The desires to share knowledge and build personal brands are two of the most common attributes shared by young Vietnamese YouTubers.

However, their ambitions extend far beyond the world of social media.

Young YouTubers

Having graduated from Foreign Trade University, An Duy became an English teacher and began uploading instructional English videos to YouTube. 

His online TOEIC lessons soon went viral and the number of views skyrocketed. 

Now, Duy has turned his online teaching into a real-life gig by opening his own language center where he teaches throughout the week.

“[The students] might have come out of curiosity, but the quality is what keeps their interest,” said An Duy.

The true upside for Duy, however, is knowing that his success has relieved his mother of worrying that teaching might not provide a stable living.

So, how does the entrepreneur convince students to take his courses when he already offers so much material free online?

The answer lies is in the infinite spectrum of the English language.

“I believe that if I do my best on the Internet, people will trust me and come to study.

“Not everyone can learn by themselves.

“Another thing that makes me happy is the fact that a lot of my followers earn high TOEIC scores and send me letters showing their appreciation and also recommend my courses to their friends,” the proud English teacher shared.

Duy has uploaded almost 200 English teaching videos, and is currently working on vocabulary and English-related Question and Answer sessions where his viewers can post questions for him to answer.

The young English teacher is looking for more ways to increase the effectiveness of his online teaching, such as how to use colors to make it easier for the audience to follow as well as make the videos more creative and visually appealing.  

“I suppose it’s a common mindset to be ‘lazy’ and read English books, so I hope my videos will help these students”, said An Duy about his ambitions.

Boi Ngoc is seen in one of her piano sharing sessions. Photo: Supplied

Another outstanding YouTuber is Truong Doan Boi Ngoc. 

Ngoc’s YouTube channel - Boi Ngoc Piano - boasts over 42,000 followers eagerly awaiting the next upload of her simple piano lessons. 

Despite her success, the young pianist is eager to build her social media knowledge and recently attended a course on Internet marketing in Malaysia.

“The course was for young start-ups. I shared my story during Personal Branding session and many international students in the class were interested in my idea, especially students from Malaysia.

“Some of the participants admitted that they have never met a successful YouTube content creator in real life and wanted me to open seminar or workshop to share my experience,” said Ngoc.

Since then, Ngoc has held a variety of seminars and workshops in Malaysia for committed participants, including both a lawyer and a doctor with a love for cooking, eager to develop personal brands inspired by their passions.

Ambitions and beyond

Nguyen Ngoc Thuy Uyen, 29, is known for her YouTube channel Thuy Uyen Design Tutorials. 

Her two-year-old channel has already garnered over two million views from people eager to learn from her Photoshop tutorials.  

The 29-year-old YouTuber plans to expand her tutorials to cover Adobe Illustrator to honor her viewer’s requests. 

Fortunately, Uyen’s profession centers on Illustrator as well.

“I also plan to focus on career orientation videos because in the hiring process I find that a great number of students applying for graphic designer positions have aesthetically unpleasant CVs that don’t illustrate what they have learnt,” Thuy Uyen said.

Diep Bao Quoc Thai, owner of Microsoft MCSA/MCSE Learning Channel where he shares knowledge related to IT and telecommunication engineering, had an honest talk about his YouTube experience.

He says creating content on YouTube provides him with a proper income, but it is not the main reason why he continues developing content for his channel.

“A foreign school asked me to put English subtitles on my videos so that their hearing impaired students could learn from them. They were willing to pay the costs.

“At first I was a little doubtful because I didn’t have much time and wasn’t sure it’d be worth it. However, I later found a tool that makes adding subtitles quite easy. 

“I soon found that enabling more people to view my videos was quite meaningful,” said Quoc Thai.

YouTube supports online education content creators

Ha Lam Tu Quynh, public relations manager of Google Asia Pacific, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, citing YouTube’s statistics, that Vietnam currently has the second highest number of viewers in Asia, second to India.

Talking of the above-mentioned talents, Quynh said there are programs, such as YouTube’s Channel Consultation Program and YouTube Creator Community, to support them in the long-term.

The former program provides users with consultation in order to optimize three aspects -- content, number of viewers and the important evaluating criteria, whereas the latter is a forum for the young creators to connect, share their experience and communicate.

There is a group of professionals which focus only on learning and family partners. This team is in charge of supporting creators in terms of content that will develop their channel, analyze the information and identify strategic goals, according to Quynh.

Channels are awarded the Silver Play Button when they reach 100,000 followers and the Golden Play Button when they reach 1 million followers.