In This Chapter
YouTube is a truly massive online community with over 6 million hours of video watched each month, where millions of new subscribers are added each day, and where a significant proportion of subscribers (both new and old) not only engage with YouTube creators but also frequently take some sort of action while on YouTube, such as buying a product. With so much content to choose from, you need to be authentic, well organized, and consistently active for your channel to attract a growing fan base. Effective planning and a continual review against your goals is critical to success on YouTube. Fortunately, getting your plan together is straightforward, but your goals need to be measured and adjusted on an ongoing basis.
Proper planning is about looking at the big picture first and then working your way through the details in a methodical way. YouTube audiences know the difference between great channels and mediocre ones because the best ones are always well planned. Planning makes all your other YouTube and marketing activities more efficient. You may feel the need to rush out and produce some videos, but you'll be better served — and get better results — if you step back and think about how audiences, channels, and content all come together. This chapter is about planning your YouTube strategy.
Go back to the basics if your existing channel isn't attracting or engaging viewers. Effective planning isn't only about creating new YouTube channels and uploading more videos — it's also about laying the groundwork for some cool marketing strategies. Fortunately, planning ahead goes a long way toward getting your present channel moving and your audience excited about your work. Don't be surprised if some of your viewers want to collaborate and offer to help you out.
Your YouTube channel is a great way for you to present yourself and your brand to an audience (that's potentially massive). You may balk at considering yourself a “brand,” but we're here to tell you that it doesn't matter whether you're an independent creator, a Fortune 500 company, a cutting-edge digital agency, or a local business — every organization and YouTube creator has its own brand, whether they know it or not. Your brand value is tied to its uniqueness and how it appeals to your viewers. That's why YouTube is so important and effective for showing what you or your company represent, far better than words can ever do.
Successful YouTube strategies incorporate a channel presence well beyond simply uploading your videos for free. Your channel is a place where viewers should come regularly to discover and consume content. This is an opportunity to grow, engage, and inspire communities of passion.
Upon arriving on your YouTube channel, viewers should quickly understand what you and your channel are all about. The success of your channel is tied to making your brand and channel mission resonate loud and clear. Khan Academy, shown in Figure 5-1, is an excellent example of YouTube integration with its brand. Visit the channel at www.youtube.com/khanacademy to see a live example of a YouTube channel with a clear mission.
If you have other online properties, such as a website, Facebook page, or Twitter account, make sure your YouTube channel has consistent branding and messaging that aligns with all your social networks and websites. Viewers commonly move across these properties as they engage with you, so your mission must be unified and clear.
Your YouTube channel showcases something you're passionate about. What drives you to create a YouTube channel and content isn't so different from what motivates you to do other things in life, such as
The reason that YouTube is such a great place for you to share your passion is because video is a supremely effective medium for getting your audience to engage with you. Learn to put that medium to use for you.
Though building your channel is one major goal, you'll likely have additional goals. Here are some other reasons for creating your YouTube channel and the content it contains:
Many forms of entertainment are highly subjective, so be sure to tailor your content so that it connects with the specific audience you're trying to reach.
Don't quit your day job — at least not yet. Making money from YouTube takes time, creativity, and persistence. Even the best-laid plans can't guarantee results if you don't (or your content doesn't) resonate with your target audience. Don't fret: Your YouTube channel may be a nice source of supplemental income, eventually.
Don't feel that you have to keep your goals separate. Michael Stevens' popular Vsauce channel (www.youtube.com/Vsauce) does a great job of combining educational goals with entertainment to keep his audience (almost 8 million subscribers) coming back for more.
Embrace discoverability
At the end of the day, YouTube is about one thing: getting people to watch your content. Simple, right? In theory, yes, but your challenge is to help viewers find your channel and your content. That's what discoverability is all about: placing your content in front of the right viewers so that they can watch. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn't share the secret sauce for getting found, but you can help improve the odds of your videos showing up in YouTube and Google Search as well as in Suggested Videos on the Watch page. What can you do in the planning phase for aiding discoverability? Make watch time an important goal.
