Chapter 1
Making a Home on YouTube
In This Chapter
- Understanding the importance of being on YouTube
- Becoming a viral video star
- Making your channel unique
- Producing video for fun and profit
YouTube is the new business and entertainment frontier, which means there's as much excitement and creativity associated with creating and managing a YouTube channel these days as had been the case during the early days of television, when the sky seemed the limit. YouTube — like television before it — is caught up in the same adventure that comes from defining its target audience as well as finding out what audiences are willing to watch.
For television, the adventurous nature of their early endeavors could be traced to the fact that TV was so new that audiences really didn't know what they wanted. For YouTube, working in today's market, it's much more about meeting the diverse interests and needs of an audience that attracts more than a billion people from all over the planet.
Anyone that wants to show off their video prowess or share their vision with the world can hang a virtual shingle on YouTube by starting their own channel. Of course, when television began, we humans had more toes than the TV had channels. These days, you can multiply those stubby digits by 100 million to count the number of YouTube channels. That makes running a successful YouTube channel seem a bit more daunting.
Having more than 500 million channels can make getting noticed on your channel feel like searching for a virtual needle in an online haystack. Yet, regardless of the steep increase in competition, the intention has always been the same — getting people to watch your channel. But it's not all bad news — you also have an advantage over your counterpart in the 1940s. Back then, it took a great deal of capital to get started on television. Today? Not so much. In fact, if you just want a platform for presenting some of your video work, YouTube can make that possible without you having to fork over one thin dime.
Knowing that YouTube is free should reduce some of your worries — at least from a financial perspective. Couple that with the size and diversity of the YouTube audience — and the endless number of topics that interest them — it's easy to believe that you have a fair chance of success for your channel. That's true, up to a point — the point being that, if you want your channel to thrive, you need to provide your viewers with compelling content.
Saying that your channel needs to host solid content that people actually want to see seems as glaringly obvious as saying a hamburger joint must make a good burger in order to survive. But content merely makes up the first part of the equation; the rest depends on how you bring viewers to that content — YouTube is free, video production certainly is not. Unless you want to shell out money from your own pocket, you need to generate some funds to produce content for your channel. In the world of YouTube, one major way to generate such funds is through advertising revenue — and it should come as no surprise that the more viewers you can attract, the greater your potential to generate advertising revenue. How much depends on your needs and ambitions, but increased revenue can lead to better production values, which brings it all back to more revenue.
But before you start worrying about all that money you're going to make, let's take a look at what it takes to get started on a YouTube channel for you or your business.
The YouTube Phenomenon – Why You Need To Be on YouTube
Like snowflakes on a winter day, or episodes of Law and Order, there are more topics that viewers can appreciate on YouTube than any human can count. And since you already love making videos and most likely exhibit some expertise or viewpoint to share with the world, then YouTube may be your best creative outlet.
On the downside, you're not the only one hoping to get noticed on YouTube. Many others with the very same intention are looking to build an audience for their YouTube channels, too. (“How many?” you ask. The number exceeds the number of those pre-approved credit card applications that plague your mailbox, so we're talking lots.)
Your journey on YouTube begins with knowing your strengths. Some users relish documenting the quirks of their existence to the gentle amusement of others. Others have some type of expertise to share. Then you have performers who regard the video hosting site as their personal stage — the list could go on and on. Even businesses realize it's a great place to inform consumers about their products or provide a great level of customer service. Regardless of your passion, a potential audience is waiting for you.
Audience, audience, audience
Have you ever noticed the repetitive way people describe what's the most important thing about a piece of real estate? Yes, we know it's all about location, so much so that realtors, among others, feel compelled to say it three times, as though saying it once doesn't get the point across.
Maybe that need for the special emphasis that comes with repetition is justified, because when it comes to success on your YouTube channel, we're of the opinion that saying the word “audience” just once doesn't do justice to its importance. Paying homage to our real estate buddies, we can agree that success for your YouTube channel depends on . . . (drum roll, please) audience, audience, audience!
