Tag: youtube

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SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can YouTube Accounts Be Hacked?

Can YouTube Account Be Hacked?

Online security has never been such a big part of our collective awareness, and with more and more people finding a way to make their living through YouTube, the prospect of having your YouTube account hacked is more than just an inconvenience, it can be a threat to your livelihood.

Can YouTube Account Be Hacked? – Yes! Any social media can be hacked but its all depends on how far you are willing to go to secure your account.

With that in mind, it’s natural to wonder about how likely it is that your YouTube account could be hacked, and, fortunately, the answer is “not easily”. However, as with any matter of online security, the best protections in the world can be undermined by user error. In this post, we’re going to look at the potential ways your YouTube account could be hacked—as well as how likely they are—and cover how you can keep yourself safe.

How Can YouTube Account Be Hacked?

When talking about hacked accounts on platforms like YouTube, there are a few likely candidates for how it can happen; hacking YouTube, data breaches, and hacking you.

Hacking YouTube

Now, we’ll be honest, this is a very unlikely way for your account to get hacked. Getting hacked is very bad for business, and companies like Google are not interested in anything that is bad for business and have a lot of money to throw at the problem.

The chances of someone breaking into YouTube’s system and accessing your account that way is very low. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, should it actually happen, there would be nothing you could do to prevent it. You would just have to hope the damage isn’t too great and that YouTube can sort out the mess afterwards.

Data Breaches

Data breaches can occur because someone has hacked into a system as we talked about above, but they can also just be a disgruntled employee walking out of the office with a thumb drive full of data. The data will usually be a list of names and passwords that will then go on to be sold on the dark web. Nefarious parties then purchase these usernames and passwords and try them on several platforms to see what works. Incidentally, this is also why it is important not to use the same username and password on different platforms.

The good news here is that an increasing number of services monitor for these kinds of leaks, and can notify you if your username and password emerge on one of them. The other good news is that avoiding this problem is as simple as regularly changing your password, and services that suffer data breaches will usually force you to reset your password.

Does YouTube Track You?

Social Engineering

Social engineering is probably the most common type of “hacking” today, and it doesn’t involve typing reams of code in a dark, seedy room, or sneaking into a server room at some high-power corporation. The reality is far more mundane.

Social engineering can come in many forms. For example, someone could literally just strike up a conversation with you in the street and find out enough information to get access to your accounts. All those backup security questions such as our mother’s maiden name are a liability if someone really wants to get at you since they can be easily found out. Have you ever shared one of those “Your Drag Queen Name is Your Grandmother’s First Name and Your First Car” posts? Putting information like that out publicly makes it very easy for any malicious parties to get the information they need. And with AI constantly making life easier for them, they needn’t be looking at you directly to find this information anymore.

Phishing is also a form of social engineering, with the most common form of it is sending a spoof email pretending to be a service or bank, asking the user to log in to their account to deal with some urgent matter. The login page is fake, however, and the malicious parties behind it log the username and password you enter for using themselves. Other versions of this tactic include intercepting traffic going to a legitimate site and redirecting it, and hijacking unattended browser tabs and rewriting them with malicious code.

Protecting yourself in these instances is a matter of general good practice when using the Internet—don’t download files from untrusted sources, don’t click on links from suspicious emails, and never give your username and password out.

Protecting Yourself

For the most part, keeping your YouTube account safe is a matter of common sense. Don’t use a password that you use for other accounts, and try to change that password occasionally. Certainly never give your password to anyone else. Always enabled 2-factor authentication on your Google account, preferably using your phone as the second factor, as this will mean any malicious party looking to break into your account would also need to have access to your phone.

Final Thoughts

While we would be lying if we said that you have the power to prevent absolutely every possibility of your YouTube account being hacked, the vast majority of ways in which it could happen can be prevented by relatively simple steps taken by you, and most of those steps are straightforward and should be considered common practice for anyone using the web.

It is also worth remembering that many of the “up close and personal” methods of gathering information about you are labour-intensive. A spammer could send out a million phishing emails with the click of a button, but someone feigning a romantic interest in you to get information has to put the work in. Another way of looking at this is phishing emails, data breaches, and hacks are not personal, but somebody who gets to know you to find out your place of birth and the name of your first pet so they can gain access to your account is going after you specifically.

