YouTube for Chambers: The Beginner's Guide

Table of contents:

• GETTING STARTED (CREATING A CHANNEL)
• UPLOADING VIDEOS
• CREATING PLAYLISTS
• SHARING YOUR VIDEOS

Ready for your close up?

More than half of consumers say they feel more confident about a purchase if they first watch a video about the product. What if a video of your chamber’s monthly speaking or networking event helped your members feel more confident about joining your chamber? 

Online video is a powerful marketing tool that many organizations today still haven’t begun to leverage. In today’s blog post, I’m going to help you pioneer your chamber’s presence on the world’s most influential video social network, YouTube.

TERMS TO KNOW

• Channel - Your Channel is essentially your YouTube profile page. Your Channel will display all of your uploaded videos, any video playlists you create and (unless you change the settings) your interaction with other users’ channels and videos. A standard channel is free of charge and available to all users.
• Brand Channel - A Brand Channel provides more branding and marketing opportunities. However, it is very pricey and requires authorization from Google.

Today, I will provide the steps to create a standard channel. This is what 立博客户端app下载, our sister company 立博客户端app下载, and tons of other businesses use.

PART 1 – GETTING STARTED (CREATING A CHANNEL)

1) Create a new account. (Because YouTube is a product of Google, you’ll be creating a Google account. DO NOT use your personal Google account - once your account is associated with your chamber’s YouTube channel, it can’t be undone without completely erasing the channel.) Click here to create your new YouTube account.

2) Click the arrow next to Upload and select Channel from the dropdown box. 

3) Create a name for your channel (use your chamber name) and select the appropriate gender (typically “other” for organizations). 

4) Build out your profile. Click Channel Settings in the top left corner and edit the following:

• Avatar – your chamber logo
• Background image – dimensions should be 2000 x 1500 pixels
• Title – your chamber name
• Description – keep it brief and include keywords
• Tags – provide keywords to help you channel get found YouTube search; separate keywords with commas

The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce’s channel is a great example of a robust YouTube channel.

PART 2 - UPLOADING VIDEOS

1) In the top right corner, click Upload.

2) There are several options for uploading a video. The standard option is to upload a file from your computer, but you can also select to upload multiple files, record for a webcam, or broadcast a Google+ Hangout. For a list of supported video formats, click here. 

3) After you select a method and upload your video, there are a few more steps to complete your video post. 

• Fill out the basic info, using keywords in your title, video description, and tags
• Choose a thumbnail to appear in search results
• Select a Category 
• Check out the Advanced Settings if you want to set up commenting limits

4) Add Annotations to optimize your video. The following video (via ReelSEO.com) provides a definition and explains how to add Annotations to your own videos.

PART 3 - CREATING PLAYLISTS

When you are first starting out on YouTube and don’t have a lot of original video content, you can still build a robust channel. Use the Playlist feature to group together other users’ videos and create playlists that focus on relevant topics, such as Economic Development or Business Management. This way, you are still providing your members with valuable information. And, because Playlists show up in YouTube and Google search results, you are also increasing your chamber’s visibility!

The first step is to create a playlist. Click the arrow next to Upload and select your channel. On your channel page, click Playlists, then Create a Playlist, then + New Playlist. Name it, write a description, and it’s done!

The next step is to search for videos to add to your Playlist. Once you find your first video, click the Add to link underneath the video player. Click the name of the playlist to add the video. Now that video will appear on your channel under the Playlists tab!

 We implemented the playlist function to use third-party content to jumpstart our new 立博客户端app下载 channel. The Salem Area Chamber of Commerce took it a step further, using their own videos to create a playlist called Heart Business that features local businesses and their stories. 

PART 4 - SHARING YOUR VIDEOS

To increase views, be sure to share your videos on your website, on your Facebook Videos tab, on your LinkedIn Products sidebar, and in your tweets!

Under the video player, click Share to view your options:

• YouTube automatically shortens your link
• Clicking any of the social media icons will provide you with a preview of what the auto-generated message will look like. You will always have the option to edit the message.
• When you share the video, you can set it to begin playing at a certain point in the video.
• Clicking Embed will provide you with code to place within your website or blog HTML
• Clicking Email will allow you to send a link to the video and an auto-generated message to any email address you provide
• Hangout is a feature of Google+ (to be discussed in an upcoming post)

Up Next: Video Ideas For Chambers

Today’s blog post covered everything your chamber needs to know to get started on YouTube. You learned how to create a channel, upload videos, create playlists and share your videos. Come back next week for a blog post on different types of videos to create for your chamber of commerce.

Readers who found this article helpful also enjoyed:

Twitter for Chambers - The Beginner's Guide

Facebook for Chambers: The Beginner's Guide

LinkedIn for Chambers - The Beginner's Guide