So, what's a YouTube audience actually like? You'll find people from all walks of life, and you'll soon discover that they can spend a great deal of time meandering through YouTube's seemingly endless virtual walls, sometimes just entertaining themselves, sometimes educating themselves, sometimes engaging quite passionately with what they see, sometimes letting it all just wash over them. Given the amount of time folks spend on the site, there's a good chance that someone ends up seeing your video. Not a great chance, of course, given the fact that there is so much content on the site and only so many viewers to watch that content, but still a good chance.
So, how do you move from “good” chance to “great chance”? First and foremost, your success depends on the strength of your content. Right behind strong content, though, you'll find that you need to be a virtual wrangler, capable of bringing people who may not know anything about you to your channel. In order to do that, you need to know what excites your viewers, what they're looking for in video content, and how they consume what they like. With that information in hand, you can fine-tune your content to better serve your (current or potential) audience.
Gathering information on the viewing habits of your audience is a crucial first step in determining what they want to see and how long they're willing to do it. YouTube makes it easy to gather lots of information on your viewers — YouTube Analytics, covered in Chapter 11 is a big help here — but sometimes consulting friends and family about their viewing preferences is a good place to start.
Incorporating YouTube into your business and marketing plans
Just like cool sheets on a summer evening, YouTube goes perfectly with social media when it comes to your business and marketing needs. Why not? You already know that your presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter keeps you connected with all the right people. Guess what? YouTube can help raise your social media profile as well. (See Figure 1-1.)
By integrating your video content with social media, you can drive interested parties to your channel; your channel, in turn, can point them back to your social media platforms and your contact information. This synergy helps build a strong following, because you can inform potential customers about your business through multiple avenues.
Video is the perfect partner when it comes to showing products, demonstrations, providing tutorials, or other features designed to increase awareness of your brand. And YouTube is the perfect partner to host your videos.
When coming up with a plan to incorporate your YouTube-based video content into your business and marketing plans, here are some areas to consider:
- Have effective titles: Your video should have clear and succinct titles. They should get to the point about your product or service, so that people can easily find your video.
- Add more metadata: Having a strong title is a good place to start, but it doesn't end there. You should also have a detailed description of the video, as shown in Figure 1-2, and use as many keywords as are appropriate for the content. The more information that's included with each video makes it easy for viewers to find exactly what you have to offer in a Google search.
- Include your contact info on the video: Always add your business or personal information to the video and its description fields, such as your phone number, email address, and social media sites.
Figure 1-1: Using social media can let people not on YouTube know there's something for them to check out.
Figure 1-2: All the necessary details are included in the description for this music video.
Becoming a star!
Are you ready for your close up? Or maybe framing one is your thing. It doesn't matter, because YouTube gives you a platform right up there with radio, film, and television as yet another means of achieving stardom. By doing so, YouTube has created a dedicated community that offers one more way for the world to notice you.
The thought of stardom often leans toward actors and musicians — and the creators behind them. Many have found great success after being discovered on YouTube. (Can you say “Justin Bieber”?) The rock band Journey found its current lead singer on YouTube. Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry also found a singer for his other band, The Joe Perry Project.
Actors have also found work by showcasing their clip reel, performances, and auditions. YouTube has even made some stars of its own — personalities offering everything from rap parodies to lip-synching to video game analysis and commentary have made a name for themselves on YouTube. Epic Rap Battles in History, to take one example, has been seen by hundreds of millions of viewers. (See Figure 1-3.)
So, proof positive that YouTube can provide a stage big enough to start, and perhaps sustain, a career.
Going viral
If you're a millennial or someone who remembers the world before the turn of the century, the phrase “going viral” could have two different meanings. So, in addition to meaning the spread of a virus, which is a bad thing, the term refers to the rapid spread of a video, and that's a great thing.
When an uploaded video goes viral in the good sense, it becomes a sensation that users share and share and share — in the process gathering more numbers of viewers than there are grains of sand in an hourglass. Having your video go viral is like releasing a hit record or having your book make the New York Times best seller list, except that you're unlikely to get anywhere near as rich from going viral even if you get a couple of million hits.
