Pakistan: why health-focused YouTube channels stayed popular in 2024?

ISLAMABAD: Recently, when the wedding videos of Rajab Butt, a well-known YouTuber in Pakistan, went viral on social media, people were stunned to see the lavish dishes, asking how much a YouTuber earns monthly.

According to experts who keep a keen eye on digital media, a good YouTuber earns up to Rs4 million per month. However, this earning depends on the amount of money received by YouTubers through ads and views on their YouTube channels.

On the other hand, YouTube has released a list containing the names of 10 top Pakistani YouTubers whose videos have attracted the most viewers this year.

This list mostly consists of channels that are creating and showing content that caters to the whole family.

There are one or two YouTube channels in this list that also broadcast health or entertainment related content.

One such channel included in this list is that of Dr Imtiaz Ahmed who creates health-related content.

In an interview with the BBC Urdu, Dr Imtiaz Ahmed, a radiology and endovascular surgeon by profession, said that he started the YouTube channel in 2017 with the help of his son.

Also read: Youtuber Zara Dar quits PhD to become adult content creator

According to Dr Imtiaz, he has been associated with the health sector for the past 20 years and currently has more than 1.3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.

He said, “Often we have to convert the texts into videos for medical conferences and teaching students.” One day I asked my son Ali, who was in the seventh grade at that time, how a voice over is done. That day for the first time he taught me to do that. Afterward, he added a music track to the video and uploaded it to YouTube.”

He said that his journey on YouTube started on the same day with the aim of educating women about their health.

“I first started telling women that they should get their uterus treated rather than having it removed because it is an important part of their body.”

He further said that “very often, 18 to 20-year-old girls visit him saying that their doctor has advised them to remove the uterus.”

“Then there are also girls who are childless and in our society women are often hold responsible for childlessness. But when we say that your husband needs to be tested, it means that the problem is in their husband. I work on stuff that doctors don’t tell you much about, or that it’s considered a taboo to talk about.”

Dr Imtiaz said that he was happy to see that his YouTube channel was raising awareness among women and that women from Siachen, Mastung, interior Sindh, Punjab and even remote areas were coming to him for treatment.

WHAT KIND OF CONTENT POPULAR ON YOUTUBE IN PAKISTAN?

Mehtab Aslam, a digital media expert, while talking to the BBC Urdu, said that ‘at present, most YouTube channels in Pakistan showcase their daily life and family life.

“I think the main reason why such a channel gets so many views is because people relate their lives with the lives of those seen in the video, the content plays out like episodes of a drama.”

Mehtab Aslam said that the popularity of “Family Vloggers” has grown so much in recent years that people gather around them when they see them, asking them, ‘What would should they do to ran a YouTube channel?”

He said that ‘to this question, I have only one answer that at the moment YouTube pays more attention to the quantity of videos than the quality of the videos.

“If you’re uploading videos daily and at the right time according to the time of your country, when most people are on social media, any channel you open will work.”

HOW CAN YOU BECOME A SUCCESSFUL YOUTUBER?

Discussing the YouTube industry, Mehtab Aslam acknowledged that some individuals on social media resort to hiring companies to generate fake views. These companies often use tactics such as simultaneously running a video on hundreds of devices — 200 or 300 mobile phones immediately after a video is uploaded —to artificially boost view counts from the outset.

If this happens, Instagram and other social media apps start promoting your video automatically. By that means, more people watch your videos and thus the reach of your channel increases.

CAN YOUR VIDEOS STILL GO VIRAL IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HIRE A COMPANY?

In response to this question, Mehtab Aslam said that ‘Nowadays, one way is to make long videos for YouTube and then cut the most interesting part of the video and put it on Instagram and Facebook, along with your  YouTube channel link.

“By seeing these reels and chunks, people will come to watch your longer videos and thus you can increase your followers and earn money.”

He added that it is also important to manage social media accounts or YouTube channel well.

“Whenever you upload any content on your YouTube channel, use viral hashtags and good taglines, thumbnails so that people can be attracted to your video.”