YouTube has been one of the most popular social media channels for over a decade. This video-first platform has paved the way for long and short-form content to prevail, urging other channels like Instagram, and TikTok to adapt swiftly. As we enter the social entertainment era, many platforms are just starting to find their stride with video, while YouTube has been taking advantage of it all along.
As a result, YouTube has become an integral part of many brands' YouTube marketing strategy. But is that the best approach for your brand? Let’s find out how to make a brand channel on YouTube.
Should Your Brand Make A YouTube Channel?
As of 2021, 82% of all created content was video. With the sudden rise in popularity, and video becoming a primary source of marketing for businesses and creators alike, it begs the question: does your brand need a YouTube channel? There is no simple yes or no answer to this as there are many factors brands should consider — the main consideration being capacity. Beyond capacity, content subject and creation are two of the most important aspects of your channel. What kind of content do you want to post? Does it make sense to be on YouTube? Will you be creating standalone videos for this platform, or will they be repurposed for other channels?
The great thing about YouTube is that if you’re already active on other video platforms like TikTok or Reels, you can repurpose those short-form content pieces into YouTube Shorts on your brand account. This type of cross-channel marketing allows marketers to get the most out of a single asset, and of course, save valuable time.
The Difference Between a Brand Channel and a Regular Channel
While both personal channels and brand channels have an array of abilities, there’s a crucial difference between the two. Brand accounts allow you to set up multiple admins and contributors for the channel, while a personal account can only have one user. That being said, a personal and a brand channel both have the same access to YouTube Studio features like analytics, and a channel-wide dashboard to view performance at a glance.
Thus, a brand channel is crucial for a larger marketing team where many hands are in the mix when bringing a video from the ideation stage to live on YouTube.
How to Create a YouTube Channel in 5 Steps
Although it may feel daunting, creating your YouTube channel is actually the easiest part. Here we’ll walk you through the process of how to make a YouTube channel in 5 easy steps:
- The first thing you need to do to create a YouTube channel is either make or sign in to your Google account. Through this account, you already have a YouTube channel. Note: Your name and email address will not be publicly linked to your brand account; this is just to give you initial access.
- Next, you will head to your YouTube account page and click 'create a channel' under your personal account. Here you will enter your brand's name and click 'Create'. Now that your brand account is live, you can grant multiple users access and begin customizing your channel.
- It’s time to make your YouTube channel match your brand. By clicking ‘Customize Channel’, you will have access to edit your channel layout, branding, and basic information like what your channel offers, what languages it’s available in, the industry your brand is associated with, and any relevant links to your website or specific products.
- Once your channel is successfully branded, it’s time to explore your YouTube Studio so you can get an idea of what you’re working with. On the left-hand side of your screen, you will have the ability to look at a holistic dashboard, content, playlists, analytics, subtitles and more. These will be empty since you have no content on your channel yet, but it’s best to familiarize yourself with your features as soon as possible.
- Now that your account is fully set up and you’ve explored your options, it’s time for the fun part: posting your first video. It’s surprisingly easier than creating a channel.
Keep reading for more information on how to create a successful video and YouTube channel.
8 Tips for a Successful YouTube Channel
Simply starting a YouTube channel isn’t enough. It’s important you take all the necessary steps to ensure your hard work doesn’t go to waste and that users can find your channel. The following 8 tips are a great starting point if you’re looking to gain success on YouTube with your brand channel:
1. Identify Your Purpose and Audience
Before doing anything else, it’s important to identify your channel's purpose and audience. By doing so, you avoid wasting valuable time and resources creating content that doesn’t resonate with your target demographic or your brand. Luckily, most brands already have a strong idea of their overarching purpose meaning that all you have to do is translate those insights into video content.
2. Further Optimize Your Profile
We know you’ve already filled in all the basic information about your brand when you initially set up your channel, but now it’s time to get even more granular. We suggest linking out to all your other social channels, to begin with. This is also an excellent opportunity to pick the perfect channel icon and banner that shows users who you are. Typically, channels with matching or complementary icons and banners come off as the most professional and trustworthy. Keep this in mind once you begin creating content and thumbnails for your channel too.
3. Create a Channel Trailer
To optimize your profile even one step further, you can create a trailer for your channel. Typically, your channel trailer is a couple of minutes long. It gives viewers insight into what your brand does and what your channel is going to be about. It’s important to ensure this trailer represents your brand perfectly as it can be one of the elements that either turn a viewer into a subscriber or someone who never visits your channel again. We suggest adding many stimulating visual elements and a story that makes viewers want to know more.
4. Build a Content Strategy
Having a plan is one of the most important aspects of running a successful social channel. Sure, posting content in the moment can be necessary and sometimes even fun, but there needs to be an underlying YouTube channel strategy that guides a user through your content. Building a strategy can feel overwhelming, but all the information you need is in your analytics. Look at the type of content performing well, and create a healthy mix of high-performing videos, alongside promotional content that you need to meet your business goals.
5. Schedule Your Content
With a thorough content strategy in your back pocket, it only makes sense to talk about scheduling that content next. Scheduling your posts in advance saves you a lot of time in the long run and allows you to gain a more holistic view of your content strategy. Planning and visualizing your upcoming posts for the week or the month will enable you to easily fill in gaps and experiment with what days and times perform best for your videos.
6. Create Playlists
Creating playlists is an easy and effective way to give users who are interested in your content another way to find it. If someone happens to search up a topic and click on your video, they may be interested in viewing your other videos of a similar topic or format. On the flip side, if someone selects a video within one of your playlists, the rest of the videos will play automatically once the previous one finishes. This shows YouTube that users are interested in watching multiple of your videos at once.
7. Gives Users a Call-to-Action
Viewers can come to your account or watch your videos all day long, but if you don’t have somewhere for them to go or something for them to do, your efforts are in vain. We suggest having a call-to-action (CTA) wherever you can on your channel. This can be directly in your video, in the description box or directly in your channel description. CTAs can be links to your website or certain products, or even something as simple as asking viewers to subscribe or like your videos.
8. Use YouTube Ads
YouTube ads are a great way to get your channel in front of users who wouldn't typically come across your content, especially when you’re just starting. You can choose a couple of different ad types, including skippable in-stream ads, non-skippable in-stream ads, video discovery ads and non-video ads. Like many other social channels, you can select your ad type, parameters, and budget, allowing you to bid on ad space. This can all be done right in your Google Ads account.
How Dash Hudson Can Help Your YouTube Strategy
Despite everything we mentioned above, if you're still not seeing success, you may be missing out on valuable data by using the basic YouTube analytics within the native app or other third-party applications. Dash Hudson recently partnered with YouTube to give clients in-depth analytics and information surrounding accounts and post-performance, plus competitive insights. These YouTube insights help inform brands what’s working and what isn’t, making planning your now data-informed YouTube strategy even more accessible.
FAQs
Is creating a YouTube channel free?
Yes. One of the best things about YouTube is that starting a channel and sharing content with your audience is completely free of charge.
How do I make my YouTube channel popular?
Gaining popularity on a platform like YouTube can take time. As you begin posting more content that is targeted at the right audience, YouTube will start to recognize the value of your channel and promote it to other users who are looking for similar types of content.
Why are my YouTube videos getting no views?
There are a couple of reasons this could be happening. If you’re a brand new channel with no subscribers, it’s normal to get no views on your videos in the beginning. But if the same thing is still happening as your audience grows, it could be another issue. Ensure your videos are set to Public so that all users can see your videos.
