A lot of people forget that YouTube is a search engine, but it’s actually the second largest search engine behind their parent company, Google. YouTube has more than 2 Billion logged-in monthly users, which is probably an underreport of the actual numbers of people using the platform because you don’t need an account to use it. That’s a huge potential audience! This is a great opportunity for businesses to build brand awareness and new customers. Here are some tips on creating and growing your YouTube Channel for your business.
How To Create Your Channel From Scratch
Here’s a step by step on how to create your channel to get you to a good starting point:
Go to YouTube.com
Hit Sign In, you need to have a google account to create a channel
You may see a list of your Google accounts or, if you don’t have pre-existing accounts, you will see “Create an Account”
Choose the account you want to use or create a new account and use the “Manage My Business” option instead of “For Myself”. This allows you to sign into your YouTube account directly instead of using your Google account to sign into YouTube. You can make your name different on brand accounts as well.
Skip building your Google Business profile and go back to YouTube
Go to your channel icon and click “Create a Channel” and then “Get Started”
Choose “Custom Name” and put in the name you want your channel to be called
Now you have a channel and can use the icon in the upper right corner to get to it! Now that your channel exists, it’s time to make some tweaks so you get the most out of your channel set up
Upload your profile picture and banner (you can come back to this step later if you want)
This is important, use the icon to go into YouTube Studio
Click the “Settings” tab –> “Channel” –> “Feature Eligibility”. Verify your phone number. This allows you to use custom thumbnails, to post videos that are 15 minutes or longer, to livestream and to appeal content ID claims
Your basic account is now set up and you can customize and personalize it from here
Growing Your Channel
What’s your niche? If you run a business, then this will be pretty straight forward, just make videos about what you do. When it comes to building an audience on YouTube, there are 2 things that need to be a part of the equation: consistency and quality. It’s recommended to post 1 to 2 videos a week, consistency is huge for YouTube, even down to which days you consistently post. It’s really important to make a process that works for you to stay on schedule. Schedule out which days you will plan, film, edit, post and market your videos.
There are tons of YouTubers in every industry and niche, so the competition is fierce, but the good news is that there is always space for great content. Your videos need to grab and hold people’s attention otherwise there’s the possibility to get buried in the mass of other videos. This means that the title and thumbnail of each of your videos needs to be well and intentionally crafted. Don’t be afraid to change these even after a video has been uploaded to see if you can get a bump in your views. Once they click, you need to hold their attention with high quality content. If you provide value, people will notice, so make that your aim.
Some basic things about videos to make them look more professional:
Lighting is important for a professional look. Getting some basic lights can up your production value by a lot. There is a distinct YouTuber look that has a very bright subject & foreground (not blown out though), with a dimmer blurry background accented with colorful mood lights. You can choose to adopt this look, or go with something else, just make sure the look stays on brand.
Having a quick intro can up your production value. Even if it’s just a quick graphic of your logo, something to identify you as a pro while introducing the brand.
Editing, text effects, transitions and music can have a dramatic effect on how your videos come off.
Once you’ve uploaded, it’s time to market your video. Using SEO techniques can help your video get more traction. This includes using good keywords and tags and posting regularly to rank well in search. Once you rank well in search, your goal is to get your video to be suggested by YouTube on related videos. This comes down to a number of factors, including views, engagement and watch time.
A cool feature on YouTube is the ability to link your other socials to your channel. You just need to go into your account, click the “About” section and add the links to your Instagram, Facebook, etc. You will also want to advertise your new video on your other platforms as well.
After you’ve pushed your video and it’s been out for a little bit, keep an eye on the analytics. It’s important to get familiar with YouTube Studio, this is where you will be able to upload videos and see analytics. Make and short and long term goals that are realistic, specific and concrete and use KPI’s to see if you are reaching those goals.
From here just keep up the quality and consistency and your channel is sure to grow. Just remember that it takes time, getting 200k subscribers in a year is unlikely, but the interesting thing is that the bigger your channel gets the more quickly it will grow if you are making great content.
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