversal due to copyright issues. This paved the way for the Content Verification Program under YouTube’s policy. It allowed copyright holders to identify the infringements easily. After a few ugly spats, YouTube made a deal with NBC. This deal helped NBC enter the world of digital broadcasting. And this was just the beginning of YouTube’s several partnerships with industry bigshots.
Though most of the videos were taken down, the duplicate uploads failed to stop. Instead, they came pouring in, as they were, seemingly to popularize YouTube.
YouTube started to grow fast, and it was announced in July 2006 that the video-sharing platform was receiving over 65K new video uploads daily. Besides, YouTube also confirmed that it was receiving 100 million video views each day.
After launching YouTube, YouTube founder Jawed Karim became an informal adviser instead of an employee to the company as he wanted to complete his studies, subsequently joining Stanford University. Comparatively, he took a lower share in the company than other co-founders, Steve Chan and Chad Hurley.
Much of the time, he remained unrecognized by the general public until Google’s arrival. It was only when The people who created YouTubesold to Google for nearly $1.65 billion in 2006 that Karim was again back in the news and media.
This small share still proved large enough to let him receive close to 137,443 shares, worth around $64 million, at the closing of the famous Google acquisition of YouTube. Currently, Jawed Karim’s net worth is $310 million.
Jawed Karim delivered a lecture in the year 2006 at the annual ACM Conference of the University of Illinois on YouTube’s history, which was titled “YouTube From Concept to Hypergrowth.” Furthermore, Karim came back to the University of Illinois in May 2008, where he was again selected as the speaker, thereby becoming the 136th and the youngest Commencement Speaker in the history of the school.
Youtube “Broadcast Yourself”
After YouTube was acquired by Google, YouTube users and other content creators looked for another reliable option. Then, the other video-sharing sites tried coming to prominence and distinguishing themselves from YouTube, but they eventually failed to do that with the announcement of YouTube’s slogan “Broadcast Yourself.” This became the start of the Broadcast Yourself era of YouTube, which helped YouTube see another period of rapid growth. According to a Daily Telegraph report of 2007, YouTube consumed bandwidth that equals the entire bandwidth of the internet 2000. The company soon crossed the milestone of 14 billion video views by 2010 and boasted of holding a market share of 43%. To further boost the growth of YouTube, the platform simplified its interface in the same year, which aimed to increase the dwelling time of the viewers on YouTube.
YouTube crossed another milestone in 2011, namely, 3 billion videos being watched each day, where 48 hours’ worth of new videos were being uploaded each minute.
In 2013, Google made major changes to its policy. A user needed a Google+ account to post a comment on any YouTube video. The move faced backlash and was widely opposed by the YouTube community. To voice discontent against the new policy, an online petition was signed by several users.
The petition gained around 240,000 signatures. The YoutTube founder Karim, too, was not in favor of the policy change; to oppose the Google+ intervention, he updated the video description on his first video to “I can’t comment here anymore, as I don’t want a Google+ account.”
After the protests from the YouTube community, Google apologized for forcing Google+ users to use their real names, and subsequently, Google dropped the policy of integration of Google+ with YouTube. In 2018, Google permanently disabled Google+ services after it failed in both consumer and developer adoption.
Karim also criticized the recent move to remove the dislike count on YouTube. He expressed, “When every YouTuber agrees that removing dislikes is a stupid idea, it probably is. Try again, Youtube.”
Jawed Karim on YouTube Dislike Removal
Jawed Karim – Awards and Achievements
Young Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2014) – The Young Alumni Achievement Award is given to recent graduates who have achieved outstanding career success.
GITA (Global Indus Technovator) Award (2008) – The GITA award is given to individuals who have made significant contributions to the technology field.
Jawed Karim – Investments and Partnerships
Jawed Karim has made 22 investments, with his most recent one being a seed round in Corgea on November 6, 2024, where Corgea raised $2.6 million.