Figure 1-3: Epic Rap Battles in History.
Planning on a video going viral is like planning on winning the lottery. It could happen, but you shouldn't bet on it. If you are seriously interested in earning some ad revenue from your video content, work on creating a range of compelling content for your channel, rather than hoping on that one-shot, grand slam home run.
While there's no way of telling if a video will go viral, there are some traits that successful ones share. While we will discuss ways to improve the odds of your video going viral throughout the book, here are some factors that can make a video a runaway success:
- Spontaneity: There's a real in-the-moment feel to a viral video that captures a random and decisive moment that you could never repeat. The popular Sneezing Panda and its 200 million clicks comes to mind.
- Be light hearted: People love stuff that's silly and that makes them laugh and think — or even consider trying something, much like the Coke and Mentos video collection that have drawn hundreds of millions of views.
- Get it out on social media: Yeah, you can rely on chance that someone stumbles across your video, but that's sort of passive, like waiting by the phone for someone to “find you” for the job. A better tack would be for you to let social media know about your latest masterpiece. Just a few tweets here, a Facebook post there, and then maybe an announcement on Reddit could instantly start turning the wheels of virality.
Wasting lots and lots of time
One person's waste of time is another's quest for information, or someone's need to laugh, or learn about something, so YouTube viewers simply spend a lot of time watching videos.
That's a good thing, and a win-win situation all around. The audience gets its dose of entertainment, education, and exploration. And your channel benefits because as viewership increases so does the potential for someone to find you, and when that someone finds your channel and you happen to have set it up for receiving advertising revenue (the YouTube term here is monetization), you can earn some money.
Here are some numbers provided by YouTube that indicate how much (potential) time-wasting is really going on:
- More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month.
- Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube — almost an hour for every person on Earth.
- According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18 to 34 than any cable network.
Seeing What Makes a YouTube Channel Unique
Four walls do not make a home — but it does provide a good start. How you adorn those walls and furnish those halls is what makes it uniquely yours — uniquely your home, in other words. Well, your YouTube channel is not much different.
When you first create a YouTube channel, it's nothing more than an empty template on a page. Over time, you add videos, make playlists, and create a header with graphics, logo, and other information. Obviously, your video content plays a big part in what make your channel special, but so does the channel's look and feel. Everything from the layout and font color to the type of content and its subscribers helps set one channel apart from the others.
Though this book takes pride in describing effective ways to create and maintain your YouTube channel for the next couple of hundred pages, let's look at some basics first:
- Have people find your channel. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it fall, does it make a sound? Who knows? More appropriately, if you create a YouTube channel and nobody visits it, it's a safe bet to say that all your good work has come to nothing.
Viewers have to know that your channel exists before they can visit. The main way you have of letting people know you exist is by making sure your content shows up high in the search results of both Google and YouTube itself. (Don't forget that YouTube is the second-most-popular search engine, just behind Google.) To get those high rankings, you have upper-left to associate tons of search-engine-friendly keywords with each of your videos — doing that will bring viewers searching for content in contact with your content, rather than someone else's content. It's also important that viewers watch, like, comment on, and share your video — yet more indications to the search engines that your content and channel are important. For good measure, use social media to prep your audience for content that's coming down the pike — just like a movie studio creates a buzz for a big summer blockbuster by teasing you with previews and trailers weeks before release.
Users often take advantage of the Browse Channels feature, which they can access by clicking the drop-down menu to the right of the YouTube TV icon in the upper-left corner of the home screen. (See Figure 1-4 for a view of that drop-down menu.) The more appealing your channel looks at first glance, the more likely a viewer will stop to spend some time exploring your offerings. - Connect with your viewers. You definitely want to build a community of followers, and for that to happen, you need to actively communicate with them. That means everything from having them subscribe to your channel, engaging with them in your channel's Comments section, and exposing them to your social media. You can do all this directly on your channel page.
- Provide them with a clear description of your channel. When viewers know what your channel has to offer, and if it appeals to their interests, they're more likely to visit often, and maybe even subscribe to it. But you need to get the word out.
