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The Social Media Newbie – Part 5 – YouTube

Posted on April 4, 2024March 23, 2024 by Angie Weinberger

Guest Post by Nabeha Latif, Social Media Guru

If you’ve got all your social media covered, why leave out YouTube? If you haven’t gotten around to capitalizing on the video platform’s huge audience, now is better than ever! When it comes to numbers, YouTube is hitting it out of the park! With around 500 hours worth of video content uploaded every minute, no wonder, it ranks No. 2 for global and domestic web traffic globally.

In the current era of media consumption and content consumption, whether it’s education, entertainment, or news updates, YouTube has a vast variety for it all. With the whole social trend gradually moving towards video-based content on almost all platforms, YouTube is in the spotlight. Surely you’re familiar with the homepage for your own video consumption on the site, however, there’s a lot more that goes into a video from the back-end to market and get your content out to the right audience. Here’s all you need to know to get your business running on YouTube.

YouTube for business

Although you can view videos without having to sign in, but for uploading and interacting, as with any other site, you’ll need to sign-up/register your Company/Business to get started. Here’s a quick rundown of the process.

Sign-Up with your Business: If you use Gmail for your business email, you’ll use the same username and password for your YouTube account that you use for Gmail. Alternatively, you can create a new Google account that you use solely for YouTube business purposes.

Enter the Homepage: Here you can double-check if you’re in the company account or your personal one.

Open your profile (click on the avatar): You’ll find this in the top right corner. It’s a small circle containing your picture, logo, or a default letter.

Select your channel: Click your avatar and select the channel from the drop-down menu.

Select Business or another name: You’ll need to select this option to get started with a business YouTube account. You can then enter your company’s name.

And click create: Done! That’s all you need to do.

Once completed, head back to your homepage to proceed with the setup. At the top left, you’ll see three thin lines, which drop down a menu when clicked. This menu contains a host of options, such as a homepage, trending videos, your library, and your subscriptions.

On the other side, on the top right, you have much more going on. You’ll see four buttons, a camera that lets you upload your next video, a set of mini squares that open up YouTube apps, a bubble-shaped message icon, and a bell icon for all your account notifications. The account photo or avatar, as mentioned, will guide you to your account information and settings.

Channel Customization

That’s all the basic setup you need to start pushing out videos, but not necessarily the best way it can be done! Make your channel, your very own by customizing it according to your brand to get the most out of your content and brand image.

Here are a few things you’ll need to shine the creative light on:

Channel Art: Channel art mainly refers to the top banner, similar to that of Facebook and Twitter. A solid place to add a quick tagline and logo for your brand. And on the topic of similarities between Facebook and Twitter, the YouTube icon is similar to that of a profile picture, so uploading your logo is the best bet!

Here are the dimensions for both:
Banner: 2560 x 1440 pixels (For mobile devices and a safer bet 1546 x 423 pixels)
Icon: 800 x 800 pixels (displays as 98 x 98)

Business Info: It’s essential to share data about your business, its offerings, etc. You can do this in the About segment of your YouTube account while adding your website along with your company’s slogan.

Begin with your About segment’s channel description. Keep it short and sweet: You simply need a compact statement of purpose with all things considered three links and a minor source of inspiration. Then, at that point, look down to the “email for business requests” box and put the fitting email address there.

In the last segment, you can add anything links you need: your business website, your other online media pages, and some other web pages to which you need to coordinate your watchers. The more links you have, the higher your possibilities of directing people to your business website and drawing in your YouTube watchers. The maximum is 30!

Channel Trailer: While optional, a channel trailer is a brief video that introduces viewers to the content they’ll find on your YouTube channel. It is an excellent customization option to increase YouTube viewer engagement. Once you add this trailer, it will appear on your account’s homepage when viewers visit, helping to reel them in and acquaint them with your brand.

Engaging with users

After all, YouTube is a social platform so its best to keep updated on your content consumers, here are the options you can choose from:

Comments: You can boost your video’s engagement by responding to users who comment on your videos. You can sort them by newest/oldest or most popular.

Likes: Optional to showcase on your channel, but a more public and passive form of response from the audience.

