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With the recent boom in the vlogging industry, Vloggers have become interactive digital celebrities with brands taking note of the vast array of partnership opportunities to enhance PR and digital strategy. However simply working with Youtubers isn’t your only option when it comes to using Youtube to expand your brand’s awareness. In fact creating your own Youtube channel is becoming a rapidly successful move and so with this in mind you’ll want to do everything in your power to convert a viewer to a subscriber when they land on your brand’s new channel. So to help you get started and optimize your Youtube homepage we’ve created a ‘channel checklist’.
- Thumbnail
Your thumbnail will be alongside every video you put up, so choosing the right one is pretty important. This display picture will be shrunk down to size when off your channel page and so you’re going to want to make sure that whatever you decide to place in that box is instantly recognisable to the user. As a business, this really should be your logo, company initials or mascot - essentially something that champions your brand and is easily recognisable. If your company logo is too detailed, long, or for whatever reason isn’t identifiable when shrunk down to size, consider using your company’s initials on your company colours. Try not to change this too often as the key to a great thumbnail is keeping it consistent with your brand’s identity.
- Channel branding
Following on from picking a thumbnail you're going to want to decide upon the branding of your channel that will align with your tone of content and chosen topics. Every channel page has the opportunity to display a banner that can really amplify what your channel is about and showcase your brand before the user has even clicked play on a video. A channel banner does not have to be a advertisement and it certainly doesn’t have to be changed every time you upload a new video. Infact, you should see your channel branding as a way to project your tone or style for all your videos.
A great example of channel branding is Sainsbury’s Food, who enlisted popular vlogger Fleur from the channel FleurdeForce and her husband Mike to star in a series of mini cooking videos. The viewer can instantly see the hosts and perhaps recognise them if they’ve visited Fleur’s channel previously. Not only this but also the user is instantly presented with a shade of turquoise which is present throughout the rest of Sainsbury’s channel branding along with that flat image rolling pin and a custom font. Creating your own channel banner isn’t particularly difficult so maybe sketch out a few ideas along with the dimensions needed and let your creative team do what they do best. Whatever design you choose you’ll need to keep it consistent, mirroring the same style of imagery used on all your digital platforms, making it effortlessly recognisable across the internet.
- Custom URL
Once you’ve completed the above two steps and you have 500 subscribers under your belt, (amongst a few other minor requirements) you’ll then find YouTube will give you the opportunity to claim a custom url for your channel. Not only will this give existing users an easier way to access your channel but it will also help develop your channel’s branding throughout the platform.
- Good Titles
It is really important that your titles are not only clear and concise, but are also directly relevant to your video. A blog on YouTube SEO will be coming up later in the series, however one key thing to remember is that YouTube looks at the first few words of your title for a keyword that it can use to identify your video and its relevancy in searches. So for example, if the video was based around teaching people how to make cupcakes for Easter:
Bad Title:
My Beginner’s Recipe For Super Tasty Easy Chocolate Orange Easter Cupcakes | Channel Name
Good Title:
Easy Easter Cupcakes | Channel Name
You can save all that extra detail for the bio of your video, where YouTube will be looking for a bit more detail on the content of your videos. Make sure you follow this same format for all your videos, not only to benefit your rankings but it will also look far more professional and be far easier to navigate around when all your videos are collated on your channel page.
- Consistent Video Thumbnails
As part of your channel branding, you should ensure all your video thumbnails follow a similar theme, be that the way you present your images or even a similar font. This will make your channel page branding stronger, and far more recognisable to users. Below are some great examples of consistent video thumbnails.
6. Channel Trailer
Recently YouTube gave creators the opportunity to display a version of their channel specifically to users who have yet to subscribe to their channel. Primarily, so that they can promote a channel trailer. A channel trailer is a short video that showcases what your channel is all about. Popular trailers are often a compilation of funny clips across your top watched or engaged videos. These videos are great at conveying what viewers can expect from your channel in a quick and informative way, whilst redirecting users to videos that might have been displayed in the channel trailer. Make sure you go through the comments section of your videos and see if anybody has left any messages that state what their favourite part was so that you can include these too. Also, if you haven’t kept your videos backed up somewhere, YouTube will allow you to download them so you will be able to cut your favourite clips and compile them together for your channel trailer. Sainsbury’s Food featuring Fleur and Mike have created a perfect example.
There will always be small tweaks to complete as both your channel and YouTube grow as a platform and launches new features, but for now when it comes to fast tracking your vlogging career the above 6 really are musts! If you’re looking to grow your channel on YouTube and have any questions about what you can do to fast track your vlogging career, then leave a comment in the box below.