Announced Date
Organization Name
Funding Round
Money Raised
Nov 6, 2024
Corgea
Seed Round – Corgea
$2.6M
May 1, 2024
Double
Seed Round – Double
$3.3M
Aug 1, 2023
Socket
Series A – Socket
$20M
Jan 31, 2020
Formatech
Seed Round – Formatech
$7M
Oct 23, 2019
Rocket Money
Series B – Rocket Money
$15M
Oct 3, 2018
Rocket Money
Series A – Rocket Money
$5M
Jan 10, 2017
Gustav
Seed Round – Gustav
$980K
Nov 20, 2015
Circle Medical
Seed Round – Circle Medical
$2.9M
Sep 30, 2015
Ambronite
Seed Round – Ambronite
$600K
May 18, 2015
Videopixie
Seed Round – Videopixie
$1.1M
Karim launched Youniversity Ventures (Y Ventures) in March 2008 in partnership with Kevin Hartz and Keith Rabois. In April 2009, he invested in the initial Seed round of Airbnb Inc. via Y Ventures, his last partner investment, Karim. Jawed became one of the initial investors of the company.
Name of the Company
Investment Date
Funding Round
Investor
Total Funding
Airbnb
April 1, 2009
Seed Round
Y Ventures
$600K
Jawed Karim’s other investments include stakes in:
Jawed Karim is now an investor and passionate about education. He completed his master’s in computer science at Stanford and co-founded Youniversity Ventures (Y Ventures), where he mentors and invests in startups like Airbnb and Reddit.
Conclusion
Jawed Karim’s story is an example of it coming down to identifying a niche and then working on it, and it is undoubtedly inspiring for the entrepreneurs of today. A video-sharing platform may be mainstream today, but that wasn’t the case in the early 2000s. When YouTube came into being, Karim would always be a prominent face of YouTube. Besides, Karim had a major say in many crucial YouTube decisions, including the one to collaborate with companies like Google and NBC, which can undoubtedly be marked as some of the most significant reasons behind the popularity that YouTube enjoys today. No one could fathom that a small video showing a guy introducing an elephant at the zoo would change video sharing and streaming forever!
FAQs
Who owns YouTube?
The parent company of YouTube is Google. Google purchased YouTube in November 2006 for $1.65 billion in stocks and is currently the company that owns YouTube.
Who is the founder of YouTube?
Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen are the founders of YouTube.
What was the first YouTube video?
Jawed Karim’s “Me at the Zoo” was YouTube’s first video that was uploaded on the social media platform.
When was YouTube founded, or when did YouTube start?
YouTube was launched on February 14, 2005. The popular social media platform was founded by Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen.
How much was YouTube sold for?
Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stocks in November 2006.
Who are Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, and what are they known for?
Steve Chen and Jawed Karim are the co-founders of YouTube and are known for founding the popular video-sharing platform in 2005.
What is Jawed Karim’s net worth?
The net worth of YouTube founder, Jawed Karim is approximately $310 million as of 2024.
What is Jawed Karim age?
Jawed Karim, YouTube founder was born in October 1979 and is 45 years old.
How much is YouTube worth?
The brand value of YouTube stands at $31.7 billion in 2024.
Did YouTube begin as a dating site?
YouTube reportedly began as a video version of an online dating service, which was influenced by the James Hong and Jim Young-created rating site Hot or Not.
What is Chad Hurley net worth?
The net worth of YouTube founder, Chad Hurley stands around $800 million as of 2024.
What is Jawed Karim doing now?
Jawed Karim, co-founder of YouTube, is now an investor and passionate about education. He co-founded Youniversity Ventures (Y Ventures), where he mentors and invests in startups like Airbnb and Reddit.
There is not a single day we don’t spend our time watching YouTube videos. Be it entertainment or getting any kind of information related to our favorite brands, YouTube is our answer. Even for sharing our creative videos, YouTube is the first thing that comes to mind.
We cannot deny the fact that one of the most visited and often searched websites online is YouTube. As per a report, there are 2.1 billion active users globally on YouTube.
YouTube, a global wonder sensation, has become the central source of income for many content creators. It is not only limited to content creators but the benefit of using YouTube videos is also being quickly realized by businesses worldwide. Due to its widely recognized popularity, companies use the platform to promote their affiliate marketing websites which helps to increase traffic and search engine rankings. It is for these obvious reasons, businesses promote their services because of the enormous potential audience YouTube has.
If you’re someone who is looking to have additional income, then YouTube Affiliate marketing could solve your situation.
Affiliate marketing is a type of promotion or marketing that is used to sell or promote goods made by other businesses. The industry of affiliate marketing is developing at a fast pace, and for good reason. By sending traffic to a merchant’s website, affiliates can induce sizable revenue. For every sale made, the affiliate is paid a commission.
