Grow your YouTube Channel, pt3

When it comes to making a video, there’s nothing to it, but to do it. Seriously. You have your ideas, you also have your tools, and by now you may also have found your voice. It’s time to put the pieces together. Making the video IS simple – but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. your first several videos will suck. don’t sweat it – Every big YouTuber’s first few videos sucked. If you don’t believe me, you can go and check them yourself. It’s just one of those things – you have to build experience and until you are pulling enough money to hire people to write scripts, edit, record, etc. you will have to learn to do each of these on your own. And you will. the more you repeat the process, the easier it becomes, even if you are camera shy. In fact, many YouTubers began channels for that very reason – to help them overcome their shyness.

Visual Elements

The YouTube landing page is basically your YouTube web page – it is what people see when they click on your profile and it can make or break their decision to watch you. DO NOT Leave this page blank. you need a nice looking cover photo that displays the name of your channel and also gives some basic information, such as links to your other social media, what type of channel you run and how often you post. People do actually pay attention to this.

In addition to your landing page, you have a profile picture. The picture should be clear and should attract attention. an eye popping profile picture is helpful in engagement campaigns as it will make people more likely to read your comments and click on your picture to see your channel. Each of your videos should have a thumbnail. YouTube is a visual platform, so you want to make sure that you have all of these looking good. I could (and I will) do an entire blog post on thumbnail strategy (yes, that’s really a thing) in the future. But for now, just know that your thumbnails need to be eye catching.

Organization

Your channel may have videos that encompass a wide variety of topics or subtopics. For this reason, it is helpful to subscribers to have your videos organized into playlists. This will help them navigate to the content they want to see more easily and will make them more likely to get lost down the rabbit hole that is your playlist content, thus increasing your watch time and helping your ranking with the YouTube algorithm.

Author: Donnell Peavy