Watch time is one of the most important factors that trigger YouTube to put your content in front of viewers. In 2012, YouTube made watch time more important to discoverability than the number of views the video received. So what exactly is watch time? In its simplest form, watch time is the total amount of time viewers spend watching your videos. People who watch your content are telling YouTube, “Hey, this is important stuff; make sure similar viewers know.”
Watch time doesn't indicate whether your viewers watch the entire video (although that's a good thing, too) — it indicates that a relatively high percentage of the video is being viewed. How much? Again, YouTube isn't specific. Note that it doesn't matter whether your videos are short or long; what's important is that viewers are engaged. The secret is to make legitimately good content. Good content increases watch time, which increases discoverability.
Creating viral videos shouldn't be your goal. Betting your YouTube strategy on producing viral videos is like betting your entire retirement savings on winning the lottery. Attain your goals through proper planning and execution, not through chance.
YouTube has over 1 billion unique visitors every month, and this number continues to grow. Now, that might sound intimidating, as in “How can I get anyone to notice me?” but our advice to you is to jump right in. The trick is that, you simply have to be different enough and interesting enough for people to care. Your content (or the content of those videos you choose to curate) must connect with your audience while tying into your brand. In an increasingly congested space, you need to be authentic to establish credibility and aid discoverability.
Yes, it's possible to make a little money in the YouTube world by hiring yourself out as a spokesperson for a third party, but being a paid spokesperson is a risky strategy. You'll find that your YouTube audience is rather astute and will quickly weed out channels that lack authenticity from their subscriptions and playlists. If you get paid to include product placements in your videos, be sure to notify YouTube when updating your monetization settings. You must follow all of YouTube's ad policies if you're paid to include product placement in your editorial content. For more on monetization settings, see Chapter 14.
Your channel-planning blueprint must include a clear understanding of the community you're aiming to reach. Ask yourself these questions:
The YouTube community is quite collaborative, especially among better channels and viewers. If you're in a competitive market, your audience will provide a competitive advantage by promoting your channel and making content recommendations. If you have a product or service, don't be surprised if your audience gives you feedback on that as well.
With more than 100 hours of video now being uploaded to YouTube every minute, you'll realize that you'll have to search through, watch, and analyze a good deal of content so that you can determine whether your YouTube strategy is sound. YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, so take a reasoned and disciplined approach to determine where you fit — or where your organization fits.
We recommend visiting comparable channels, watching their videos, and then exploring the video recommendations to determine whether your channel will be unique enough to build a following. You can use YouTube Search to track down the competition, or you can try one of the specialized tools recently made available, such as Pixability's Video Marketing Software (www.pixability.com).
YouTube provides some valuable options to discover content that is important to your target audience or relevant to your discovery. Working directly from the YouTube search bar can be helpful; anytime you begin typing a search query into YouTube, you see a list of possible search results displayed; these are the high-volume searches that YouTube feels may be relevant to your current query.
YouTube's basic search feature is a good tool to use if you want to gauge whether you're creating content that is in high demand. Using the advanced search filters, however, is much more efficient if what you want to do is find specific channels and videos. Figure 5-2 shows an Advanced Search Filter query for the term monster trucks. (Note that it has nearly 1.2 million relevant videos — who knew?)
Mobile YouTube viewing and mobile search must be significant parts of your channel strategy. Understand that not all mobile apps have complete functionality, including the advanced search filters referenced.
Be sure to look at recommended videos under the What to Watch section of the guide we describe in Chapter 2. Your previous viewing and search patterns influence what shows up under your recommendations, so you may see a blend of content from different searches, both professional and personal.
Just as independent software tools, such as Adobe Creative Suite and Apple Final Cut, are important to the video production process, new independent tools, including Pixability (www.pixability.com) and Tubular Labs (www.tubularlabs.com), are quite valuable to the channel discovery process on YouTube. These third-party products often combine YouTube data with information from social media sources, to offer a more granular analysis of important channels, demographic information about your targeted fan base, and a detailed look at what your audience watches and shares. Figure 5-3 shows the critical channels around a specific topic base.
Your channel's success is linked to how well you know your audience. In Part III of this book, you can find out all about building your audience and determining whether they're finding and hanging out on your channel. Your core audience on YouTube is a community of passionate individuals who collectively care deeply about a specific subject.