Subscriptions: To help get your content out to the users so they stay up to date. Every time you upload a new video, your subscribers receive a push notification. You should constantly encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel, as it improves your engagement and increases the number of views.

Sharing: The site’s social widget allows users to share videos on other social media networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Blogger, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Messages: Respond to your friends and queries, You can also share private videos and messages with friends and contacts on YouTube.

Playlists: You can organize related content together using the site’s playlist feature. This is another way to organize your own content on your channel and help users watch content of a similar type with an easy click.

Verification: Let your audience know that your channel is the real deal from the sea of accounts and users. Much like other platforms, you’ll see a small checkbox, which indicates a verification badge next to the channel’s name. To apply for verification, your channel must have 100,000 subscribers. Contact Google if you’re a business and help them verify it’s you before the milestone requirement.

Going Live!

All social platforms like Facebook and Instagram have the option to stream live content to talk to or just showcase a trailer for example. Similarly, YouTube works all the same. Your account does need to be verified for live videos on YouTube though. Once your account is ready, then going live has four ways on YouTube. The first, which is the quickest, is the Stream Now option. The second is through the Events tab, which gives you more control because you can preview your stream ahead of time. The third option is found on the site’s mobile app; if you use this, the stream will later be archived on your channel. Lastly, you can stream from your computer’s webcam.

Influencers

Famous people and channels gain a substantial amount of traction and views with each upload, mostly and primarily found pushing video content out on the platform. With each market and genre, you’ll have a host of content creators for the big, the small, and even very particular hybrid niches! Many influencers have corporate sponsorships. These sponsors send influencers their products to mention or use in their videos. Often, YouTubers will verbally mention the sponsor company and how awesome its product is. Connecting with influencers to establish partnership deals can elevate your brand on YouTube, helping you reach more viewers and legitimize your channel.

Advertising

And now we come to a more direct form of content marketing, advertising your videos to your desired audience to grab and hook them to your channel! Although most YouTubers and channels have gained success from the free atmosphere of the platform, companies and organizations can get their ads in! Since the site is based on video content, companies are encouraged to add a call-to-action link directing viewers to their website following the video.

There are 4 options when it comes to YouTube ads and placements:

In-stream ads, which play before, during, or after other videos can be skipped after 5 seconds. You’ll be charged when 30 seconds of the video is watched.
Discovery ads appear when a user is searching or browsing content on YouTube or across the web. This content has no limit! You’ll be charged based on clicks.
Bumper ads are six seconds or less, and users can’t skip these. Ads like these can appear throughout the video. You’ll be charged for these ads based on cost per thousand impressions, or CPM.
Paid advertisements on YouTube can help you monetize your video content by giving your audience an easy way to buy your products and services.

YouTube Premium

YouTube Premium or previously called YouTube Red, is a paid subscription version of YouTube, which starts from $11.99 ($12 realistically). This allows for a seamless experience with extra perks such as no ads whatsoever and the ability to download videos for offline play. Remember that videos are ad-free with this subscription. At the end of the day, though, YouTube Premium could hurt your business, because the premium services take users away from in-stream advertisements.

Tips

Now that you’re familiar with YouTube and how you can promote your business, here are a few extra tips to keep you above the crowd:

Ask and motivate your users to subscribe to your channel, no harm in asking (nicely)!
Get traffic from other platforms onto your video, by sharing it with more of the crowd.
Use of keywords, hashtags, and trending phrases to stand out with SEO.
Get social and mingle with similar content creators to learn and also attract more relevant people!
Make custom playlists for your channel, especially if you have a series going.
Regular and timely uploads!
Use links to more of your content, and links within your videos.
Work with trending and high-profile influencers for product placements, reviews, and collaborations.
YouTube really is inspired by other platforms, so get onto YouTube stories as well.
To get the crowd going, how about arranging a giveaway or a contest to get the “hype train” going?

Request: Please follow angieweinberger on Youtube.

The Social Media Newbie Series – Part 1 LinkedIn

https://globalpeopletransitions.com/the-social-media-newbie-series-part-2/

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