YouTube Channels For Dummies

Introduction 1 About This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 3 How This Book is Organized 4 Part 1: Getting Started with YouTube Channels 4 Part 2: Making Good Videos and Not Making Bad Videos 5 Part 3: Growing and Knowing Your Audience 5 Part 4: YouTube Channels Are Serious Business 5 Part 5: The Part of Tens 5 Icons Used in This Book 5 Beyond the Book 6 Where to Go from Here 6 Part 1: Getting Started with YouTube 7 Chapter 1: Making a Home on YouTube 9 The YouTube Phenomenon: Why You Need to Be on YouTube 10 Audience, audience, audience 11 Incorporating YouTube into your business and marketing plans 12 Becoming a star! 14 Going viral 15 Wasting lots and lots of time 16 Seeing What Makes a YouTube Channel Unique 16 Angling for subscriptions 18 Establishing your brand 19 Managing Channels for Fun and/or Profit 21 Creating content 21 Building an audience 22 Building a business 23 Monetizing 23 Chapter 2: The Basics of YouTube 25 What You’ll Find on YouTube 26 Managing your identity 26 Navigating the home page 27 Watching a video 36 Working with a YouTube Account 41 Logging On to Your YouTube Account 48 Creating a YouTube Channel 49 Verifying Your YouTube Channel 56 Setting Up a Custom Channel URL 60 Joining the YouTube Partner Program 61 Chapter 3: Building Your Channel from the Ground Up 63 Navigating Your Channel 63 The Your Channel menu item 64 The Channel tabs 66 Customizing and Branding Your Channel 68 Creating channel art 68 Managing channel art 70 Creating the Channel icon 72 Uploading the channel icon 73 Managing your links 74 Managing Uploads 76 Part 2: Making a Great YouTube Video 79 Chapter 4: What Makes a Good Video a Good Video? 81 Picking the Right Camera for Your Needs 82 Knowing What Makes a Good Video 85 Mastering the Genres in Your YouTube Videos 87 Mastering music videos 87 Producing your very own vlog 89 Making an educational video 91 Making tutorial and how-to videos 92 Let’s play (and make) gaming videos 93 Making animal videos 94 Capturing sporting events 95 Film and animation 96 Entertainment 97 News and information 98 Autos and vehicles 99 Comedy 99 Travel and events 100 Science and technology 101 Nonprofits and activism 101 Viral Videos versus Evergreen Content 102 Viral content 103 Evergreen content 103 Chapter 5: Making Plans Both Large and Small 105 Establishing Your Channel’s Mission 106 Determining your goals 107 Being different, being valuable, being authentic 109 Surveying the YouTube landscape 110 Understanding Your Target Audience 112 Going narrow versus going broad 113 Knowing why your audience matters 113 Finding out the nitty-gritty about your audience 114 Defining Desired Actions 115 Planning an Outstanding YouTube Channel 116 Having a spokesperson 117 Branding 117 Planning the channel layout 118 Crafting a Content Strategy 120 Recognizing that content includes video and more 120 Looking at content formats 121 Curation recycling 123 Programming for Success 124 Delivering content consistently 124 Being flexible and reactive 125 Going live for more engagement 126 Planning Never Ends 127 Chapter 6: Acquiring the Tools of the Trade 129 Checking Out Your Camera Options 129 Working through the (camera) basics 130 Looking at DSLRs 133 Settling for smartphones 137 Stabilizing the Shot 138 Seeing Your Way with Light 139 Setting up 3-point lighting 139 Setting up high-key lighting 140 Capturing Sound 141 Looking at microphones 141 Capturing good audio 142 Chapter 7: Putting It All Together to Capture Some Video 145 Setting Up for a Shoot 146 Getting organized 146 Completing your checklists and shoot sack 146 Arriving on set 149 Planning a realistic shooting schedule 150 Practicing good habits before a shot 151 Maintaining continuity 152 Shooting a Great-Looking Video 153 Composing and dividing the screen 154 Determining the best shot 154 Moving and grooving the camera 156 Matching your eyelines 157 Following the 180-degree rule 158 Shooting an interview 159 Shooting extra footage and B-roll 160 Capturing the perfect take — several times 160 Working with Voice 161 Practicing diction and dialects 161 The power of the pause 162 Managing crowd audio 163 Chapter 8: Fixing It in Post: The Edit 165 Picking the Right Software Package 165 Mac tools 166 Windows tools 167 Knowing Where to Get Started with Editing 169 Attempting a test project 169 Handling file formats, resolution, and conversion 170 Editing Your Video 172 Logging your footage 173 Trimming video clips 175 Making a rough cut 176 Switching it around 177 Creating cuts 178 Filling the gaps with B-roll 180 Polishing Your Video 180 Fine-tuning your edit 181 Adding bells and whistles 181 Adding Music to