These days, through the help of YouTube, businesses are also advertising their goods, services, and brands by making videos that are focused on them to persuade viewers to buy them or subscribe to them.
There are affiliate programs, which are launched by companies that create special-type URLs for each affiliate marketer. Whenever these links are clicked by the intended audience, the cookies on their browser identify the marketer who successfully sells their goods. Different companies use various types of affiliate programs as per their need. In order for you to use a specific product or service, these programs will create a special link for you.
How Can You Use Affiliate Marketing on YouTube for Extra Earnings?
To start, all you need is a YouTube channel, which is already free of cost. To use affiliate marketing on YouTube effectively, you don’t need to have your products. Practically anyone can do affiliate marketing on YouTube. However, one must register for a brand’s affiliate program.
Breaking down the steps on how to become a YouTube Affiliate Marketer:
The foremost step is to always go through YouTube’s content guidelines as it has some strict policies, which you have to follow to start your journey with affiliate marketing. These policies give an idea of what kind of products you are allowed to promote on your YouTube channel.
The next step is to follow the affiliate marketing rules set forth by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
After reading the rules, the next thing is to make a list of the goods and services you want to highlight and recommend to your audience.
Once you have picked up your area of interest, find affiliate marketing programs that offer those goods or services, then enroll in them.
After getting enrolled in the affiliate programs, the next thing is to include YouTube affiliate links in both the video description and in the actual videos on your YouTube channel.
Now if you’re promoting a brand, the most important step is to explain in your videos that you have affiliate links to the products in the description and make that clear to your audience.
YouTube Affiliate Marketing For Beginners
Benefits of Using Affiliate Marketing on YouTube
For social media influencers, affiliate marketing on YouTube is a straightforward strategy. If your channel already has a large fan following, then YouTube affiliate marketing can bring more traffic to your links. Here are the top advantages you get for using affiliate marketing on YouTube:
You can get a wide selection of products to promote
There is power in what kind of products you can promote leading to which you also get to track how your links are performing
We already know how potential YouTube as a platform is. With affiliate marketing on YouTube, you will be able to gain more revenue. Today, the industry of affiliate marketing is one of the finest methods to start earning money online. The challenge is to know what your ideal niche is and create engaging content so that you can drive more traffic to your affiliate links.
FAQs
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a type of promotion or marketing that is used to sell or promote goods made by other businesses.
What are the benefits of using Affiliate Marketing on YouTube?
Here are the top advantages you get for using affiliate marketing on YouTube:
You can get a wide selection of products to promote
There is power in what kind of products you can promote leading to which you also get to track how your links are performing
YouTube has become a daily part of our life, for most of us, it is the main form of entertainment videos. Apart from the entertainment it also provides information and news, food recipes, and educational videos. You name it and the video-sharing platform has it.
In a span of a few years, YouTube has become a big industry itself. It has become a platform where people can share their talents and can get noticed by the entire world. It is a global platform where one can share any kind of video; it is the second-largest search engine in the world and there is hardly anything that one cannot find on this platform.
This platform enables you an option to communicate with a large audience, people have made it a business, and are earning through it by sharing information, providing entertainment, and sharing their talent and lifestyle.
Through YouTube, many people are getting jobs and have a stable income now because of the content they are providing the world with. It has also given the power to people to provide information and news to the world, but with ‘great power comes great responsibility. Recently the Indian Government has banned 22 YouTube Channels. In this article, we will talk about the reason for the ban and how other YouTube channels can avoid this situation.
“The joy of YouTube is that you can create content about anything you feel passionate about, however silly the subject matter.” -Zoe Sugg
Recently, 22 YouTube Channels were banned by the Indian Government. As per the new IT rules of 2021, it is the first time that YouTube Channels are blocked. Among these 22 YouTube Channels, 18 are Indian channels and 4 are from Pakistan.
It is mainly done because these news channels were spreading fake news and disinformation, which can be a security concern for the country and disrupt the public order. All these happened after the new IT rules came into force. As per reports, these YouTube channels had over a billion viewers before they were blocked.