And, regardless of external attacks, it’s always a good idea to keep your own backups of your videos. Especially if you have an established channel with hours and hours of content.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Can YouTube Play Dolby Atmos?

Can YouTube Play Dolby Atmos? 1

The average Internet connection speed is increasing, and with Internet coverage becoming more and more ubiquitous, it is becoming increasingly common for consumers of entertainment to get their fix online through the likes of YouTube. But what about those consumers who want the best, most immersive experience possible? 4K streaming is already available through many streaming platforms, but what about sound?

What is Dolby Atmos? – Dolby Atmos has become the standard for immersive surround sound, having moved from cinema screens to homes and become affordable enough for the average audiophile to afford.

Of course, the fact that you have a Dolby Atmos system in your home doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have any Dolby Atmos ready content to play through it.

So, does YouTube support this immersive audio platform? No, unfortunately, YouTube does not support Dolby Atmos. Content uploaded to YouTube is compressed for bandwidth efficiency reasons, and all audio is reduced to standard stereo 2.0. The exception to this rule is YouTube TV, however.

What Is Dolby Atmos?

If you’ve been reading this so far and asking yourself “what is Dolby Atmos?”, don’t worry, we’ve got your back.

Dolby Atmos is a proprietary audio format created by Dolby to provide an immersive 360 degrees sound environment that is akin to what you’d experience in a cinema. The platform works with any number of compatible speakers (though a minimum of four is recommended) and is calibrated to the specific layout of the room and the speakers to provide the best fidelity and most immersive experience possible.

Of course, this experience is only available using content that is made to work with Dolby Atmos. The amount of available content is growing by the day, but it is far from ubiquitous.

Can YouTube Play Dolby Atmos

As of the time of writing this post, regular YouTube—that is the freely available YouTube where anyone can upload content—does not support Dolby Atmos nor has any plan been announced to support Atmos in the near future.

This is likely due to two main factors (though we’re speculating, of course). Firstly, the user-generated content aspect of YouTube’s business is one of the hardest to make profitable. You only have to look at the fact that the overwhelming majority of YouTubers have less than a thousand subscribers to see that the overwhelming majority of the content uploaded to YouTube is not profitable. If there are only a dozen people watching the content, it is not going to generate enough ad revenue to pay for the cost of storing and delivering it.

Adding the additional information required by Dolby Atmos means more data storage and increased bandwidth when someone streams the content, which means more expense for YouTube if that content isn’t making enough to pay for itself.

The other reason is the lack of demand for it from creators. Of all the users uploading videos to YouTube, only a minuscule fraction might be in a position to take advantage of support for Dolby Atmos. Leaving aside any technical challenges in creating Atmos content, how many YouTubers do you watch that need it? PewDiePie certainly wouldn’t gain anything from having Dolby Atmos audio.

Can YouTube Play Dolby Atmos?

Can YouTube Music Play Dolby Atmos?

Like the main YouTube platform, YouTube’s music streaming service does not support Dolby Atmos. Again, there is no word at the time of writing this post that YouTube plans to implement Atmos, but again, we find it unlikely that YouTube would go to the trouble.

While much of the music available on YouTube Music is made by professionals with music label backing, the vast majority of that music is not made to take advantage of Dolby Atmos. And, since there is an enormous catalogue of music available, it may be some time before Dolby Atmos-ready music makes up any kind of significant portion of the music on that platform. If ever.

Can YouTube TV Play Dolby Atmos?

Again, no Dolby Atmos here. YouTube TV brings us a little closer, however, as a new “4K Plus” tier providing 4K content and Dolby 5.1 surround sound was announced earlier this year. This isn’t quite Dolby Atmos, but it does offer a more immersive surround sound experience for those who have a compatible sound system.

Again, there is likely a return on investment factor at play here. Adding that additional Dolby Atmos information makes delivering the content more expensive for YouTube, and while YouTube TV is probably the most likely to be in a position to take advantage of Atmos, the majority of its content will still be Dolby 5.1 at best, or just plain stereo 2.0.

Will YouTube Add Dolby Atmos?

In the fullness of time, it is entirely possible that YouTube will start adding Dolby Atmos to its offerings—assuming Atmos isn’t replaced by a better alternative before that happens.

