How to become a YouTube superstar: Aussie success stories reveal secrets

This rising group of Aussie youngsters have cultivated millions of subscribers, billions of views and often lucrative deals. And they are revealing how they made it on YouTube— and how you can too.

They are the youngsters with millions of subscribers, billions of views and often lucrative deals – the YouTubers reaching fans all over the world with videos of … just about anything.

If you haven’t heard of them your kids definitely have. And probably want to be like them.

But how do you become a ‘YouTuber’? How many takes makes for the perfect shot? How do you know if a video will fly or flop?

And can just anyone make a living from it?

Sometimes it’s just about having a go, say the best in the business. But don’t expect overnight success. These YouTube superstars are perfectionists, who work tirelessly for success.

GEORGIA PRODUCTIONS

Aussie Georgia McCudden, better known as Georgia Productions, has made more than 200 videos in the past eight years and is such a perfectionist she will often say the same line 10 times before sharing something with her fans.

Georgia McCudden, better known as Georgia Productions, has made more than 200 videos in the past eight years.

“Sometimes I get stuck for ideas and it might take me a day or two to script a video, or if I’m playing multiple characters it would take a day or two to film with costume changes and setting up props and getting camera angles right,” she says.

“Then it takes a day to edit so sometimes it can take a full week for the whole process and other times it might only take two days.

“It takes me so long to edit because I’m trying to find the take with the best delivery.”

Filming and editing her own work makes the 21-year-old stand out from the crowd.

“Most big YouTubers employ others to film and edit but I don’t want to give up creative control,” she says.

“Some YouTubers will follow trends that are popular to increase views but I have never done this.

“I just come up with my own ideas based on everyday life and situations that I think are funny.

“I try to be original, creative and real.

“Uploading videos regularly helps increase views but I’ve never been good at sticking to
a routine.

“My channel has more than 220 million views in total on all of my videos but I try not to focus on the number of views or likes as it can be very soul destroying when you put a lot of effort into a video and it doesn’t do as well as you hoped.”

The videos started as an after-school hobby, then when she was in year 12 in 2017, the teen started getting offers of brand deals and was approached to write a book.

“I wrote a book with Penguin in 2018 — The Amazingly Disorganised Help Dictionary — and I started thinking maybe I could make a career out of this,” says Georgia, who has ADD.

“I feel so privileged that so many young people look to me as a role model.

“My advice to them would be to just be real and be yourself and don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right for you just for short- term fame or attention.

“It takes a lot of hard work to make it as an online creator.

“Some people think that it’s just a matter of something going viral but it rarely works that way — it took me almost eight years to get one million subscribers.

“It can be really difficult to get motivated when you work alone from home and not always great for your mental health, especially at the moment with lockdown as I don’t see a lot
of people.

“So it’s really not that glamorous.”

ASH MAGIC

North Shore teen Ash Hodgkinson didn’t fit in at school or on the sports field. Grappling with anxiety and ADHD didn’t help. But then he found something he loved and now his magic is making millions of young people smile too.

Better known as Ash Magic, the YouTube and global TikTok sensation’s hilarious magic trick videos have been viewed billions of times in the past 12 months. Just 19, he is also about to release his first book, Real Magic.

“It’s a dream come true,” Hodgkinson tells Saturday Extra, of the book in which he shares his personal story and the philosophy behind his success as well how to do those all important magic tricks.

“There was a period of my life where I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I was going to be going, and once I started magic and performing, I was like, ‘OK, this is it. This is going to be the thing I really like’.

Ash Hodgkinson, better known as Ash Magic.

“Magic is just such a universal thing. There are no language barriers and there is this natural obsession people have with things that are possible, things that are different and unique and things that might be real or not be real.”

Ideas for content tend to come at random and he writes everything down, even when woken by an idea in the middle of the night.

“I’ll set it up, get all the props that I need and then I might do a few takes,” he says.

“Some of the videos take from 10 to hundreds of takes because they’re that hard.

“But then some videos which look really hard or which you expect to take hours, you do it
in one take.”

Despite his success, Hodgkinson says he is constantly surprised by what fans lap up and what they don’t.

There is no recipe to creating a viral video, it just happens when he remembers what he loves about what he does.

“I can spend hours writing and editing this video with a really clever concept and it all looks great on screen and is an amazing trick,” he says.

“Then it won’t perform as well as the random video that I threw together in like five minutes.

“As long as you’re making what you love. People love seeing someone genuinely interested in something, so love what you do and that will convert and people will find that engaging as well.”

Ash Hodgkinson’s videos have been viewed billions of times around the world.

His book Real Magic tackles the world of social media, one he describes as much like magic, with concepts of perception versus reality.

“It’s obvious that things definitely aren’t the same in real life as they are on social media,” he says.

“And just know that nobody’s perfect. They all have their things that they’re struggling with and dealing with, and so does everybody else.

“So I think knowing that you’re not alone and there are people that love you and people you can reach out to, is important.”

Hodgkinson’s parents have never tried to sway him away from his non-traditional routes of study and employment.