List of YouTube Channels Banned by the Indian Government
Some of the Indian YouTube Channels that are blocked are:
AOP News
ARP News
LDC News
SS ZONE Hindi
Smart News
Online Khabar
DP News
PKB News
KisanTak
Borana News
News23Hindi
Sarkari News Update
Bharat Mausam
RJ ZONE 6
Exam Report
Digi Gurukul
The Pakistan based News Channels that are blocked by the Government are:
DuniyaMereAagy
Ghulam NabiMadni
HAQEEQAT TV
HAQEEQAT TV 2.0
Why These YouTube Channels Are Banned?
All the 22 channels were reportedly spreading misinformation regarding various topics, which include the Armed forces, Kashmir, Covid-19 and the recent Ukraine-Russia war.
Screenshots of the YouTube Channels released by Indian Government
All these channels were using logos and distorted clips from other news channels and were merging them together and spreading disinformation amongst the public. These were done to gain views from the public. This was creating angst among the public and slowly becoming a national security concern.
How to Not Get Your YouTube Channel Blocked by the Government?
It is a matter of concern for YouTubers as Governments is now stricter with their policies they are blocking channels that are being a ‘threat’ to the nation. So to avoid getting your channels blocked by the Government, you need to follow some rules and they are:
The first thing you need to do is avoid spreading disinformation and fake news to the public by showcasing distorted content in the name of creating content.
Be responsible while creating content, don’t just put it on the platform just for the sake of getting views. Remember, you’re responsible for the effect your content will create on people.
Do your research properly before making the content.
Check out authentic sources before indulging in creating content.
Re-check the facts and learn to differentiate between facts and opinion.
Conclusion
YouTube surely has given us an opportunity to showcase our talent on the global platform by making videos and through this, we can also have a stable income. Apart from this, we can create any type of content and it can blow if it is relatable to our audience. With the IT rules and the Government’s stricter policies, one needs to be more careful while creating any type of content. Especially if it is providing information to the public.
FAQs
Why did the Indian government ban YouTube news channels?
The Indian government banned 22 youtube channels under IT Rules 2021 as the news channels were spreading fake news.
Which are the YouTube channels that are banned?
AOP News, ARP News, LDC News, SS ZONE Hindi, Smart News, Online Khabar, DP News, PKB News, KisanTak, Borana News, News23Hindi, Sarkari News Update, Bharat Mausam, RJ ZONE 6, Exam Report, Digi Gurukul, DuniyaMereAagy, Ghulam NabiMadni, HAQEEQAT TV, and HAQEEQAT TV 2.0 are some of the YouTube channels that are banned by the Indian government.
YouTube is the most popular video platform. The simplicity of YouTube makes it easier for the audience and increases its popularity over the years. YouTube makes it easy for content creators to share their content with a large audience. There are millions of YouTube channels out there. Nearly eight out of ten(78.8%) marketers consider it to be the most effective platform for video marketing. Ads on YouTube receive more attention (62%) from viewers than television ads (45%).
YouTubers are always looking for ways to make money using their channel. Many YouTubers make money through Google Adsense but there is also another option of making money online through affiliate marketing. There are so many affiliate programs for YouTubers.
An affiliate program is a process where you can create a link on your YouTube videos to promote other company’s products or services with the unique code. If a customer uses the link to purchase the product, then the company will pay you a commission within the stipulated period.
The more customers use that link to purchase the product the more income you will make. Below is a list of the best affiliate programs for YouTubers.
Clickbank is a solution for new and industry-leading performance marketers and around the world to make money online. Clickbank is an affiliate program for YouTubers known for being a place for thousands of digital products like e-books, videos, and software.
They’re simply middlemen between product vendors and affiliates. Clickbank is both a marketplace for affiliates and an e-commerce platform for digital content creators and YouTubers.
There are two main ways to make money using YouTube and Clickbank. The first way is to create your products and list them and the second way is to skip the product creation step and list other people’s products while taking a commission from each sale. Vendors can select a commission rate between 1% to 75%.
Pros of ClickBank:
Simplicity: The sign-up process is straightforward. You can sign-up within a few minutes and start trading.
Inclusivity: Anyone can join the network for free. It’s perfect for beginners who want to learn the working of affiliate marketing.
Duality: In most affiliate marketing networks you go in either as a vendor or an affiliate. ClickBank allows you to enter both as a vendor and a marketer so you maximize your earnings.