To be truly effective on YouTube and get your audience to engage, you need to share their passion and be creative enough with your content, channel, and social interaction that your commitment comes through loud and clear to them. Your goals are to be either part of the community proper or an expert who provides value to the community.
Sharing your passions most effectively often means focusing on your niche. Many aspiring YouTubers feel that going after the largest audience possible to start with is the clearest path to success. Not necessarily. In fact, we want you to consider a few factors that may make you reconsider your plans to try for the broadest audience possible:
Start off being the big fish in the small pond, and choose a specific topic space carefully. Your channel and your content will be more discoverable and increase the likelihood of connecting with both key influencers and the fan base.
Treat your audience as an adjunct to your marketing department, public relations firm, sales organization, and design group.
The right audience will
Defining your target audience as precisely as possible is an important component of channel success. A target audience of “15- to 55-year-old men” is far too broad. Add a layer of detail to define a more targeted audience — for example “people who like cooking” is a much more defined audience.
If you haven't yet thought about your online audience, we recommend Video Marketing For Dummies, by Kevin Daum, Bettina Hein, Matt Scott, and Andreas Goeldi (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). It provides a more in-depth look at audience needs and identification than we can offer here, but we do want to offer some food for thought. When planning your YouTube channel, have an image of your targeted fan base in mind at all times. Ask yourself these questions:
YouTube now attracts more 18- to 49-year-olds than most cable networks. However, if you're going after seniors, it may be a bit more difficult than if you were targeting a slightly younger audience. Fortunately, even some of our older friends are discovering YouTube as well!
Be authentic. Don't feel that you need to mimic an influencer, because your audience will see right through it.
If you have other properties, such as a website, Facebook page, or Twitter account, you likely have much of the audience information you need for your YouTube planning process. As your channel grows in popularity, don't be surprised if your audience changes as well.
Your channel-planning blueprint must spell out the type of action you want your audience to take. That's activation. You need clarity around the type of action you want because it influences the type of content you create and the steps you want your audience to take. We cover both of these topics in detail later, in Chapter 10, but you should identify these actions during the planning phase.
No matter how intelligent and independent your fan base, you need to guide them through the experience with your channel and its contents. Believe it or not, your viewers want you to tell them what to do. Some of that supervision may be as explicit as a Subscribe button, or more implicit with the automated viewing of a playlist.
This is an area where many people and organizations struggle. Define what you want the viewer to do and determine how you'll help them do it. If your audience is aligned with your mission, they'll entrust you to guide them through your channel and give them a call to action (CTA, for short). Look at the following CTA options and determine which one sums up what you want your viewers to do:
Don't be shy! Make sure to ask viewers to subscribe.
YouTube rewards you with higher search rankings and supplementary video recommendations based first and foremost on your channel and individual video watch times. In addition, YouTube looks at factors such as viewer engagement and video sharing rates. Your job in the planning process is to identify and coordinate each component so that you're in a position to keep your channel active.
Okay, you've analyzed your target fan base and figured out what motivates them on YouTube. Now you need to determine whether a specific channel spokesperson would be the right fit for your target fan base. This is a critical decision for both independent creators and organizations.
Typically, an audience gravitates toward either a personality or content, but not toward any old personality or content. Whatever you choose to prioritize, it has to have a high level of authenticity. If the viewers in your topic area engage more with personality, for example, be sure to choose a spokesperson with credibility and appeal.
Aim for the same voice across your content because it will provide the consistency that your audience needs across different types of video.
A good example of a brand with a consistent voice is the personal care company e.l.f. Cosmetics (www.youtube.com/eyeslipsfacedotcom), which consistently uses Achelle Dunaway as the voice of its videos. Achelle isn't terribly famous, but the fans of e.l.f. have come to know her and expect to see or hear her in every video the channel produces. They trust her and associate her with the e.l.f. brand. Often, they give her both feedback and praise in the individual video comments.
Branding can be a large and complex topic, but we're going to keep it simple: Branding is about naming and design that is unique to you. Need an example? Think about Apple. You see consistency in all its products, naming conventions, website, and packaging. Over time, that branding symbolism — the look and feel — becomes synonymous with who you are. Want to learn more? Check out Branding For Dummies, by Bill Chiaravalle and Barbara Findlay Schenck (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).