Granted, the vast majority of the content is still likely to not be made for Dolby Atmos, but as bandwidth gets cheaper and more available, it will represent less of a cost to YouTube to deliver it.

Final Thoughts

So, presently YouTube does not offer Dolby Atmos on any of its various services, and there doesn’t seem to be any intention to add those services in the near future. YouTube TV comes closest, offering Dolby 5.1 sound for 4K Plus users, but that is a service only available in the United States.

The reality is that the economics and a lack of realistic demand for Atmos make it a questionable business decision at this stage for YouTube, so there won’t be a real impetus to add the feature. This may be unwanted news for those precious few YouTube creators out there who can and want to make use of Dolby Atmos, but for the overwhelming majority of us, it doesn’t make much difference.

On the other hand, if you are reading this, not as a creator, but as a consumer with a shiny new Dolby Atmos system and you want some content to play through it, Netflix and Amazon Prime both support Dolby Atmos!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Can YouTube Shorts Be Monetized?

Can YouTube Shorts Be Monetized? 1

YouTube has not been one to shy away from making changes in a bid to keep up with the competition in recent years. From giving YouTubers the option to provide paid memberships to their users as an alternative to services like Patreon, to adding live-streaming to compete with Twitch.

I recently dived deep into everything we know about YouTube shorts – One of their more recent additions is YouTube Shorts, which could be seen as a move to compete with the likes of Snapchat, Instagram, and even Facebook to a degree. Of course, in typical Google fashion, not everything they implement is clearly explained and easy to understand.

YouTube Shorts’ rollout left a lot of questions for users due to its almost unofficial system of placing a hashtag in the description. Things are more clear now, of course, but now that Shorts are a more integrated part of the YouTube platform, many users still have questions over the monetization aspect of it.

Yes, YouTube Shorts CAN be monetized! From 2023 YouTube will be adding adverts to YouTube shorts and revenue shared with creators 45/10/45 with the 10% being for music licensing.

What Are YouTube Shorts?

You might be reading this and wondering “what the hell is a YouTube Short?”, but don’t worry, we’re going to fill you in.

YouTube Shorts are essentially YouTube’s answer to Instagram and Facebook Stories. They are short videos—less than 60 seconds to be precise—that are intended for continuous consumption. In essence, YouTube wants viewers to sit and watch several Shorts one after the other, with the ultimate aim being to keep those viewers on the website for longer. Many of us will happily sit through a 10-15 minute video, and if YouTube can put the right Shorts in front of a viewer, that 10-15 minute window could see them viewing 15-30 Shorts (many Shorts are much less than 60 seconds). These videos are primarily made for mobile viewing, something that is evident when you look at the portrait aspect ratio. While regular YouTube is the kind of experience you can set up in front of your computer or laptop head off down the rabbit hole, YouTube Shorts is more of a “kill five minutes at the bus stop” kind of experience.

Where Is The Money?

If you think about this from a YouTube-centric point of view, you might notice a problem with YouTube Shorts when it comes to generating revenue. If the aim is to keep users watching these short videos, you can’t really go sticking advertisements in between because it will dramatically increase the chances of the viewer clicking away. YouTube knows this, of course, which is why they don’t run advertisements on YouTube Shorts.

With that in mind, where is the money coming from?

In short, the answer is nowhere. With no ad being run against YouTube Shorts, there is no money coming in for those views. It could be argued that there is some revenue coming from YouTube Premium users, but that money is coming in regardless. And, since there are no ads on YouTube Shorts, they are unlikely to bring in new YouTube Premium subscribers since the biggest attraction of that service is the removal of ads.

Why Have Shorts If There’s No Money In It?

Just a quick note; there’s no money for YouTube. YouTubers can still get paid, more on that below.

Ultimately, as much as we might like to believe that our favourite companies are acting in our best interests, all decisions ultimately come back to money. YouTube Shorts may not directly make YouTube money, but their inclusion has been judged good for YouTube’s bottom line in the long run.

The most obvious way this works is by exposing viewers to more content. As mentioned above, in the same amount of time you might take to watch one 15 minute video, you could watch 20 Shorts. The more content you watch, the better idea YouTube’s algorithm gets of what you like, and the more successful it can be at recommending content to you. That in turn increases the likelihood of you sticking around, which increases the opportunity to serve you ads. There is also an argument to be made that adding this alternative way of consuming media may attract users that wouldn’t typically spend that much time on YouTube, though we’re not sure TikTok will be quaking in their boots at the thought of YouTube Shorts.

