YouTube Channels For Dummies

Rob Ciampa works with worldwide brands, agencies, and business leaders on sales, marketing, and YouTube strategies. Theresa Go is Vice President of Platform Partnerships for Pixability. Matt Ciampa has been a professional YouTube video creator and producer for more than a decade. Rich Murphy is a Product Manager at Pixability and an expert on YouTube advertising and analytics.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book is Organized 4

Part 1: Getting Started with YouTube Channels 4

Part 2: Making Good Videos and Not Making Bad Videos 5

Part 3: Growing and Knowing Your Audience 5

Part 4: YouTube Channels Are Serious Business 5

Part 5: The Part of Tens 5

Icons Used in This Book 5

Beyond the Book 6

Where to Go from Here 6

Part 1: Getting Started with YouTube 7

Chapter 1: Making a Home on YouTube 9

The YouTube Phenomenon: Why You Need to Be on YouTube 10

Audience, audience, audience 11

Incorporating YouTube into your business and marketing plans 12

Becoming a star! 14

Going viral 15

Wasting lots and lots of time 16

Seeing What Makes a YouTube Channel Unique 16

Angling for subscriptions 18

Establishing your brand 19

Managing Channels for Fun and/or Profit 21

Creating content 21

Building an audience 22

Building a business 23

Monetizing 23

Chapter 2: The Basics of YouTube 25

What You’ll Find on YouTube 26

Managing your identity 26

Navigating the home page 27

Watching a video 36

Working with a YouTube Account 41

Logging On to Your YouTube Account 48

Creating a YouTube Channel 49

Verifying Your YouTube Channel 56

Setting Up a Custom Channel URL 60

Joining the YouTube Partner Program 61

Chapter 3: Building Your Channel from the Ground Up 63

Navigating Your Channel 63

The Your Channel menu item 64

The Channel tabs 66

Customizing and Branding Your Channel 68

Creating channel art 68

Managing channel art 70

Creating the Channel icon 72

Uploading the channel icon 73

Managing your links 74

Managing Uploads 76

Part 2: Making a Great YouTube Video 79

Chapter 4: What Makes a Good Video a Good Video? 81

Picking the Right Camera for Your Needs 82

Knowing What Makes a Good Video 85

Mastering the Genres in Your YouTube Videos 87

Mastering music videos 87

Producing your very own vlog 89

Making an educational video 91

Making tutorial and how-to videos 92

Let’s play (and make) gaming videos 93

Making animal videos 94

Capturing sporting events 95

Film and animation 96

Entertainment 97

News and information 98

Autos and vehicles 99

Comedy 99

Travel and events 100

Science and technology 101

Nonprofits and activism 101

Viral Videos versus Evergreen Content 102

Viral content 103

Evergreen content 103

Chapter 5: Making Plans Both Large and Small 105

Establishing Your Channel’s Mission 106

Determining your goals 107

Being different, being valuable, being authentic 109

Surveying the YouTube landscape 110

Understanding Your Target Audience 112

Going narrow versus going broad 113

Knowing why your audience matters 113

Finding out the nitty-gritty about your audience 114

Defining Desired Actions 115

Planning an Outstanding YouTube Channel 116

Having a spokesperson 117

Branding 117

Planning the channel layout 118

Crafting a Content Strategy 120

Recognizing that content includes video and more 120

Looking at content formats 121

Curation recycling 123

Programming for Success 124

Delivering content consistently 124

Being flexible and reactive 125

Going live for more engagement 126

Planning Never Ends 127

Chapter 6: Acquiring the Tools of the Trade 129

Checking Out Your Camera Options 129

Working through the (camera) basics 130

Looking at DSLRs 133

Settling for smartphones 137

Stabilizing the Shot 138

Seeing Your Way with Light 139

Setting up 3-point lighting 139

Setting up high-key lighting 140

Capturing Sound 141

Looking at microphones 141

Capturing good audio 142

Chapter 7: Putting It All Together to Capture Some Video 145

Setting Up for a Shoot 146

Getting organized 146

Completing your checklists and shoot sack 146

Arriving on set 149

Planning a realistic shooting schedule 150

Practicing good habits before a shot 151

Maintaining continuity 152

Shooting a Great-Looking Video 153

Composing and dividing the screen 154

Determining the best shot 154

Moving and grooving the camera 156

Matching your eyelines 157

Following the 180-degree rule 158

Shooting an interview 159

Shooting extra footage and B-roll 160

Capturing the perfect take — several times 160

Working with Voice 161

Practicing diction and dialects 161

The power of the pause 162

Managing crowd audio 163

Chapter 8: Fixing It in Post: The Edit 165

Picking the Right Software Package 165

Mac tools 166

Windows tools 167

Knowing Where to Get Started with Editing 169

Attempting a test project 169

Handling file formats, resolution, and conversion 170

Editing Your Video 172

Logging your footage 173

Trimming video clips 175

Making a rough cut 176