Your YouTube channel and videos are powerful extensions of your brand. If you have an existing website, logo, or color pattern, bring it over to your YouTube channel and use it for the branded elements of your videos as well. If you give your viewers a great experience on YouTube, chances are that they'll end up on your website, too. Keep the branding consistent. Your viewers will appreciate it.
Your channel must be visually representative of the video content you create. When a viewer first visits your channel, it's important that they understand what kind of videos your produce or curate. You also want viewers to be in a position to quickly find out when new content is expected from your channel. A great design layout makes these tasks a lot easier.
When coming up with a design layout, keep these elements in mind:
The channel icon can be changed only from the Google+ account associated with your YouTube channel.
Thumbnails have a tremendous impact on a video's view rate. With that fact in mind, always choose or create a good thumbnail, especially for videos shown in sections.
Under Featured Channels, you control the additional section Related Channels, which YouTube populates with channels that it considers to be like yours. Though YouTube doesn't disclose the exact criteria, it's likely based on content type and what viewers search for. You can turn off this feature, but by doing so, YouTube won't put your channel on the Related Channel feeds of other users. You benefit only by keeping it on.
With so many channels on YouTube, viewers may think they're viewing the appropriate channel for an organization or famous personality. The verification badge shows up to the right of the channel name and helps alleviate any viewer concerns about the legitimacy of the channel.
Coming up with a mission for your channel is important, as is defining your audience and planning how your channel could best serve your target audience's needs, but at some point you have to define the content that brings it all together. Well, there's no time like the present, so get ready to tackle that task.
When establishing a content plan, consider these factors that influence how your audience discovers your content and what action viewers take as a result of watching:
Though the term metadata sounds like something out of a Star Trek episode, it's important for discovery and YouTube Search. Viewers can also find more information about the video or links back to your website if they want more information.
Don't worry about the nuances of making your videos interactive with annotations. You can see how easy this task is and understand the art and science of annotations in Chapter 10.
Your planning process should consider the viewer who wants more information from a specific video. Providing links in the video description or annotations is a great way to give the audience more information when they want it.
If you've been mulling over jumping into the YouTube world for a while, we're pretty sure that you've spent a lot of time wrestling with how to produce all that content to keep your channel fresh and active. With YouTube, you have several options for your content strategy:
Think of curation in terms of what a museum does: Collect all this great art (content), and then pull it together into a themed exhibit. The YouTube playlist is the museum's exhibit. That's why museums put French Impressionist paintings together: because it's all about the viewer/visitor experience. Would you want to see an impressionist painting together with contemporary pottery? Probably not.
Channel owners generally love it when their videos are included in playlists, because it helps promote their channels and gets viewers watching their content. Done right, your curation favor will be returned many times over.
Here are some examples of different types of content you can utilize for your channel:
We conducted a major research study of the Beauty category on YouTube, analyzing 168 companies and their YouTube channels, 45,000 independent creators and their channels, and more than 800,000 total videos. We found that even in this very crowded part of YouTube, channels with a clear but authentic and differentiated mission had far superior channel performance. They had more views, subscribers, and engagement than many much larger beauty brands. The more savvy beauty brands, though, were quick to understand this new dynamic and then began including content from independent creators.
For example, Bobbi Brown, the beauty brand, put together an additional YouTube channel dedicated to beauty vloggers looking to create inspiring looks for their viewers. Check it out at www.youtube.com/ilovemakeupOFFICIAL. The brand provides products and inspiration to the vloggers, and the vloggers then go on to create videos for the I Love Makeup channel. This may sound convoluted, but it works well because each of the vloggers already has a dedicated audience following their content, each one is a trusted advisor to their audience on all things beauty, and now their fans watch them create content for one of their favorite cosmetic brands. It's a win for both vloggers and the brand.