Angling for subscriptions
Viewers who like your content will come back and watch more, but viewers who love your content will want to subscribe. Why not? When you keep reaching for the same magazine whenever you see it, eventually you just subscribe to it so it regularly comes to your door. YouTube offers repeat viewers of your channel the same option. Basically all they have to do is click the Subscribe button, as shown in Figure 1-5, on your channel's home page.
Figure 1-5: The Subscribe button lets viewers become subscribers with a single click.
After viewers subscribe to your channel, you have to make it worth their while to view it, or they'll unsubscribe faster than you can say Jack Nicholson. Here's what “making it worth their while” entails:
- Stay in touch subscribers. According to YouTube, viewers subscribe to millions of channels every day, so it's important to stay in touch if you want to stay uppermost in their minds. Suggest that viewers follow you on social media so that you can let them know when new content is available. This strategy helps your audience grow as you amass a devoted fan base.
- Actively upload videos. It's difficult to imagine a television station maintaining viewers if it doesn't add new programs. Even if it were all Seinfeld all the time, chances are good that viewers would eventually drift off to something else. Well, the same concept applies for your YouTube channel. If you don't upload new video content, you'll lose the interest of your subscriber base. The takeaway here? Always provide new content.
- Pay close attention to tagging. Tagging is where you categorize your video after uploading it to YouTube. When a video is properly identified, it increases the possibility of someone else finding it, and that extends to future subscribers.
Establishing your brand
Whether it's a consumer or a viewer, a brand makes your product or service immediately identifiable. Imagine that the Coca-Cola logo looked different every time you saw it, or maybe the apple on your PowerBook wasn't the same apple you saw one embossed on your iPhone. This lack of consistency could shatter your confidence in the product; you may start wondering if what you had was a cheap knock-off of the real thing, rather than the genuine article.
Branding is designed to restore confidence in the product — that familiar logo makes us relax, knowing that we are sure to get the real thing. When it comes to your YouTube channel, branding becomes the identifiable element that lets viewers know who you are and what you're all about, thus creating a similar feeling of confidence. Just like consumers flock to brands they identify with, your audience will do the same with your brand.
Branding takes on many forms on YouTube:
- Intro clip: Before each video runs on your channel, you can insert a three-second clip that acts as a label for your content. The torch-carrying lady wrapped in a flag for Columbia Pictures and the roaring MGM lion are good examples of a branding element. Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to come up with an intro of your own that is equally compelling.
- Channel header: This element is the banner on top of your main page, and at first it's as empty as a blank page. (See Figure 1-6.) You'll definitely want to click that Add Channel Art button to add a compelling picture or another graphic along with the name of your channel. The channel header can also include your contact info and specify how often you intend to upload new videos.
- Logo: Companies spend millions on branding when they have to come up with a new logo, because they have to track down and replace every single instance of the old logo. We're guessing that's not your problem — you just have to come up with your own logo, perhaps using a simple image and your name. If you feel graphically challenged, you can find places on the web to create one inexpensively. Or just have an artistic friend design a logo for you.
- Playlists: If you have enough videos on your channel, you can create a running order of them. This playlist can provide an overview of your content or a specific sub-topic of your videos. You can name every playlist, and even re-arrange them.
- Trailer: In a YouTube context, a trailer is a video that can automatically play when visitors come to your channel. You can use the video most representative of your content as a kind of advertisement for your offerings, or you could make a short video that shows viewers what your channel is all about and how they can benefit from watching your videos.
Figure 1-6: Empty header waiting to be filled with an image that represents your content.
Managing Channels for Fun and/or Profit
Everybody has a reason for making a video, and YouTube doesn't discriminate as to why you do it. Whether you were influenced a little too much by the silly, everyday situations depicted on television series like America's Funniest Home Videos, or you want to show off your post-film-school prowess, or you're looking to educate the masses with a series of how-to videos — there's a place for you on YouTube, and (you hope!) an audience that's willing to follow your exploits.
