Creating a YouTube Strategy Without Making Cat Videos

Do you have a YouTube Strategy?

YouTube is one of the best social sites to build traffic and grow your social influence. Just check out some of these stats I found:

• YouTube has over 4 billion video views per day.
• There were over 6 billion hours of video watched per month

YouTube crosses over all the target audiences! Check out these breakdowns of each target that visits YouTube monthly:

• 83% of Gen Z use YouTube
• Millennials use YouTube at 83%
• Gen X visit YouTube 58% of the time
• Even Baby Boomers will check out videos 40% during their time online

We get it. YouTube is huge. With its over 1 billion unique users visiting the video-sharing social site every month, that translates into nearly one out of every two people on the Internet are using YouTube.

One of my goals this year was to start vlogging

Anyone who attends my local workshops knows how animated I can get. I pace around the room because I can’t stand in one place.

I joke with the people who sign up for my 3-week social media course, don’t even try to hide from me by sitting in the back. I tell them that I like to walk around and the way the room is set up, one day you may be sitting in the front of the class.

I also use my hands when I’m talking. If I need to make a major point, my arms get invited to the party. I’ve knocked things over and sent the slide changing clicker thing across the room when I get really excited about something I’m sharing with the class.

And all of me, teaching and talking and helping you can’t clearly come across in the written text form of this blog. Sharing the real me and having another way to teach you what I know … that’s the reason I want to start vlogging.

Where and how do I start?

A conversation about video blogging recently popped up in my online mastermind group. I could tell from the conversations in the comments that not all the bloggers or even small business owners were using videos.

What’s holding us back? Was it because we thought we’d look silly on videos? Maybe we didn’t know what to say or even own a video camera.

OR perhaps it was just the fact that we didn’t know where to start or how this stuff even works. Sometimes the fear of the unknown is our greatest obstacle.

So I figured, what the heck, let’s go for it. Let’s learn this together! 

Before I could set up my profile and start recording, I needed to do my research. I mean, this stuff has to more than just “create good content” to make it worth anyone’s time to watch my videos.

And what does that ‘good content’ buzz-phrase even mean in the video world? Your videos need to be helpful, valuable and fill in the blank with your own descriptive adjective.

Yeah, I think we all get that.

{ Insert a couple of hours on Pinterest to find what good content on YouTube really means }

My research helped me come up with the following list of ideas to start planning my YouTube strategy:

1. Videos to show someone how to do something

2. What are your top FAQ? Most people are visual learners. Is there a way to visually teach your readers how to do something that they’re always asking you about?

3. Interviews – I love the idea of this one!

4. Videos showing your screen of how you do something. This seems like the best place for me start. I have lots of ideas to share to show you my social media workflow process.

5. Slide shows – for a service based business like mine, I can see how this would be a great idea to share my content.

6. Customer video testimonials. There’s nothing better than to have someone talk about how cool you and your stuff is.

7. Someone using your products or services – either a before and after video or someone showing how they’re using your products.

Branding Your Page

With my strategy ideas worked out, the next step was to set up my YouTube page. This took more a bit more effort than I realized.

Since YouTube is owned by Google, that meant my new YouTube page was connected to my Google+ page. I can honestly say that I’m a big user of the Google but I’m seriously lacking in the Plussing department.

Setting up my YouTube page required me to set up a Google+ page and tweaking it so that the Google+ profile picture became the profile picture I could use for my YouTube page.

My next step was to create my YouTube channel. You’ll find this link in the YouTube settings section, under Additional Features. Follow the simple steps to get everything set up.

By this point, I had a YouTube page with my profile picture but my YouTube URL was the default setting. It looked a lot like this example:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNimhyukHP5tdka3a9zi9Nw

To create a custom URL for my page, I needed to do a few more steps. To make sure you reserve your company’s name or your name as your YouTube page, go to this YouTube Help page to add a custom URL.

Now, I was finally ready to start branding my page!

You’ll see a little pencil shape up in the right hand corner of your channel page. If you don’t see it immediately, then put your mouse over that area until the image shows up. That’s the section where you can edit your social media links and add in your channel art (which is your header graphic).

Go into that section to add in your social sites and fill out the Channel Description for your About section.

Next came uploading my Channel Artwork. How hard can this be? I pulled together my Twitter header graphic in about 15 minutes and I’ve got my Facebook artwork graphic down to a science that I switch out the artwork every month.

But it seems like everything about YouTube takes just a bit more time. They tell you that the recommended size for the graphic is 2560px x 1440px but they forgot to mention that most of your image will be cut off.

Technically, there’s a safe area of 1546px x 423px where your text, logo and images won’t get cut off. I’m not a graphic artist so this one took me awhile to figure out how to create my text/image/safe area and then I nested into a larger background image to create my full artwork of 2560px x 1440px.

Even with this cool YouTube Channel Art Template I found, I still had to create the image five times before I could get my text/logo/safe area to be displayed and not cut off. The image still needs to be tweaked but at least I have something up on my page.

I have a lot more to do before I start adding vlogging into my marketing mix.  I’m working on a few more posts where I’ll share the process with you as I continue to learn.

And if any of you are already using YouTube for your marketing and have some advice for me, please share it the comments section! Anything that can help me move through the learning curve would be greatly appreciated 🙂

Photo credit: Cat Videos

PS Are tips like these helpful to figure out your social media marketing? Download the Strategy Builder workbook and get more of my secret tips to help you develop your social media plans. It’s an easy to follow marketing strategy workbook to help you create successful social media campaigns.