- Amanda Ramirez, a college senior, runs the YouTube channel Amanda Monroe, which has 32,000 subscribers.
- She is part of a trend of YouTubers becoming famous for sharing their college experiences — especially their move-in videos, which can rack up millions of views.
- Ramirez told Business Insider that her most popular YouTube video is a college move-in vlog in which she toured the sorority house she was moving into at the University of Arizona. It has 828,000 views.
- The video has earned her $4,800 in revenue from Google-placed ads, according to a screenshot viewed by Business Insider.
- Ramirez said she earns money from her YouTube business through the ads that play in her videos, sponsorships, and affiliate links.
- Subscribe to Business Insider’s influencer newsletter: Influencer Dashboard.
When she’s not in class, college senior Amanda Ramirez is filming videos for her YouTube channel Amanda Monroe, which has 32,000 subscribers.
Ramirez is part of a trend of YouTubers becoming famous for sharing their college experiences — especially their move-in videos, which can rack up millions of views.
Margot Lee, a Syracuse student with 438,000 YouTube subscribers, even taught an informal pop-up class on becoming a professional influencer to her classmates (and shared her slides with Business Insider).
Ramirez started her YouTube channel in 2016 and now posts videos about her college experience, fashion, and beauty. She treats her YouTube channel like a part-time job and is able to earn money off her videos with Google-placed ads, sponsorships, and affiliate links.
Her most popular YouTube video is a college-move-in vlog in which she toured the sorority house she would be living in at the University of Arizona. It has 828,000 views. The video helped her channel grow, she said, gaining her 7,000 new subscribers.
“I was surprised but also not at the same time because I knew that those are the types of videos that I like watching, especially a sorority-house move in,” she told Business Insider. “I didn’t expect it to do as well as it did, but it helped a lot.”
The video has made over $4,800 from Google-placed ads, according to a screenshot viewed by Business Insider.
Similar creators on YouTube, like the Harvard influencer Sienna Santer (395,000 subscribers), have had success posting college-related vlogs. Santer posted a college-move-in video in 2018 that now has over 6 million views, she told Business Insider in November.
‘The videos that I would make about college were the videos that were getting the most attention’
Ramirez first began watching YouTube videos in middle school and started to look up to other female creators.
She launched a channel at the end of 2016 during her senior year of high school after receiving a laptop for college.
“I posted videos that I would want to watch, and I noticed that the videos that I would make about college were the videos that were getting the most attention from people,” she said. “From then on, I started to make more college content, and that’s when my channel started to get a lot more views.”
She shifted to a college-lifestyle channel, and within her second year on YouTube, she started to earn money.
“I started noticing that the amount of money I was making on YouTube over the summer was the same amount I was making at my summer job the previous year,” she said. “That’s when I realized I could make this into a job.”
Now Ramirez earns money from her YouTube business through ads that play in her videos, sponsorships, and affiliate links.
In May, her YouTube channel earned $554 from Google-placed ads, according to a screenshot viewed by Business Insider, and $703 in April.
She finds time to make videos on the weekends, she said, and films “week in my life” videos when she’s at school.
Ramirez is home from college because of the pandemic. But even while at home, she is dedicated to posting college-related videos. She’s uploaded content on her morning routine and “college must-have” videos recommending what to buy for a dorm room.
She said the pandemic hasn’t affected her business much, but since being stuck at home, she has had more time to create videos, posting about three a week to her channel.
But what about when college ends?
Ramirez is studying elementary education, and she hopes to continue posting on YouTube after college by documenting her life as a teacher, she said.
For more on the business of YouTube creators and influencers, check out these posts:
- How much money YouTube pays for 1 million views, according to 5 creators: YouTube’s Partner Program allows influencers to earn money off their channels by placing ads within videos.
- 5 YouTube creators break down their monthly incomes from the platform: YouTube creators are paid out monthly, and Business Insider spoke with five influencers who broke down how much they had earned in a month from the platform.
How to get in contact with top influencers using Instagram direct messages, according to a CEO who has landed clients like TikTok star Addison Rae with a simple DM: Unlike LinkedIn or Twitter, on Instagram users can direct message anyone – no matter how famous they are.
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