In addition to the pleasure that comes from a job well done, there's also (potentially) a business side to running a YouTube channel. If you post videos that draw a lot of views, it's worth your time for you to monetize your channel — generate some income from ad revenue, in other words. But that's not the only business purpose YouTube channels can help with: They can serve as a great showcase for your particular skills or services, or act as a delivery system for product descriptions, tutorials, and testimonials associated with whatever your business is selling.
Creating content
Whether you grab a 10-second video of a gathering of friends, have something meaningful to say on your video blog, or plan a highly structured production with sets and actors, you're creating content.
Almost every topic under the sun is represented on YouTube. That diversity in topics is matched by an equally broad range of production levels. Some videos are quite sophisticated, displaying amazing production values, but many are fairly average. And a great deal are just poorly done and end up getting shown in film classes as examples of what not to do.
Better production values increase your ability to grab viewers' attention — maybe enough for them to watch the entire video and maybe enough for them to even consider watching whatever else you have to offer. The Holy Grail, of course, is having them feel so enthusiastic about what they see that they then share it with others.
But great video quality doesn't happen accidentally; rather it's done consciously, from conception to upload. Though the topic is more thoroughly represented throughout this book, here are some key suggestions to always keep in mind.
- Plan before you film. Great videos begin in pre-production. That means having an idea of the shooting location and working with some sort of script (or at least a storyboard of the kind of shots you want for the video).
Great planning leads to great production.
- Know your audience. When you're just getting started, you try to make solid videos with good descriptions and hope that your audience finds you. After you have attracted a following, it's still important to understand who they are and whether your content is right for them. For example, if you start an entertainment blog that talks about up-and-coming hip-hop artists, you should use language that's consistent with a younger demographic. Don't overlook the importance of being highly aware of your potential audience.
- Keep viewers entertained. Regardless of the subject matter, it's important for viewers to enjoy the experience so that you hold their attention. Remember that hooking a viewer's attention starts with the first ten seconds of the video (Why? Because viewers may leave before the good stuff and continues until it's over).
- Let them learn something. People generally click on a video link in search of information. If they find it quickly and they were entertained, chances are good that they will love you.
Building an audience
After you create great content, you have to find people to watch it. After all, isn't that the entire purpose of sharing your video with the world? Whether it starts with ten people who run across your student film, or a million people viewing your talking puppy video, building your audience is essential.
YouTube is no different from other media when it comes to emphasizing the importance of building an audience. For example, you may have the catchiest song of all time, but if no one has ever heard it or even knows it exists, then that song cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called a success. The same is true for your videos — you need to work at getting as many people as possible to watch them.
Successfully building your audience depends on understanding their needs and making sure you can deliver on what your channel promises. Catering to your audience — whether it consists of one person or ten million — centers on understanding them and satisfying their appetite. (For more on building your audience, check out Chapter 10.)
Building a business
In addition to letting you upload your videos to satisfy the fun side of your personality, YouTube can work wonders for your business side. You can easily set your account to monetize video content, as mentioned in the next section; as long as enough viewers click on your video, you can earn some extra money. If you've got something to sell or a service to offer, you can also leverage YouTube for some pretty cool and powerful advertising. As you'll see in Chapter 13, it's simple enough for anyone to do it.
Monetization
You can earn money with your YouTube channel every time someone clicks on your video. The more people who view your content, the more money you can potentially make, and YouTube makes it easy to do so. All it takes is an account in good standing, an understanding of the guidelines, and your guarantee to upload only original content to get approval from YouTube.
Now that users have found the potential to make money on YouTube, it's become like the California gold rush of 1849. Motivated entrepreneurs are setting up shop in the hope of striking it big with their YouTube channels.
As you might expect, not everybody will strike it rich. In fact, very few will strike it rich. Nevertheless, it is possible to earn a goodly amount, especially if you take advantage of the multiple ways you can make money through your YouTube channel, including views of your video (an ad plays at the beginning) or clicks on a banner or other display ad on your channel's page. Just keep in mind that slow and steady wins the race — making money takes time, or at least it will take time until you build a massive following. (For more on monetization, check out Chapter 14.)