Large Selection: There are thousands of affiliate products in every niche to choose from, your affiliate program choices are numerous.
Good Commission Rates: ClickBank pays high commissions of up to 75% or even 100% also they pay fast so you won’t have to wait long.
Stats of ClickBank:
200 million customers spread across 190 countries
87th largest Internet retailer in North America
276 categories and 21562 product listings
6 million entrepreneurs on the platform
Over 200 million dollars in annual sales
How ClickBank Works
2. ShareASale
ShareASale was started in 2000 & it’s a popular affiliate program for YouTubers and marketers to launch an affiliate program for their product or services. ShareASale has been in business for 19 years, as an Affiliate Marketing Network.
The objective is to provide customers with an advanced affiliate marketing platform. Affiliates have access to more than 4,800 merchants offering a variety of products and services. As an affiliate, you select any of the ShareASale merchants and start to direct sales to the merchants’ websites.
ShareASale Website
The merchants will then pay a commission for sales resulting from the affiliates referrals. Affiliate can decide the specific merchants which would like to promote and how you want to promote these merchants.
When your application is approved, ShareASale offers a search tool that lets you filter merchants by category, keywords, sales commission structure, or length of time with ShareASale. You can also look at the top 100 merchants. When you click on a merchant, you’ll see both their commission structure and payment amounts.
ShareASale offers affiliates and merchants several benefits. These benefits include real-time tracking and merchant and affiliate quality control. ShareASale also guarantees timely payments of earned commissions.
It was previously known as Commission Junction. CJ Affiliate is the world’s largest and most established affiliate marketing network. It specializes in pay-for-performance programs and is part of a Fortune 500 company called Alliance Data Systems.
CJ Affiliate different from other affiliate networks:
Stellar real-time reporting: CJ Affiliate is renowned for its always up-to-the-minute analytics. This means you never have to refresh the page because you can monitor your activity as it happens.
Tons of Selectivity: Most display advertising networks bunch up dozens of products in one ad code. As an affiliate publisher, you choose exactly which advertisers’ products you want to display and where.
Royal Treatment for Star Publishers: You automatically connect with over 600 brands — brands that are on the top list. With this, you enjoy pre-approved access to advertisers for premium rates while maintaining editorial control over your blog’s content.
CJ is one popular affiliate marketplace where you will find all the top products and they have added a new feature call Automation. This feature is probably the simplest way you can monetize your commercial links without manually editing your old links.
4. Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is an affiliate marketing program that also includes affiliate programs for YouTubers. It allows website owners and bloggers to create links and earn referral fees when customers click through and buy products from Amazon.
It’s completely free to join and easy to use. When customers click the links and buy products from Amazon, they earn referral fees. Making money from an Amazon affiliate site requires traffic (visitors). Without traffic, nobody will click your affiliate links, which means no commissions.
Here are some of the rules to keep in mind:
You must disclose on your site or in your communication that you may be eligible to earn from your recommendations.
You must not make false or deceptive claims in your recommendations.
Avoid referring to prices (with some exceptions) since prices frequently change.
Do not use Amazon affiliate links in offline promotions, eBooks, or email.
Do not use link shorteners on affiliate links.
Pros of Becoming an Amazon Affiliate:
Amazon is a highly visited, well-known name that people use and trust every day.
There are no traffic thresholds or other metrics you need to be accepted into the program.
There are tons and tons of products you can promote.
Amazon has many tools to help you sell specific items or a category of items.
There is a good reporting system so you know what’s getting clicks and what’s selling.
You can receive direct deposit payments into your bank account.
Amazon offers good customer service to its buyers, so you reduce the risk of having your visitors get mad at you if they have a problem with the product.
Even if your visitor doesn’t buy the product you referred, if they buy something on that visit, you earn a commission.
Avantlink is an affiliate marketing network that provides cost-per-sale tracking and technology. It is suited for Merchants and Publishers and YouTubers with a suite of high-performance tools and real-time reporting for affiliate marketing.
Features of AvantLink are:
Product-Level Tools
Robust reporting
Powerful API
Paid placement
Dynamic deals
Affiliate Link encoder
Custom Tracking
Avantlink App Market
AvantLink Affiliate network announced recently the release of their Affiliate Link Encoder (ALE) tool, the first tool of its kind available from any network in the Affiliate space. The ALE tool uses JavaScript to automatically change directly to merchant links that appear in HTML into AvantLink tracking links.
