Born Olajide Olatunji (aka JJ aka KSI aka KSIOlajidebt) currently his estimate potential earnings stands at $2,892,537 (two million eight hundred ninety two thousand five hundred and thirty seven dollars).

Let’s paint the picture twenty one years old, lives in a communal house with four digs mates together known as the Sidemen. Most of the housemates are either in the process of obtaining higher education degrees or holding down part time jobs for extra money. All of the guys in the house spend the vast majority of their time playing XBOX or Playstation games, watching series and by and large “wasting their lives away” in the eyes of society. Sound familiar? If I think back on my varsity days my life was no different to the communal hostel style living that the Sideman experience day to day. We were a house of four 21 year old guys whose biggest passion for life was girls, drinking, watching movies and competitive video games. At the end of every week an honor was bestowed on the housemate who ended top of the league in a FIFA competition. We are now all 25, each of us now holding down a respectable job and living in our own apartments and houses pursuing the “South African Dream” of one day being successful. But if I think back now would it not have been great to maintain the lifestyle of 21? To be able to wake up at 12:00 PM order a pizza and sit around in a group playing FIFA and talking about the evenings plans. To be able to go about our day to day lives without the stresses that comes with a full time job and growing up?

The reality is that JJ, Simon, Harry, Toby, Ethan and Josh all have set up an online empire with millions of subscribers and fans that will turn the dream of being 21 for the rest of their lives into a choice. KSI currently has 7,313,616 (seven million three hundred and thirteen six hundred and sixteen) subscribers which to put it in real terms is roughly the population of Switzerland. His videos have most recently made youtube history becoming one of a very elite group of people with youtube “hits” or views surpassing the Billion mark. This becomes even more amazing if you look at the most recent projected earnings which are currently estimated to be $2.50 per 1000 views. The obvious question that arises is how can one possibly make money off of video’s freely viewed on the internet?

KSI during the first months of his Youtube career – barely out of school and only just scratching the surface of what he would one day build.

The first method is the one we are all familiar with. When you have selected the youtube video that you wish to view how often have you been annoyed at a compulsory ad that pop’s up before the selected video starts to play? Have you found yourself hovering your mouse pointer impatiently over the “SKIP AD” button while the counter slowly rolls down to zero? These ad’s that play on Youtube is a integral part of how the website itself makes money and is a payed advertising platform for many big corporate s including Fast food companies and many of the larger car companies. The revenue that is generated from these advertisement is split between the content producer “Youtuber” and the social media platform “Youtube”, 55% of the money goes to the Youtuber with the remaining 45% going to Youtube. This method is known as Ad Sense or Advertisements on Youtube.

The second method is an equally familiar method with the Youtuber being paid in way of endorsements much the same way as our professional footballers and sportsman are paid today. While the bigger brands like Nike/Adidas are hardly batting an eyelid at these Youtubers the more specific brands are literally fighting over who the famous Youtuber will associate him/herself with. FUTHEAD.COM/FUTCOIN.COM are but a couple of Fifa specific brands that will “Pay per play” should the Youtuber endorse the brand or wear the relevant brand as clothing or as displays in the background of the Youtube clips.

The third method is the more entrepreneurial side of Youtube. Youtubers will use their videos and content as a mechanism for exposing their followers “Eyes” to companies and merchandise that the Youtubers themselves have founded or own. KSI for example has released his own fashion label; BEAST and he has also recorded a couple of his own songs: “No Sleep” (featuring Tigger Da Author and KSI) as an example.

 KSI exhibiting his clothing label

Other methods include affiliate programs and Pay per click owned and operated platforms. Where the Youtuber will add links to websites in the descriptions of their videos to direct users to specific websites where the Youtuber will either receive a once off pay per click fee, or a share in the revenue generated from promotional codes for goods purchased on the Website.

What does all of this mean and how are we able to take advantage of the power of Youtube?
Well you could simply start your own Youtube channel with your own content and take advantage of all of the revenue producing streams as indicated above. Or you can start incorporating Youtube and social media in the day to day workings of your own business and your own brand. The modern world we all live in today is all a competition for eyes, to get more people to see and interact with your brand on a day to day basis. To give an example of just how valuable these “Eyes” are we need not look further than a recent deal where Facebook bought the instant messaging platform: Whatsapp for 22 Billion Dollars. Whatsapp at the time had 400 Million subscribers which means that Facebook effectively spent $55 for each user on the Whatsapp platform. Why did they do this? As we have seen with KSI’s success you are able to sell to the population who actively follow and interact with the brand and people are willing to pay you money simply to have your users/fan base see their specific content.

With that we go back to the earlier thought – wouldn’t it be great to make a million off of a past time? Wouldn’t it be great to continue living the life of a 21 year old and turn this into a million dollar empire?

Hopefully KSIOlajidebt will inspire a new generation of young millionaires to pursue their dreams – and hopefully his story has provoked a few million dollar ideas in you.

Here is a compilation of the “Best of KSI” – what is your opinion is this a million dollar brand?

Written by:

Alan Henri Laurie

References:

http://www.statsheep.com/ksiolajidebt

http://ksiolajidebt.com/