The Role of a YouTube Manager in a creator's life: Inna Ushakova's Perspective

The burgeoning class of creative people, content creators and influencers, is in their golden age. Ubiquitous digitalization, growing demand from fans and audiences to interact with stories they identify with, intense competition among social media behemoths, and significant VC investments in the creator economy are all positive aspects of the ecosystem.??

With that being said, creative entrepreneurship is quite demanding. Creators feel compelled to run on a treadmill, becoming concerned that they will be forgotten by their fans if they "take a break" from creating content. The need to ensure constant visibility and sustain a strong relationship with their communities leads many creators to experience burnout.

Managing channels on more than one platform, trying to play the rules of the "algorithmic" game, analyzing the right engagement metrics to understand their communities’ expectations, and receiving unfair payments are situations that turn creators and influencers into fish in troubled waters. The valuable energy and focused time needed to do what they love—creating content and engaging with their fans—are wasted while trying to overcome these challenges, leaving creators in a state of low motivation and a lack of desire to move on.?

Creators Are Not Alone on Their Path to Growth

It’s worth noting the advent of talent management agencies as well as individuals that launch businesses focusing on supporting creators and influencers to overcome such bottlenecks.

It’s more likely for most of us to have heard about the said agencies before, but professionals who are so-called "solo entrepreneurs" or lead a team of a few people can easily go unnoticed.

I got to know Inna Ushakova as the “YouTube Manager” of Marina Mogilko, a content creator who runs multiple language channels on YouTube and TikTok. Having next to no idea about what a YouTube Manager exactly does, I realized how crucial her role was to growing Mogilko’s outreach when she began dubbing some of her YouTube and TikTok videos into Spanish and Italian.?

I spoke with Inna Ushakova. This interview was held via e-mails and edited for length and clarity.

Burcu Ulu?ay: Can you explain to us what a YouTube Manager exactly does? What is the core of your work?

Inna Ushakova: Simply put, as a YouTube manager, my main job is to make life easier for bloggers. Many bloggers have full-time jobs, so even though they're passionate about their channel, they don't have enough time to handle everything that comes with it. We help with the pre- and post-production of videos, including competitor analysis, brainstorming video ideas that will generate high viewership, creating outlines or full scripts, and developing thumbnail and title ideas. Once the blogger has filmed a video, we work with a video editor and thumbnail designer and then publish the final video on YouTube.?

Basically, YouTube managers help with those parts of content production that bloggers either don’t like or simply don’t have enough time to do.

B.U: Do you discover creators and influencers to work with, or is it generally them that first contact you? Have you experienced any situation where you had to reject working with a creator? If so, what were your reasons?

I.U: More often than not, it's bloggers who make the first contact. However, I do have to turn down about half of the offers that come my way because it's important to me to work on topics that interest me and to genuinely like the person I’m working with.

For instance, if I'm not into gaming, I won't collaborate with a gaming channel. Also, some bloggers want me to guarantee specific numerical results, like gaining a certain number of subscribers or views. I can’t do this because those promises can only be made if you're working with paid promotions. In my work, I rely solely on organic YouTube video promotion.

B.U: What you said is quite interesting. I’d think most creators and their YouTube managers use paid promotions to grow their channel. However, as a professional, you tell us you’re not interested in benefiting from this method. Can you explain the reason behind this??

I don't rely on paid promotions because, in most cases, organic promotion on YouTube is so good that you don't need anything else to grow on YouTube.

If a YouTuber creates engaging, high-quality content, it can gain traction without the need for paid promotion. I only see the value in paid promotion when it comes to gaining an initial audience—the first few thousand subscribers. For creators who don't have an established audience on other platforms, it can be challenging and time-consuming to gain their first thousand subscribers.

However, the bloggers that I work with either already have a substantial subscriber base or don't have the budget to invest in paid promotion.

B.U: As of February 1, the creator-fund for YouTube Shorts was replaced by ad revenue sharing for Shorts. The goal of such funds and ad revenue sharings should ultimately be to help creators and influencers, regardless of their scale, grow their outreach and make a living off their creative effort. Are these kinds of initiatives effective in creating a more sustainable and fairer playing field for all creators? Or, do you think it will be those mega creators who continue enjoying these funds and shares?

I.U: I believe we need to wait at least six months to see how it all pans out. Currently, the threshold for starting monetization is quite high. For niche channels, getting 10 million views on Shorts in 90 days is a lot.?

And as of now, fewer companies purchase ads on Shorts feeds than on long videos because there isn't enough data yet on how effective they are. However, this will likely change with time. So, ask me this question again in about six months.?

However, I'm glad that YouTube is constantly working on new features and thinking about how to help creators increase their income by producing YouTube videos.?

“So many TikTok creators start their own YouTube channels after the launch of the Shorts fund.”?

