A 6-year-old YouTube star is making an estimated $18 million a year. We talked to the company behind her global strategy.
- Entertainment company and global YouTube multi-channel network Yoola takes YouTube creators like 6-year-old Anastasia Radzinskaya and turns their channels into business empires.
- Radzinskaya's YouTube business generated $18 million in a single year, according to Forbes in its most recent report on YouTuber earnings.
- Yoola has helped its creators like Radzinskaya develop, distribute, and make money from their video content.
- Radzinskaya runs nine global YouTube channels, four of which have over 10 million subscribers.
- Eyal Baumel, the CEO of Yoola, broke down the company's global strategy and how it turned Radzinskaya into a one of the world's fast-growing YouTube creators.
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The 6-year-old internet star Anastasia Radzinskaya is a worldwide phenomenon and has become one of YouTube's fastest-growing creators thanks to a global, multilingual strategy.
Radzinskaya owns four diamond play buttons, a plaque YouTube sends to creators once they hit 10 million subscribers on a single YouTube channel.
Her YouTube business generated $18 million in a single year, according to Forbes, which put her in the No. 3 spot on its most recent report on the top-earning YouTubers.
Radzinskaya is a part of a group of YouTube creators who have found success on the platform by developing global content. For instance, Yovana Mendoza, a food and lifestyle vlogger, has multiple YouTube channels and a dedicated Spanish-speaking channel with 2 million subscribers. Other channels, like Ryan's World - which makes an estimated $26 million a year, per Forbes - have begun expanding. In October, Ryan's World announced the launch of a new channel for Spanish-speaking viewers called "Ryan's World Español."
Radzinskaya - who was born in Russia but moved to the US with her family a year ago - speaks several languages like Russian, English, and Spanish (and is learning more).
With the help of entertainment company and global YouTube multi-channel network Yoola, Radzinskaya has expanded her digital business to nine multilingual channels, like "Stacy Toys" (English) with 25.4 million subscribers; "Like Nastya Vlog," with 46.8 million subscribers (Russian); and "Like Nastya" with 15.5 million subscribers (a mix of English and Russian).
Eyal Baumel, the CEO of Yoola, spoke with Business Insider about how the company takes a self-produced YouTube channel like Radzinskaya's and turns it into global success.
Some YouTube formats are better than others for a global strategy
Before bringing on Radzinskaya, Yoola (which is based in Los Angeles but serves a large market in Russia) created several multilingual YouTube channels for the other creators it worked with, starting with English, German, and Russian, according to Baumel.
The company decided to apply that same strategy to Radzinskaya's YouTube business after noticing how fast these multilingual channels were growing.
Radzinskaya was a perfect candidate for this strategy because she already spoke both English and Russian, and was learning more (like Spanish).
"We believe that if you localize content, you can expand your audience," Baumel said. "We started working with talent to create different channels with similar content just in different languages that also take into consideration the different culture and languages."
Radzinskaya's videos, which are typically under 10 minutes long, feature her playing with toys or acting out scripted skits (that her mom writes) at home alongside her dad.
Baumel said that using different languages and localized content doesn't work for every creator, but that some formats travel very well, like kids content, DIY content, and life hacks.
The Radzinskaya family keeps a strict schedule and only films on weekends
Between Radzinskaya's school, homework, time with friends, and extra curriculars (like piano lessons and learning to speak more languages), the family had to develop a strict filming schedule, which keeps them on track with uploads.
They try to publish a video around three to four times a week to YouTube, and only film on the weekends, according to Baumel.
"The way the YouTube algorithm works, is that if you publish more videos a week you have a better chance of being featured or suggested," he said. "It's better to publish more videos than less. I would say to really be consistent, you need to publish two to three times a week."
Yoola works to help its YouTube clients create story arcs, crafting each YouTube video with a clear beginning, middle, and end, he said.
Radzinskaya's mom will typically create the skits for the videos, often bouncing ideas off her, Baumel said. Besides Yoola, Radzinskaya's team consists of her, her two parents, and two video editors.
Turning down brand deals and leaning into consumer products
Yoola signed the Radzinskaya family about two years ago, Baumel said.
Since then, it has worked with the family in developing consumer products, traditional media opportunities, apps, and strategic partnerships.
The Radzinskaya family has only promoted two companies across its YouTube channels over the past 12 months: Dannon and LegoLand. The family is pitched partnerships constantly, but turns down many offers.
Instead, the family is looking to grow its business in-house and develop its own brand around Anastasia.
Yoola has a ventures arm where it both invests in and assists creators in developing consumer products. The company's latest venture is a wellness brand and energy drink, cofounded with actor Ian Somerhalder.
Developing consumer products to sell directly to followers has become one of the top ways influencers are profiting off their digital brands.
The world's top-earning YouTube star, 8-year-old Ryan Kaji, who is know for his channel Ryan's World (23.7 million subscribers), built a lucrative empire off YouTube by developing partnerships with Walmart and Amazon, and by selling consumer products with Ryan's World branding.
'YouTube is the most consistant platform'
Building a business away from YouTube's platform is one of the ways popular kids-entertainment channels are protecting themselves from YouTube's changing policies.
In January, YouTube implemented an overhaul of its policies surrounding children's content, after its parent company Google paid $170 million to settle the Federal Trade Commission's allegations that the site had violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from kids under 13 years old without parental consent.
COOPA changed the way advertisers buy ads on YouTube, but for now they are still able to purchase ads which play on a kids-focused channel, according to Baumel.
As an MCN, Yoola is partnered with YouTube, and the company has a team at YouTube they communicate with when these changes arise.
"The smart way is to diversify your revenue sources," Baumel said. "But still, YouTube is the most consistant platform, in terms of revenue. You might have a drop, but you can still make a living off YouTube ads and they pay well to creators with a large audience."
For more on the business of YouTube influencers, check out these Business Insider Prime posts:
- Meet the company that turned YouTube's Ryan ToysReview into a business empire making tens of millions per year: Kerry Tucker, the chief marketing officer at Pocket.Watch, spoke with Business Insider about how the kids-entertainment company takes YouTube stars like Kaji and turns their online brands into lucrative empires.
- Inside the toy business of YouTube star Ryan ToysReview: We spoke with Deborah Stallings Stumm, the senior vice president of sales and marketing at the toy-manufacturing company Bonkers Toys, on what makes a successful partnership between a toy company and an influencer.
- The queen of DIY on YouTube, LaurDIY, tells us how she built her business empire - from search to merch to a new HBO show: Lauren Riihimaki shared her journey on YouTube, which started during her first year of college, and how she's expanded her digital brand.