Switching it around 177

Creating cuts 178

Filling the gaps with B-roll 180

Polishing Your Video 180

Fine-tuning your edit 181

Adding bells and whistles 181

Adding Music to Your Video 182

Adding built-in music in video editing tools 183

Incorporating stock music libraries 184

Putting music in your video 184

Adding emotional impact 185

Cutting your video to music 186

Cutting your music to video 186

Incorporating Voiceover and Sound Effects 187

Exporting the Final Version 188

Chapter 9: Preparing for Upload Day 189

Preparing Your Channel for Uploads 190

Checking your YouTube account hygiene 190

Enabling channel features 193

Tending to Video SEO Matters 194

Titles 195

Descriptions 197

Tags 199

Thumbnails 200

Uploading Your Video 201

Picking the source 202

Going public about YouTube privacy 202

Uploading to YouTube 203

Entering information about your video 206

Setting upload defaults 213

Publishing and Unpublishing Videos 213

Part 3: Growing and Knowing Your Audience 217

Chapter 10: Building Your Audience 219

Developing a Community 220

Deciphering audience evolution 220

Determining what you want your audience to do 221

Appreciating the importance of community 221

Determining your subscription source 223

Understanding Subscribers and Their Value 224

Persuading viewers to subscribe 225

Specifying how subscribers get updates 226

Controlling channel settings and privacy levels 227

Managing Comments 230

Seeing why comments matter 231

Setting up your channel for comments 232

Moderating comments 233

Reacting to inappropriate comments 234

Configuring Community Settings 235

Getting Viewers to Engage 236

Capturing the Captioning Opportunity 238

Producing Live Events 240

Chapter 11: Knowing Your Audience 241

Getting Started with YouTube Analytics 242

Reading YouTube Analytics reports 243

Breaking down the report components 246

Grouping information 248

Comparing data 249

Setting up report filters 249

Selecting a report 250

Understanding visual charts 251

Understanding the table 254

Learning about Video Views 254

Seeing which content is the most popular 254

Determining whether viewers are watching or leaving 255

Understanding Your Audience 258

Diving into demographics 258

Diving into subscribers 260

Optimizing Discoverability 261

Seeing where viewers find your content 261

Finding out where (and how) viewers watch your content 264

Making Sure Your Audience is Engaged 266

Imagining the Future of YouTube Analytics 268

Part 4: YouTube Channels Are Serious Business 269

Chapter 12: How and Why Businesses Use YouTube 271

Understanding Video and Business 272

Understanding Your YouTube Business Components 274

Content matters 275

Community and content creators 279

Advertising 281

Integrating YouTube with Other Campaigns 283

Cross-media integration 283

YouTube is TV now 284

YouTube isn’t Google, either 286

Chapter 13: Expanding Your Audience with Google Ads 287

Understanding YouTube Advertising 289

Recognizing the importance of ad policy 290

Looking at YouTube ad types 290

Planning for Advertising 292

Creating a Google Ads account 292

Linking your Google Ads account and YouTube channel 293

Determining Your Ad Targets 296

People targeting 297

Content targeting 299

Navigating Google Ads 300

Setting Up a YouTube Ad Campaign 302

Going with a general campaign 302

Creating an ad group and setting up targeting 306

Creating a YouTube Ad 308

Setting up remarketing lists 313

Looking at Your campaign details 315

Measuring Clicks and Results 316

Looking at campaign information 316

Getting earned metrics 318

Optimizing Your Campaign 319

Chapter 14: YouTube Monetization: How to Earn Money on YouTube 321

Partnering with YouTube 323

From Ads to AdSense 323

Setting up YouTube monetization 324

Analyzing ad performance with YouTube Analytics 326

Getting your YouTube revenue information 327

Seeing which metrics are offered 327

Making changes to your video strategy based on the data 329

Strikes 330

Brand safety and suitability 331

Federal Trade Commission Guidelines and COPPA 332

Part 5: The Part of Tens 335

Chapter 15: Ten Key Steps to Improving YouTube Search Results 337

Updating Video Metadata 338

Managing Video Titles 339

Understanding Working Titles 340

Optimizing Thumbnails for Viewer Session Time 340

Managing Video Descriptions 341

Adding Closed Captioning 342

Handling Tags 343

Refreshing Metadata 343

Understanding Channel SEO 343

Avoiding Misleading Metadata 345

Chapter 16: Ten Things to Know About Copyright 347

Remember Who Owns the Copyright 348

Attribution Does Not Absolve a Copyright Violation 348

Know the Consequences 349

The Profit Motive is Irrelevant 351

Get Permission for Using Copyrighted Material 351

Fair Use is s Complicated 352

Don’t Let Copyright Issues on YouTube Lead to a Strikeout 353

Wipe the Slate Clean 354

YouTube’s Algorithms Are Good at Finding Copyright Infringements 354

Copyright is (Almost) Forever 355

Index 357