The ALE is optional for Affiliates. The network offers industry-leading data feeds and advanced Affiliate tools like embedded RSS feeds, an Affiliate API, coupon feeds, product displays, and ad syndication options.
6. JVZoo
JVZoo, owned by parent company BBC Systems, Inc. is a software as a service (or SaaS). JVZoo is an affiliate marketing platform that allows sellers to easily list, promote, and sell their products, and affiliate marketers to easily find interesting products at great prices to promote. It is a popular network for YouTubers and affiliate marketers to find high-paying digital products. They bring together affiliate marketers and product creators.
Some general characteristics of JVZoo include:
Wide range of products to promote.
A good future platform for your digital product
Affiliates with a track record can get paid immediately if put on instant commissions.
Refunds are not as aggressively pro-buyer since downloadable products have more rigid return mechanics.
One of the differences between JVZoo and ClickBank is that JVZoo product owners schedule and make the payments. The product owner goes into their JVZoo dashboard and selects commissions for payment via PayPal or MassPay.
Some of the most popular niches on the site are:
Self-Improvement
Finance
eCommerce
Software
Health and Fitness
Business
JVZoo has over 200 niches in its Digital Product Library, which means a large number of digital products to choose from. This lets affiliates choose a program of their liking to promote, whether that’s health and fitness, business, software, or e-commerce.
Rakuten Affiliate Program 20 years of experience in affiliate and performance marketing. There are a wide variety of brands that you can promote, and some of them are huge, such as Macy’s, NordVPN, Lyft, Microsoft, Lego, Monster, NVIDIA, and more.
If you click on Programs and Categories, you can simply find the ones that best suit your niche. When you search for a product or niche, and you’ll see a list of affiliate programs that are a match. The signup process is simple, you can get approved by many affiliate programs. There are huge brands that you can promote through Rakuten, and you can also create links and banners with ease.
Rakuten makes it possible for affiliates to promote some of the biggest brands in the world. All affiliate payments issued by this network are NET 60, which simply means you’ll get paid whatever commissions you earned 60 days after you earned them.
8. FlexOffers
FlexOffers.com is an award-winning affiliate marketing network that provides comprehensive solutions to both advertisers and publishers. FlexOffers is one of the highest-paying affiliate networks. This affiliate network is great with its huge 12000+ affiliate programs. Affiliates (publishers) can join several affiliate programs to earn commissions.
Advertisers have the advantage of earning profits without exerting too much effort. FlexOffers has earned the trust of many companies offering affiliate programs. They rely on this network to recruit affiliates, monitor their performance, and ensure that they get paid. For that FlexOffers has led to an increase in affiliate niches that can use Flexoffers to find relevant products and services to promote on their websites.
FlexOffers is different from others:
FlexOffers has 10,000+ Advertisers to Pick FromThey Offer Higher Payouts Compared to Direct Advertisers
FlexOffers Has Real Affiliate Managers
They Offer Fast Withdrawals
FlexOffers Has Plenty Of Advanced Technologies And Tools To Help You
Referring Other Marketers Earns You Money
Numerous Programs to Promote
FlexOffers benefits and features:
FlexOffers is a Straightforward and User-Friendly Website
FlexOffers makes it simple for its marketers to tap into its money-making potential through affiliate marketing.
FlexOffers allows advertisers to get reports touching on various areas at any time they want.
FlexOffers allows the merchant to see reports of sales & traffic on particular affiliates at a selected period.
FlexOffers has a massive network with tens of thousands of publishers and advertisers.
FlexOffers network and their partner merchants help publishers in marketing these products.
An experienced team provides support through email and phone. Additionally, FlexOffers has a ticketing system that caters to those who need immediate assistance when offices have closed.
The FlexOffers network provides its publishers with dedicated affiliate managers who help them get suitable affiliate offers
Most affiliate networks pay on Net30 terms while others pay on Net7 terms.
FlexOffers accepts payment via various payment processing platforms such as PayPal, wire transfer, and credit cards.