Your Video 182 Adding built-in music in video editing tools 183 Incorporating stock music libraries 184 Putting music in your video 184 Adding emotional impact 185 Cutting your video to music 186 Cutting your music to video 186 Incorporating Voiceover and Sound Effects 187 Exporting the Final Version 188 Chapter 9: Preparing for Upload Day 189 Preparing Your Channel for Uploads 190 Checking your YouTube account hygiene 190 Enabling channel features 193 Tending to Video SEO Matters 194 Titles 195 Descriptions 197 Tags 199 Thumbnails 200 Uploading Your Video 201 Picking the source 202 Going public about YouTube privacy 202 Uploading to YouTube 203 Entering information about your video 206 Setting upload defaults 213 Publishing and Unpublishing Videos 213 Part 3: Growing and Knowing Your Audience 217 Chapter 10: Building Your Audience 219 Developing a Community 220 Deciphering audience evolution 220 Determining what you want your audience to do 221 Appreciating the importance of community 221 Determining your subscription source 223 Understanding Subscribers and Their Value 224 Persuading viewers to subscribe 225 Specifying how subscribers get updates 226 Controlling channel settings and privacy levels 227 Managing Comments 230 Seeing why comments matter 231 Setting up your channel for comments 232 Moderating comments 233 Reacting to inappropriate comments 234 Configuring Community Settings 235 Getting Viewers to Engage 236 Capturing the Captioning Opportunity 238 Producing Live Events 240 Chapter 11: Knowing Your Audience 241 Getting Started with YouTube Analytics 242 Reading YouTube Analytics reports 243 Breaking down the report components 246 Grouping information 248 Comparing data 249 Setting up report filters 249 Selecting a report 250 Understanding visual charts 251 Understanding the table 254 Learning about Video Views 254 Seeing which content is the most popular 254 Determining whether viewers are watching or leaving 255 Understanding Your Audience 258 Diving into demographics 258 Diving into subscribers 260 Optimizing Discoverability 261 Seeing where viewers find your content 261 Finding out where (and how) viewers watch your content 264 Making Sure Your Audience is Engaged 266 Imagining the Future of YouTube Analytics 268 Part 4: YouTube Channels Are Serious Business 269 Chapter 12: How and Why Businesses Use YouTube 271 Understanding Video and Business 272 Understanding Your YouTube Business Components 274 Content matters 275 Community and content creators 279 Advertising 281 Integrating YouTube with Other Campaigns 283 Cross-media integration 283 YouTube is TV now 284 YouTube isn’t Google, either 286 Chapter 13: Expanding Your Audience with Google Ads 287 Understanding YouTube Advertising 289 Recognizing the importance of ad policy 290 Looking at YouTube ad types 290 Planning for Advertising 292 Creating a Google Ads account 292 Linking your Google Ads account and YouTube channel 293 Determining Your Ad Targets 296 People targeting 297 Content targeting 299 Navigating Google Ads 300 Setting Up a YouTube Ad Campaign 302 Going with a general campaign 302 Creating an ad group and setting up targeting 306 Creating a YouTube Ad 308 Setting up remarketing lists 313 Looking at Your campaign details 315 Measuring Clicks and Results 316 Looking at campaign information 316 Getting earned metrics 318 Optimizing Your Campaign 319 Chapter 14: YouTube Monetization: How to Earn Money on YouTube 321 Partnering with YouTube 323 From Ads to AdSense 323 Setting up YouTube monetization 324 Analyzing ad performance with YouTube Analytics 326 Getting your YouTube revenue information 327 Seeing which metrics are offered 327 Making changes to your video strategy based on the data 329 Strikes 330 Brand safety and suitability 331 Federal Trade Commission Guidelines and COPPA 332 Part 5: The Part of Tens 335 Chapter 15: Ten Key Steps to Improving YouTube Search Results 337 Updating Video Metadata 338 Managing Video Titles 339 Understanding Working Titles 340 Optimizing Thumbnails for Viewer Session Time 340 Managing Video Descriptions 341 Adding Closed Captioning 342 Handling Tags 343 Refreshing Metadata 343 Understanding Channel SEO 343 Avoiding Misleading Metadata 345 Chapter 16: Ten Things to Know About Copyright 347 Remember Who Owns the Copyright 348 Attribution Does Not Absolve a Copyright Violation 348 Know the Consequences 349 The Profit Motive is Irrelevant 351 Get Permission for Using Copyrighted Material 351 Fair Use is s Complicated 352 Don’t Let Copyright Issues on YouTube Lead to a Strikeout 353 Wipe the Slate Clean 354 YouTube’s Algorithms Are Good at Finding Copyright Infringements 354 Copyright is (Almost) Forever 355 Index 357