Multi-channel networks aggregate many similarly themed YouTube channels and personalities. Frequently, they help promote their managed channels' content on a single primary channel. To see what we mean, check out Tastemade (www.youtube.com/tastemade), which is a great example of an MCN curating its channels' content — they group videos from different channels into a unified theme and make it much easier for viewers to watch them. You don't have to own or be affiliated with a YouTube video to include it in your own channel playlist lineup. You can simply enjoy recipes and collect and curate them from your audience. There are no limits to what you can curate, although some content will resonate better with your audience.
Create sections and playlists on your channel that include videos from other creators. As long as it makes sense for your channel to include outside content, curating content is a great way to expand your channel's appeal and keep it active even if you aren't creating unique content.
Adidas, for example, has a ton of channels; it made a conscious decision to link many of its subchannels to sections and playlists on its primary channel, at www.youtube.com/user/adidas. Doing so encourages cross promotion of its other assets and channels.
Suppose that you create a good channel and produce ten excellent videos that your audience would likely watch, share, like, and comment on. Uploading those ten videos all at one time translates into only one measly real event for your audience, meaning that you've left nine marketing opportunities unexploited.
The moral of the story? Don't rush to upload all your content to YouTube at one time. You'll get better audience engagement if you space out your uploads, in essence delivering your content on a regular basis. Programming dictates how best to deliver your content to your fan base.
Keeping your subscriber feeds active is an important part of programming strategy, but it doesn't need to be video based. Your other channel activity (such as playlist modification) and engagement (which includes likes and sharing) also keeps your subscriber feed flowing.
A famous philosopher once spoke rather disparagingly about foolish consistencies and the danger of conformity. That may be a good philosophy for your branding and content, but not for your YouTube channel programming. Though YouTube differs significantly from broadcast television and cable networks, your viewers will want consistency and predictability of content scheduling.
The better YouTube creators put up content on their channels regularly. That's what a publishing schedule is: your upload plan. Check out the grid shown in Figure 5-4 — it shows the publishing schedule for Dulce Candy (www.youtube.com/DulceCandy87), a beauty-and-style personality with a popular channel. From the pattern, you see a continual stream of content being added. Her average is every 3.1 days between uploads.
Upload regular content weekly. Don't hide it. Let the audience know your publishing schedule on YouTube, and use social media to alert them when your content is live.
In addition to your social media outreach, remember that your channel feed will alert your subscribers whenever you upload new content.
Just because you're producing regular, addictive, episodic content that amasses both subscribers and views doesn't mean that you can't generate some additional excitement around your channel. You may want to consider certain triggers:
Make sure you have important YouTube apps installed on your mobile devices, especially at tentpole events. There are several apps available on both Android and IOS that allow you to work on the fly. Use the Capture app to record, edit, and upload video on the fly. Manage your channel with the Studio app. Just want to watch some YouTube videos? The YouTube app is great for that.
Time-sensitive content may help you in search and recommended videos because YouTube likes to put trending content recommendations in front of relevant viewers.
You can deliver a much more interactive experience with your most passionate viewers by taking advantage of YouTube live events. You can live-stream any number of events, but remember that they should align with your channel's mission.
There are channel restrictions and some technical requirements for live streaming. Ensure that your account is in good standing with no strikes and that you meet the technical requirements. Don't forget to test sufficiently before using this service.
Consider the following statements before adding live streaming to your YouTube programming mix:
Reuse your livestreamed content and divide it into multiple videos if it makes sense. If you're going to include the event on your channel, don't feel the need to save the event as one video.
Before you use content derived from a live event on your channel, you will in some circumstances need the legal right to use the content. Don't worry: You won't need to hire a lawyer, because you can read all about it in Chapter 16 when you'll learn all about copyright.
Your channel is live. You created great content. You have views. Your audience is engaged. It's all smooth sailing, right? Hopefully, yes, but as the saying goes, “You have to inspect what you expect.” Look to see whether your audience
“Well, how do I all that?” you may ask. Fear not: You'll find the answers to all these questions (and to a few others as well) when we help you explore YouTube Analytics in Chapter 11.
The YouTube world constantly changes with new channels, new contents, new personalities, and new trends. Your channel makes you part of this world, and you're responsible for adapting to changes in order to stay relevant. Pay attention to what the viewers are telling you, and feed it into your ongoing planning process.
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