B.U: Some argue that YouTube launched Shorts in response to TikTok's success with short content videos. This might be the real drive for YouTube, but when it comes to shooting more professional Shorts, YouTube seems to outpace TikTok. Also, it's easier for creators to launch their careers on YouTube with Shorts, and then experiment with longer videos. Would you compare the pros and cons of these two platforms, especially regarding their impact on building long-lasting and deeper bonds with fans?

I.U: While it's true that YouTube likely launched Shorts in response to TikTok's success, TikTok is a platform where it's difficult to build a strong connection with your audience. Even though TikTok now allows videos up to 10 minutes long, it's still primarily focused on short-form content. It’s challenging to share everything creators want in 20-30 or even 60-second videos.

On YouTube, you can really build a deeper bond with your audience. People come to the platform specifically to watch your videos, they trust your opinions, they learn from you, and they even make purchases based on your recommendations. This is much harder to achieve on TikTok. What’s more, YouTube is dedicated to helping creators make money, which is why they launched the Shorts fund (with much more generous payouts than the TikTok creator fund) and now offer revenue sharing for Shorts ads. This is why we've seen so many TikTok creators start their own YouTube channels after the launch of the Shorts fund.?

Another difference we've noticed is that, on TikTok, regardless of how many subscribers you have, there's no guarantee of a certain number of views. The algorithm on TikTok seems to function differently than on YouTube. In my experience, YouTube is more persistent in finding the right audience for your videos and will continue recommending them, even if they were published years ago.?

Of course, everyone's experience with these platforms may vary, but based on my experience as a YouTube manager, YouTube offers a more robust community-building experience and better opportunities for creators to make money.

“I definitely recommend other creators to start channels in different languages.”

B.U: Marina Mogilko is one of the creators you represent. She has a broad presence in the creator's universe, with multilingual channels both on YouTube and TikTok, as well as her own brand that offers language learning products. I remember you saying to me before that you had not specifically planned to localize her stories for different languages and dub them into Spanish and Italian. But then, you partnered with Ollang and adapted her TikTok and YouTube channels for these specific languages. Can you tell me about your experiences with this process? Do her channels continue to grow with new, dubbed content? Would you recommend other creators to start their localization projects to reach global audiences and talk to them in their native language?

I.U: We hadn't considered posting Marina's content in other languages until we received an email from Ebru Y?ld?r?m, the CEO of Ollang. Previously, if a creator wanted to create content in a new language, they would have to learn the language first. However, the process is now simpler, and we have channels in Spanish and Italian. We planned to start channels in Portuguese and Arabic for this year, and the launch is getting prepared within a month or so.??

Regarding growth, we saw a massive spike in subscribers a couple of months after launching the channels, gaining 120,000 subscribers in just two months on our Spanish channel. Although the growth has been slow, it has remained steady since then. The main obstacle to faster growth is a lack of constant, regular video posting. There have been times when we had to wait a couple of months to get videos dubbed. We've now established a schedule that works for us and is doable for Ollang.

I definitely recommend other creators to start channels in different languages. While English is an international language, there are many countries where people don't know it. For instance, I’ve been traveling around North Africa for the last couple of months, and I found that French is the first foreign language that people speak here and that most people don’t know English. So by producing content in their language, you can reach millions of people who wouldn't otherwise be able to understand your content.

B.U: Creators face many challenges, including unclear rules and algorithms of social media channels, a need to constantly create, delayed payments, the difficulty of being discovered by brands, and the threat of burnout. Can you share your suggestions about how it's possible to create a more sustainable and equitable career path for creators?

I.U: The challenges you mentioned that content creators face are not new. However, with more people making a career out of content creation, there is an expectation that producing YouTube videos alone is enough to make a living. While it's partly true, most full-time content creators don't rely solely on AdSense revenue because we don't know the YouTube algorithm, and we don't know what will happen tomorrow or if viewers will see our content.

Don't forget to repurpose your content. If you post long videos on YouTube, you can start an email newsletter sharing the same thoughts you do in your videos. You can also create tweets, write LinkedIn posts, and post on Instagram and TikTok to reach a broader audience.?

Posting on different platforms can help get more brand deals not only on your YouTube channel but on other platforms as well. Also don’t forget to leave affiliate links under your videos and what’s even more important, think of creating your own product. This product could be related to the topic of your channel, such as a workbook, guide, or course that your viewers would be interested in buying.

By diversifying their sources of income and creating their own products, content creators can create a more sustainable and equitable career path for themselves. YouTube offers at least five different ways to make money on the platform besides ad revenue, such as channel membership, super chats, super thanks, and others.?

As professionals, we will continue to back creators up and serve as trusted partners to widen their outreach across the world. You can always hire a YouTube manager who can support you by taking care of tedious content production tasks, assisting with video editing, and, perhaps most importantly, motivating you to continue when you feel like giving up.