9. Impact
The Impact Affiliate Network is that started in 2008 by the same group that started up the CJ (Commission Junction) affiliate network. The Impact affiliate network hosts several affiliate programs and they will likely have some options for you to make money with your online presence.
Impact accelerates enterprise growth by scaling discovery, recruitment, onboarding, engagement, and optimization of all partnership types including affiliates, influencers, mobile apps, strategic, and more.
Impact Radius was built as a free-to-join SaaS platform to bridge between advertisers looking to maximize their ROI from global ads spend and affiliate marketers who look for customer journey insights, cross-device tracking, as well as attribution modeling.
Affiliate marketers and YouTubers using Impact Radius find it extremely easy to sign up for new affiliate programs. Impact Radius houses hundreds of affiliate programs in different niches.
10. Affiliate Window – (AWIN)
It was previously known as Affiliate Window but now officially referred to as “AWIN”. This network does work with over 13,000 active advertisers and 100,000 publishers (affiliates). This company has since grown into one of the most well-regarded affiliate networks in the UK, as well as the world.
It has around 1,600 brands across 77 sectors in 11 territories worldwide. They also provide a simple, user-friendly dashboard, as well as an array of useful tools that can help you boost your affiliate marketing campaigns. AWIN is probably best for experienced affiliates
It is most heavily oriented towards financial, retail shopping (fashion), sports, beauty, home and garden, and travel products. The commission rate depends on the campaign and the merchant/advertiser. AWIN offers aren’t tracked by Affscanner and OfferVault, so it’s really hard to gauge commission rates and earning potentials without being an approved publisher.
AWIN has a lot of powerful tools, including an “Opportunity Marketplace” where you can pitch merchants on unique one-off deals (like sponsored posts).
Conclusion
Both affiliate marketing and YouTube are the two biggest ways to earn money online. But if YouTubers will do affiliate marketing then it will be an extra source of earning money. Also, the rise of affiliate marketing will be growing more in the upcoming years. Above mentioned affiliate programs are popular and also well structured and the whole process of doing affiliate marketing is very much simple.
FAQ
Does YouTube have an affiliate program?
YouTube has an affiliate program for YouTubers, which is including links to products you review and use in your videos that will track a purchase.
Which affiliate program is the best?
Amazon Associates, Awin, CJ Affiliate, ShareASale, Clickbank are some of the best affiliate programs.
Do I need a website to be an affiliate marketer?
To be an affiliate marketer you don’t need to have a website, you only need traffic or audience and it may be on your YouTube channel, Instagram, or Facebook.
“Going Viral” is the new terminology gifted by the world wide web to the society. Whenever you post any picture or video on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other social media platform, you immediately get likes and comments on them. The maximum likes you get might be around 100 or in some cases 200. That’s the rating of an average post, but when you view videos on the YouTube or any other social media platform you often see 10 K, 350K etc., viewers on them.
Although you would get amazed that how an average looking YouTube video got so many likes and viewers. You might be wondering how to make a video go viral which can earn you fame and monetize your video all around social media platforms. You have landed to the best article which will guide you to how to make a video go viral.
After researching hard, about how to make a sensational viral video and doing some research on the top-rated video’s on the YouTube, We have generated ten tentative methods to make the YouTube video go viral and sizzle the world. If you are an aspiring YouTuber and have tons of talent to share with the world, then don’t waste time and make your debut in the viral world.
The Top Ten methods of How to Make a Viral Video
1. Plan your move
The golden rule – Don’t get excited about your video and never just upload it on the internet. Never take an impulsive decision. Make a powerful marketing plan before uploading your video on the web. Furthermore, thinking that your video isn’t good enough and chalking out a marketing plan is a waste of time should not come in your thoughts.
Every video has potential its own potential and you never know what a good marketing plan can do for your video. Everything is about marketing and a good method to implement it. An average video can get a million hits with just a simple marketing plan. So, ham that in your mind to plan the full course of action before uploading viral video.
Embrace yourself to learn something good from the other people’s experience. So, before making your video go viral, examine the other hit videos. For that I would like to share the experience of the Karen X. Cheng, she made the dancing girl video and how she got 1.8 Million hits in three days. Amazing right, so let’s see what she did to get so many likes.