YouTube Shorts Fund Explained

We’ve teased you enough. How do you make money from YouTube Shorts? Through the YouTube Shorts Fund. Since there is no revenue being directly generated from YouTube Shorts, YouTube has to create their own incentives for creatives, and they’ve done this in the form of the YouTube Shorts Fund.

This is a $100M fund set up to reward creators. Bonuses are awarded monthly to creators who have had success with their Shorts, with YouTube stating that they’ll reach out to “thousands” of creators each month to award between $100 and $10,000, which is paid directly into your AdSense account. There is no stated qualification criteria, such as a certain number of views, so the recipients of these bonuses would appear to be entirely at YouTube’s discretion at this stage.

There are some criteria you have to meet in order to be eligible for a YouTube Shorts Fund bonus, however;

  • Have uploaded at least one eligible Short in the last 180 days
  • Channel must abide by community guidelines
  • Channel must not be uploading unoriginal content or content with watermarks (like the TikTok logo)
  • Creator must be in an eligible region (see link above)
  • Creator must be 13 years (or the age of majority outside of United States)
  • Creators under 18 must have a parent or guardian accept terms and set up an AdSense account.

Channels do not need to be monetized in order to be eligible for the YouTube Shorts Fund, however, but you will still be eligible if you are part of the YouTube Partner Programme or an affiliate under a Multi-Channel Network.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Does YouTube Track You?

Does YouTube Track You?

It seems we can’t go anywhere on the Internet without worrying about being tracked by someone. Online security is a more pressing matter than ever, with so much of our lives being online, it makes sense that we’d all be more concerned about keeping our privacy private.

Being a Google company, there won’t be many people out there who are naive enough to think that YouTube doesn’t engage in a little tracking of its own, but there are levels to that tracking. So, if you’re looking for a short answer to the question posed in this post’s title, yes, YouTube can and does track you, but if you’d like to know a bit more about what that tracking entails, keep reading.

Logged In Vs Anonymous

The first distinction to make here is the difference between a YouTube user who is logged in and one who is not. Obviously, when you are logged in, YouTube knows a great deal about you and is able to explicitly keep a detailed log of your activities. Indeed, their tracking in this respect is a feature of the platform. YouTube can’t make recommendations based on your interests and viewing history if they do not keep track of what that viewing history is! This, unfortunately, is an unavoidable aspect of using the platform. There is no way to opt out of being tracked in this regard, even if you pay for YouTube Premium to get rid of ads. Ads are, ultimately, the reason for tracking you in the first place, since advertisers want to serve you the most relevant ads possible.

But YouTube can’t be sure that you won’t cancel your Premium subscription in the future, and if and when that happens, they want to have all their data on you for the ads they’re going to start serving you again.

Of course, anonymous users are not exempt from being tracked on YouTube, but they have a little more privacy than their logged in counterparts. For one thing, YouTube does not have the user data that you enter when you sign up for an account, such as your date of birth, gender, and other information of that nature.

Still, YouTube (and any other platform for that matter) can keep personalised records for anonymous users thanks to their “digital fingerprint”. This is a swath of data that they can read about you, such as the device you are using to view YouTube, your IP address, what operating system you have… even what fonts you have installed! All of this information makes combines to paint a picture almost as unique as a fingerprint, and certainly unique enough for YouTube to keep tabs on you.

Again, this is all for the purpose of advertising. YouTube will try to build as accurate a picture of you as possible so that they can serve the most relevant ads. The more relevant the ads, the higher the chance that you’ll click them, and the more you click those ads, the better the perceived performance of YouTube as an advertising platform resulting in more advertisers being willing to put their money into YouTube.

Does YouTube Track You? 2

Is Being Tracked by YouTube Bad?

People have varying opinions about the ethics of companies like YouTube tracking your online activities but it’s worth remembering that YouTube is a service that—if you’re not paying for YouTube Premium—is free, but being free to you does not mean YouTube do not still have monumental bills to pay from all the bandwidth and employees and more.

