Starting a YouTube channel is a relatively new way to reach to your customers. Here are a few simple tips on where to begin if you’re a complete novice.
Create and Customize an Account
YouTube is part of Google ecosystem, so you will need to get an account with it. A common email rather than your personal one would be a reasonable idea. This way other team members or partners could get access to it.
Once getting it done, it is high time to turn it into a YouTube Brand Account. It lets you administer major features, such as issuing editing permissions. After you are signed in to your Google account, get to the menu. Here choose “Use a business or other name”. Now you can enter the name of your new Brand Account and save it. You can later update it, modify or change completely, so there is no need to spend a lot of time speculating about your choice when setting up an account.
Start customizing with getting your channel an icon and art. They are all-important because these are the first things users notice when encountering your channel. The images should be recognizable, convey the right meaning and match your branding.
Get an 800 x 800 px image for an icon and a 2560 x 1440 px shot for the art. This is what Google recommends officially, so you’d better trust. It stands to reason to have similar pics for all social networks your brand is represented in. So, a company logo fits perfectly.
Other features to add while customizing are a channel description, a corporate email, as well as other links, such as to the company website. If none, add a couple to social media your brand is present at.
A YouTube channel trailer is a bonus, which helps to interact with unsubscribed viewers and deliver your message to them. Make it short, with a time limit of up to 60 seconds. The trailer should give the channel’s summary, no more. Remember to encourage people to subscribe. The trailer is advert-free, which is good news. So the viewers will be more concentrated on what the content they see and decide if they want to see more of it.
Decide on your Content and Plan it
Here are the most popular types of videos.
- Product videos
It is a perfect way to showcase what you make or provide. Announce new products launches, highlight updates, compare and contrast goods, comment on the advantages, etc.
- How-to videos
A never failing type of content helping your fans to get familiar to your product and service. Walk your potential customers through your goods’ particular features. Start with something basic, then gradually progress to more sophisticated and not so obvious ways to use your products.
- Listicles
People adore lists. Now that everyone is so very busy, lists are a relief, because they require minor effort, are easy to read, watch or listen to, and immediately get the message across.
They may be educational, enlightening, or entertaining. Anyway, make sure they are always relevant to your subscribers’ interests and fit in well in your business niche.
- Interviews
Pick an expert or a blogger with a relevant background or a story to tell. The interview will give a fresh look on your brand. Plus, you can get additional traffic, since the interviewees are likely to have their channels and fans, too, and therefore are likely to promote your video there.
Remember to keep things varied so that your audience wants to come back. What is more, experimenting with different types of content will prove which ones work best and gather most views and collect more commentary. Have a look at more ideas on types of videos.
Planning your content will kill two birds with one stone. Whether it’s engaging, informative, motivational, it’s a must to keep your audience interested. Another tip is to get your content relevant, so that people can relate to it. This is a reliable tool to make them click, leave comments, subscribe and quote.
Second, it guarantees you keep to the chosen theme. Your subscribers expect a particular type of content from you, therefore make sure you stick to the point and deliver the content they open YouTube for.
Get the Right Equipment
The easiest and most obvious way to shoot videos is to use your smartphone. Though if you are after a high quality resolution, we recommend you spend a dollar or two on better devices. A professional, mirrorless or action camera, a monopod, a good mic and studio lightning is a list of basic equipment.
Reliable equipment is a must, but not sufficient. You must make the most out of your videos, so here is our next important tip.
Learn to Edit
There is a bunch of advanced software nowadays. The creators claim it is sure to turn your videos around and even fully transform them.
The bad news is, though, learning to operate this technical stuff takes a great deal of time, which you may not have or may not have a wish to dig deep into. We advise you to leave the complicated tools till the time you feel confident, and use some easy to use and approachable ones. This software will not make a Tarantino of you, but is sure to improve your content. Here is a complete list of top editor tools for beginners.
Optimize
One sure way to make your videos more visible to a wider audience is to make it visible for YouTube itself. The process is called optimization.
It falls into several steps. First, create a good title for each video you upload. Good means clear, understandable and informative. Once on your channel, the viewers must get an immediate idea of what it is about. The title should include one or two keywords that the viewers are likely to be on the lookout for.
Second, use tags. This way your video will fall under several categories and the search engine will automatically find it and offer it to viewers who are looking for particular topics. Learning to select relevant tags may be time-consuming, so at the outset it is ok to look at competitors and use their ideas.
Last, make a good description. Include up to 200 words, with the target keywords. When done correctly, it helps to move your video higher in the rank on search engine results pages.
For more official Google discovery optimisation tips look here.
Connect with the audience
High quality content that is both informative and interesting to watch is sure to win you followers with time. Remember, YouTube is a social network, so it is people behind avatars who can show their attitude to your brand and whatever you are doing with their digital reaction, such as leaving likes and comments.
Learn to interact with them at the outset. Find time to read and reply to comments, answer questions, like the jokes, reviews or any other messages they leave.
Post regularly
Be consistent as to how often you upload new content. In the era of infobesity it makes no sense to bombard your audience with a dozen of daily portions. But it is more than reasonable to decide on some sort of schedule. This is part of the ritual, moreover your followers should be ready for and even anticipating fresh content from you. If they know when to expect it, they are more likely to be there when it comes out.
It is a good idea to let the fans know when a new video is to be released. This way you will get more loyalty, as well as a steady flow of views.
The schedule you decide on should be convenient for you first thing. Otherwise you will fail to be consistent with uploads. It’s all-important to stick to the time-table if you announced it or promised it to your fans.
Start with the above set of simple steps and put all doubts and fears aside! Treat YouTube as just another way to say hello to a wide range of people and share with them the best your brand can make.
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