Today, Google reveals—for the first time ever—just how much dough YouTube actually rakes in. Plus, a detailed report of the modern social networker. And finally, always have your own back: How you should be negotiating your way to the best-fit situation.

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YouTube's revenue revealed

We recently came across an article on the Verge that fully caught our attention. The headline: YouTube is a $15 billion-a-year business. 

Pretty wild, considering we’ve never before known how much money YouTube actually brings in. And apparently YouTube has generated nearly $5 billion in just the last three months.

Google says YouTube saw $15 billion in annual revenue last year and contributed roughly 10% to Google’s revenue in its entirety. To put it into perspective, those figures make YouTube’s ad business nearly one fifth the size of Facebook’s, and more than six times that of Amazon-owned Twitch.

Google also reports YouTube’s subscriber numbers at more than 20 million across its Premium (ad-free YouTube) and Music Premium offerings, as well as more than 2 million subscribers to its paid TV service.

Alphabet Inc.—Google’s parent company—says revenue from those products is bundled into the “other” category (think phones and speakers), which made $5.3 billion last quarter, making it difficult to gauge the specific performance of any single product bundled under that category.

We know pricing tends to become a bigger challenge as companies grow. Companies with lots of products sold at different price points, different customer tiers, or complex product bundles, tend to see the greatest benefits from analysis.

As a company bundling multiple products, analyzing which features motivate the customer to buy will be crucial for YouTube to establish how it packages and bundles each pricing tier accordingly, and capture the most value for that section of the market.

Although it looks like they’re already nailing it in this space—if you’re curious about more on bundling, here are some pricing resources you can run through:

• • Why you can't afford to overlook optimizing your pricing
  • Pricing analytics: definition, metrics, and why you need analytics for your pricing

Inside the mind of a modern social networker

We know well that shopping has expanded beyond its traditional role, as consumers become more attentive to the implications of their consumerism—socially, economically, and ethically.

In a similar realm, today’s social networker is doing just the same, claims the crew over at globalwebindex. 

So their team is offering a detailed account of these issues, with a social media report outlining recent and crucial developments in online social behaviors, useful to anyone wishing to capture the attention and loyalty of today’s switched-on social networker. 

Here's what's up.

Social networkers are more attuned to ideas of digital well-being: Nearly all of today’s digital consumers (97%) are social media users, which means that the two terms are now virtually interchangeable. And 31% of those users use social for researching products. This indicates that an expansion in the number of tasks we carry out on social media doesn’t equate to higher consumption levels; but rather increased moderation relative to our “social” activities, which alters the nature of the story.

Social users are more concerned over personal privacy.

Globalwebindex’s data shows that a predictor of privacy-related anxieties is: usage. While these concerns are nothing new, users are growing more wary as society becomes increasingly data-driven, and as the media reiterates the worth of their personal information.

Social networkers are more mindful about their social footprint.

Simply put, sharing on social media is declining. Compared to 2015, those considered "heavy" social media users are now 20% less likely to use social to share their opinion.

So what does all this mean for us?

Revealing social media literacy to be at its highest point to date, shows that today’s switched-on social networker wants to be spoken to in the most open and transparent way possible. Here's globalwebindex’s report, “Connecting the dots: 2020 trends,” for you to check out in full. Because if we don’t educate ourselves and subsequently our potential users, someone else will.

Negotiating the best fit for both sides

We’re eyeing the “8 tips for better negotiation” that Product Manager and Software Engineer Matt Andrews outlined in a recent piece. Because no matter the stage of your career, negotiation stays relevant. And since the SaaS market is becoming increasingly competitive, it’s imperative now more than ever to be able to prove your spot in this space.

Too often, we refer to negotiation attempts as “tactics,” when in reality, it’s a simple set of skills that can be whittled down to better communication. In any scenario, negotiating what you know you deserve is critical to your success, ultimately bettering any operation as a whole.  

Here are a few that Matt points out.

Preparation

The more you prepare, the stronger your negotiating position. Make sure you’ve concretely answered the following to yourself before entering negotiations:

About you: What are your goals? How are they prioritized?

About the other side: What do you think their goals are? How do you think they prioritize them?

About the situation: Are there deadlines? Which side is under more pressure to conclude negotiations quickly?

Don’t make cash your (only) king.

Don’t focus on headline figures alone. In job seeking, companies are structured to have multiple budgets, and salary pulls only from one. Don’t dismiss this as spare change. Extras can be significant (think: personal development, travel opps, team size).

Treat the other side as your equal, not your enemy.

Respect that each side needs to prioritize its own interests, but that you also have common interests: namely getting to a deal. A good negotiation should not lead to a win-lose, it should be win-win.

There is a lot more where this came from, so check out the full piece linked here. Be sure to let us know what you do to approach negotiation. Because we’re all in this together, aren’t we?

There you have it, your February 13 subscription news. Tomorrow, we’ll wrap the week with more.

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