How to set up a YouTube Channel for success

Are you considering promoting your business via a channel on YouTube? If so you need to get things right first time around and develop a clear strategy. Luckily YouTube are very clear about what they expect of you to make your YouTube channel a success.

YouTube place great emphasis on “subscribers” and “watch time”.

Subscribers are people that sign up to your channel to allow them to see when you publish new videos. They are a bit like followers in Facebook. It’s not enough just to get people watching videos that you publish. Without gaining subscribers who are engaged with your video content on an ongoing basis your youTube channel will wither.

To gain subscribers, viewers of your videos need to have a reason to subscribe to your  channel.  Usually that reason is the promise of more content so you need to make a commitment to expand the channel content over the long term. For example, most successful channels publish video content weekly to get their subscribers returning again and again to watch the new videos.

The objective of every video you publish should be to get viewers to subscribe to the channel and/or watch another video on your channel.  This can be achieved by including a channel promotion segment at the end. What youTube call “end screens”. End screens run for up to 20 seconds at the end of the video and can include promotions for other videos on the channel. e.g. Next video in the series, or intro videos about the series and/or extro “sum up” videos for the series.

Watch time is how long someone watches your video before clicking away to watch something else or leaving youTube. Short watch times are an indicator that your content is not engaging and so youTube like to see people watching to the end of your video or at least most of it.

Once a viewer has decided to watch a video they have found, they must be engaged by it. If they are not engaged then watch time is going to drop off quickly. If enough people don’t watch your video all the way through, youTube are going to see that as an indicator that your videos are not particularly compelling.

There are several techniques that can be employed to encourage viewers to keep watching. These are:

1. Using a short intro sequence which quickly describes the whole content they are about to see.
2. Keeping the video duration sensible as the videos that are too long may not be viewed in their entirety.
3. Making sure the content of the video itself is engaging.

One of the key factors to success of your channel is getting your videos in front of people when they search on youTube. This is a little like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) but on youTube not Google.

The main drivers for promotion of videos are the keywords people use in search. Keyword research should be used to “title” and “tag” each video optimally to improve its chances of being found. This is an art and needs to be done with great care and attention to detail.

It may also be appropriate to use advertising on youTube to gain viewers quickly. This promotes your videos to the top of listings for specific searches.

Finally, creating a youTube channel is at its heart about creating a “community” of viewers. This community needs to be supported by you in various ways. e.g. Responding to and moderating comments on all published videos, engaging directly with your viewers to build a lasting relationship with them. Providing the video content your community wants to watch.
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If you’d like help setting up your business on youTube we can help you to get the basics right, increasing your chances of success. Get in touch today.