He now makes money through paid partnerships as well as income from his incredible YouTube success.

“I feel like they always sort of knew that something was going to happen and they helped me along the way,” he says.

“I want to reach anybody who feels like they’re not quite in the right place at this specific time — if they think they could be doing something different, or trying to find the courage to follow the path that they truly want to do, not what their parents want them to do or what school or society wants them to do.”

His tip to making a career of social media? Be yourself, be unique and try new things.

“And I think the biggest tip out of everything is just consistency,” he says.

“It doesn’t happen overnight. But if you keep at it and yet keep grinding, it will happen. And stop caring about what other people think — it’s a leap of faith to think ‘screw it, I’m just going to do it’.”

Real Magic, published by Penguin, available from August 31

THE RYBKA TWINS

Unlike most YouTube sensations, Sam and Teagan Rybka found fame on a relatively old media — the television.

The now-26-year-old identical twins from Perth appeared on Australia’s Got Talent in 2013 performing a synchronised contortion routine and made it through to the semi-finals.

While they didn’t win, it delivered millions of followers and a career.

The girls, who shared a bedroom until they were 21, set up a YouTube account to promote their TV experience and their first video showed them doing yoga in their backyard.

The next morning that video had more than two million views and within weeks, more than 100 million.

The Rybka Twins are YouTube superstars.

Their TikTok account has 13.3 million followers and on Instagram they have attracted 1.1 million, taking their combined social media army to more than 21 million.

These days, the pair share everything from dance, acrobatics and gymnastics routines on YouTube as well as their positive ethos on health, nutrition, fashion and trends. Their contortionist challenges, which involve holding incredible positions in matching activewear, are the most popular.

Despite the fame the girls, who have been earning an income from YouTube for six years and have an activewear line, studied for Bachelor of Education degrees so they could teach dance and drama in high school. That’s their day job, while creating content for the social media takes up their spare time.

US stars going from bedrooms to boardrooms

MRBEAST

(Stats for his six combined YouTube channels)

● Joined YouTube February 2012, aged 13

● 110 million subscribers

● 4 billion views

He once adopted every dog in a shelter, opened the world’s first free restaurant then paid people to eat there and gave a homeless person a house. MrBeast has more than four billion views from his six YouTube channels to date and a combined 110 million subscribers.

MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, was 13 when he posted his first video on YouTube in February 2012. Today the 23-year old from North Carolina is one of the platform’s most-viewed and highest-paid creators.

YouTuber MrBeast.

From around 2016, he cottoned on that viewers loved marathon stunts, such as spinning a fidget spinner for 24 hours straight.

By November 2017, he had one million subscribers and his empire, which includes high school mates Chris, Chandler, Garrett and Jake, grew. A year later he had given his first $1 million to charity and changed tack to become one of YouTube’s biggest philanthropists.

His Beast Philanthropy channel is paving the way for YouTube to be considered a vehicle for good. He even enlisted donations from Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to help him plant 20 million trees. He makes his millions through brand deals and ventures such as MrBeast Burgers.

COLLEEN BALLINGER 

(Stats for her three combined YouTube channels)

● Joined YouTube July 2006, aged 19

● 9 million subscribers

● 6 billion views

Ask a kid who Colleen Ballinger is, they may respond with “you mean Miranda Sings?” That’s because Ballinger’s comedic alter ego — the excessive lipstick wearing, often inappropriate and offensive tone-deaf wannabe star, Miranda Sings — launched Ballinger to international fame when she posted a YouTube video of her nasally, out-of-tune cover
of Aretha Franklin’s Respect, in 2008.

YouTuber Colleen Ballinger (aka Miranda Sings).

Since then, Ballinger, a trained musical theatre performer, singer and actor, has turned Miranda Sings into an empire which has spawned two books, a two-season Netflix series called Haters Back Off, a lipstick line and a one-woman show.

She has three YouTube channels — Miranda Sings attracting the most views from fans who call themselves Mirfandas — and you’ll often find her collaborating with fellow YouTube sensation JoJo Siwa of Dance Moms fame and her pal, singer Ariana Grande.

CHARLI D’AMELIO 

● Joined YouTube November 2015, aged 11

● 57 million subscribers

● 247 million views

Charli D'Amelio (left) with her sister Dixie. Picture: Joe Scarnici/Getty

If these YouTube stats aren’t as impressive as you’d expect, that’s because this Connecticut teen is a baby of the TikTok revolution where in just two years she has amassed more than 120 million followers and 9.6 billion likes. And she did it simply by posting short choreographed dances in her (often untidy) bedroom.

Last year the high school student became the most popular creator on TikTok. And today, she has a clothing line, Social Tourist, with her sister Dixie, and with mum Heidi and dad Marc has signed on to have a reality crew follow them around for a series called The D’Amelio Show on Hulu.

Still, the reason for her fame eludes her, the bio on her TikTok account reading: “Don’t worry, I don’t get the hype either.”

Originally published as How to become a YouTube superstar: Aussie success stories reveal secrets