Is a website that enables users to send and receive messages based on the principle of followers?

Your YouTube channel is an extension of your brand, and it should be treated as such. As you create and customize your channel, follow these YouTube brand guidelines so you can properly establish your channel’s identity and begin to attract subscribers.

• Channel name: Your channel name is associated with every single video you publish. Make sure it’s correct and consistent with your other social media sites and overall branding.
• Channel icon: Google recommends uploading an 800 x 800 px square or round image. Your channel icon is similar to a Facebook profile picture. This image will be used across all of your Google properties including Gmail. Consider using a company logo or, if you are a public figure, a professional headshot.
• Brand visuals: Upload a 2560 x 1440 px image that will scale well across a desktop, tablet, mobile, and TV. 
• Channel description: Your description should provide more information on your company and explain what type of video content you plan on sharing. Search engines look at your description when determining how to rank your profile, so incorporate relevant keywords in your overview. We’ll talk more about how to optimize specific video descriptions below.
• Channel trailer: Your trailer should be short and sweet (around 30 to 60 seconds). Focus on showing visitors what your channel is about and what they can expect to see in your videos. Your trailer won’t be interrupted by ads, which will keep the user focused on why they should watch more videos from your brand. At the end, don't forget to encourage them to subscribe. 
• Channel URL: Your channel may be eligible for a custom URL if you have over 100 subscribers, a channel icon, channel art, and is more than 30 days old. Learn more about custom YouTube URLs here.
• Channel links: Link to all other social media accounts and relevant websites from the “About” section of your channel. Make it easy for subscribers to connect with you elsewhere.

YouTube Marketing Software

YouTube Studio is a strong source of truth when evaluating the success of your channel. But just like a website, it’s helpful to have a well-rounded analysis by using a few tools in conjunction with one another. Naturally, the data will be off in every platform by a few views here and a few seconds of watch time there, so taking an aggregate from different data sources can give you a holistic picture of how your channel is really doing.

The most comprehensive YouTube marketing software tools are listed below. Each one focuses on a specific part of your channel’s health, so determine which ones to use based on the goals you set and what data you need to evaluate those goals.

1. VidIQ

VidIQ is a keyword research tool that helps you identify trends and topics to discuss on your YouTube channel. Every channel gets a scorecard which is essentially a real-time infographic of your channel’s analytics that’s usually stored deep within YouTube Studio. With VidIQ you won’t have to spend hours creating custom reports and searching for data. Instead, you can spend that time searching for new keywords in the Keyword Inspector Tool.

2. Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a powerful social media management tool that helps you monitor, publish, and collaborate on content. One feature this platform does exceptionally well is inbox monitoring. As your YouTube channel grows, you’ll start to receive more direct messages than you did before. Having a tool like Agorapulse can scale with you as you grow so that you can maintain that same personalized, small-channel-feel even as you grow.

3. BuzzSumo

If you’re interested in collaborating with other YouTube channels, BuzzSumo can help you find content creators who’d be a good match. With a focus on language, audience size, engagement rates, and a domain analysis of popular influencers that you find, BuzzSumo can recommend which online personalities would help grow your audience.

4. Social Blade

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Competition on YouTube is stiff, but you can get an insight into how you can compete based on your strengths. Social Blade is a freemium tool that content creators can leverage to gather insights about their own potential growth, but the eBay part is scoping out competitors. 

Social Blade is simple to use. Type in your (or your competitor’s) username on any popular social platform. Here, you’ll uncover a letter grade for your online presence, Social Blade’s ranking for your channel, your subscriber count, and even estimated monthly earnings.

5. Unbox Social

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Have you ever considered making a brand persona for your YouTube channel? Unbox Social can help. This tool gives you post-level performance insights, including a breakdown of your audience by gender, age, and location. You’ll have a scorecard of your target audience all in one place which you can use to better tailor your video content.

6. Social Bakers

Social Bakers uses artificial intelligence (AI) to discover who is likely to watch your video content on YouTube and the types of content they want to see. Using these insights, you can improve your content strategy. If or when you decide to implement a paid strategy, Social Bakers can track all of those efforts and simplify your reporting.

7. Vidooly

Whether you run a media company, an agency, or if you’re an independent content creator, Vidooly analytics software can handle it all. Included in the product suite are four products:

• A leaderboard to benchmark growth against other video publishers
• A brand intelligence tool to help you make informed decisions about your YouTube marketing strategy
• A brand safety tool that helps you run brand-safe video campaigns

You can use each tool separately or combine them to build a robust dashboard to track your YouTube strategy.

1. Set a publishing schedule and stick to it.

YouTube watchers are loyal to the channels they subscribe to, and they expect that those channels produce content regularly. Being inconsistent is one of the biggest mistakes new YouTubers make when starting their channel. Publishing one video per month can help you stay more consistent than publishing a video every week, but taking a two-week break unexpectedly.

2. Make the upfront investment for publishing video.

Have you determined whether you’ll be on camera or someone else on your team? Perhaps you’ll be hiring talent externally specifically to present your video content? Do you have an in-house editor or will you outsource production? No matter which setup you choose for your business channel, be prepared to make an upfront investment before you publish your first video. Digital information estimates the cost of DIY YouTube production may run you about $1,300 to $10,000.

3. Keep your revenue expectations reasonable for the first year.

If your goal is to make money from your YouTube channel, understanding the way AdSense revenue is distributed will help you manage your goals and expectations. It’s widely known that YouTube channels receive 68% of AdSense revenue from Google once they’ve garnered enough traffic to bring in views consistently. That’s the key to building a YouTube channel, you may not make much money on your first few videos, but being consistent can be lucrative in the long run.