Karen X. Cheng Dancing Video
Day One: 80k views
Firstly, She posted it on Facebook/Twitter and submitted it to social news sites like Reddit and Hacker News. She personally asked many of her friends to share it and she herself tweeted it to all well-known dancers. She emailed bloggers who had covered other viral dance videos.
Of all the things She tried, Reddit paid off. It got to the top of the GetMotivated subreddit.
Day Two: 800k views
Bloggers who had seen it on Reddit the day before started publishing articles about it. First Kottke, then blogs like Mashable, Jezebel, and the Huffington Post.
Blogs drove a ton of traffic. Each blog is a giant marketing engine with millions of readers and twitter followers. Moreover, it’s in their interest to get the article as many views as possible because each view is an add they can serve up. However, it’s all about clicks & advertising dollars which showcase the money flow.
Day Three: 1.8 million views
Eventually, it made to the YouTube front page. The blogs were sending it so much traffic that YouTube’s algorithms picked up on it.
So that was her viral plan in her exact words, which tells the importance to target the right audience and platform. So, I just shared the experience of one-hit video owner and before starting your own viral ride study some other video makers views also.
3. The timing of upload
The timing of uploading your video is very important to make it viral. Upload your videos on Mondays or Tuesdays to make them go viral. As people normally watch videos on the work and by realizing it on the beginning of the week will give you more time to get viewed. Fresh content and videos majorly roll out in the starting of the week which tends to have higher visibility and more clicks. Moreover, tentatively the timings are
From Monday To Wednesday: 14:00 – 16: 00 Thursday To Friday: 12:00 – 15:00 & From Saturday To Sunday: 9:00 – 11:00
Make your videos short and simple. Long videos have more fast exit and generally, it gets avoided by the audience. So, make your video short and the ideal duration of the viral video should be between 1 to 2 minutes. The content of the video should be authentic and not fabricated. Viewers always want to learn something productive from the video, so always showcase fact proven content on your video.
Make Your Video Short and Simple
5. Catchy heading
The heading of your video must be interesting. It should be simple, informative, relevant and perks the interest of the viewer. Like,
”Hey did you see the video of __________”
Fill in the blank. That’s your title. The title should have Call to action quality for a higher view and click through rate.
6. Tag your video
It’s very important to tag, thumbnail, dedicate your videos to the targeted audiences to generate more traffic. You should only tag maximum 13 links, as more will create the cluster. Tag your video according to its niche. Keep a wider tag which will benefit to attract large traffic. Optimize your file name with the focus keyword and add the keyword in its attributes.
Keep in mind that tags (like the video description) need not be stagnant. As new tags become popular and different search rise on the keyword list update your tags. Utilize quotation marks to indicate multi-word tags, such as “Donald Trump” or “Drake University.” For a greater insight about tagging your video refer to the NextWeb.
Before watching the video some people like to read the description to make sure that video is worth able of their two minutes or not. So, add the informative and interesting description to the video, that will force viewers to watch it. Your video description should be well written before publishing it to the public.
The first 5 lines are essential as the first two lines of the description box appears next to your video in search when posted on social media. The first 5 lines of the description are included beneath your video but above the “read more” tab. The overall description should be of 5000 characters to play your game and the first two lines should have 100-200 characters. Share your social profile using a full URL in order for the link to be clickable.
8. Tell a tale
Evolution of Coca-Cola
The video should be expressive and tells the story in a short time. The video must have the soul behind it. It should be engaging to connect with the audience and should have a clear conclusion. The open-ended conclusion also get hits but don’t get viral. Your audience don’t have much time to wait for the conclusion and to see the whole video. To connect your audience and keep them engaged throughout the video insert reality rather than fiction. Focus on the need of your target audience and craft your tale according to it.
Once your video goes viral you will receive plenty of love and hate emails, so take time and reply to each of them. This will increase your fan base. It will act as an engagement tool to keep your audience loyal to your videos and enable more shares throughout the web across all platforms. Replying to emails shows your gratitude and appreciate your viewers to make them feel privileged. Consequently, it will graph your subscriber higher and make your video popular.
However, these are some of the important points to make your video go viral. But every video has a different market and target audience, so the viral method also changes with that. But if you follow these points, then you will surely receive a remarkable result. Although, to help the aspiring YouTubers and Instagrammers in monetizing their videos we have also published a detailed article to kickstart your page or channel.
Anamika Mahapatra