Tracking the people who use their service is part of the mechanism by which YouTube makes money, which is an integral part of them being able to provide the service at all. At the end of the day, you are choosing to use YouTube, and in doing so, you agree to the way they run the platform, which includes tracking you. If you are not comfortable with the tracking, you don’t have to use YouTube.

This may seem like an impractical alternative since YouTube is pretty much the only game in town for a certain kind of content creator, but it is, ethically speaking, the only alternative to accepting the tracking you will face if you use their platform.

Can I Avoid Being Tracked by YouTube?

With that being said, what if you still want to circumvent YouTube’s tracking? Well, the first thing to note is that it is impossible if you are logged in. Logged in users will always have their viewing history and viewing habits logged.

If you are prepared to use YouTube without being logged in, you can get around YouTube’s anonymous tracking to a degree by doing things like using different devices and proxy servers. Of course, most of us only have access to a limited number of devices, which makes this a rather limited solution, but there are also virtual machines as an option.

Deleting YouTube History

You can’t control everything YouTube stores about you, but if you are a logged-in user, you can choose to erase your viewing history, which constitutes a significant part of the data YouTube keeps on its users.

To do this, head over to the Watch History on YouTube and click “See All”, where you will find a variety of controls at your disposal These include the ability to clear all of your watch history, pause your watch history (so views won’t be recorded to your watch history), as well as controls relating to search history and comments. You can also remove individual videos from your watch history from within the video page itself.

Final Thoughts

Tracking is, unfortunately, an unavoidable reality of the modern Internet. Privacy is an understandable hot-button issue, but the fact is many web services and online platforms we rely on would not be able to deliver the services they do if they couldn’t track their users in this manner.

That being said, you are not completely powerless. If this is an important thing for you, you can try using YouTube logged out and through a proxy.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Fake Views on YouTube [Are they worth it?]

Fake Views on YouTube [Are they worth it?]

YouTube is big business, and, unfortunately, that means a lot of people are willing to take risks to get an edge when searching for success on the platform. One of the more obvious ways of doing this is to literally buy your success. You can buy likes, subscribers, and, the focus of this post, views.

Unfortunately, life is rarely easy, and YouTube is no different. Shortcuts like these invariable end in metaphorical tears, so we thought we’d outline what we mean by fake views, and why you should steer clear of them if you want to succeed on the platform.

What Are Fake Views?

When we talk about fake views, we are not simply talking about views you have paid for. After all, when you pay YouTube to promote your channel through their advertising platform, you are essentially paying for views. The difference is that there is no guarantee on how many views you will get since you are paying for advertising.

The kind of fake views we are referring to are typically sold in amounts, and though there may be a margin for error in the number of views you actually get, the seller will often specify a number, and perhaps even guarantee that that as a minimum.

But how can that work?

Think about it, you can’t guarantee a viewer will want to watch any given video, that’s not how people work. The seller would have to have an enormous pool of YouTube viewers ready and waiting, spanning a diverse range of interests so that when you come along ready to pay for their eyeball time, the seller will be able to find enough viewers to meet the number of views they have promised.

And then there’s the compensation for those viewers. If you’re going to have a large pool of YouTube viewers on retainer, they’re probably going to want something in return. The promise of engaging content that interests them won’t be much of a draw, since that’s the same promise that YouTube makes for simply having an account. Then consider that you’re only being charged a few pounds or dollars (or whatever your local currency is) for these views, how much can the seller really offer these viewers?

Well, the answer is, of course, nothing. There are often no human eyeballs on the other side of these views, just bots. The seller can afford to give you 10,000 views for £5 (or whatever the going rate is) because they have already invested whatever time or money they need to in building their bot farm, and the rest is simply a matter of entering your video’s URL and clicking a button.

But, with that being said, are these views any good?

Do Fake Views Work?

Whether or not these fake views works is a subjective question, since “working” depends on what your goal is. If you just want to inflate your view counts for the appearance, then yes, fake views are effective. The numbers under your video will go up and it will look like you have far more viewers than you actually did.

This is a bit of a hollow game, however, since these views don’t translate into anything more than the numbers themselves. And, if you don’t have that many real human viewers, nobody will really care that you have tens of thousands of views.

What about more material metrics of success? Let’s face it, the thing most of us are concerned with when it comes to YouTube success is how much revenue our channel can generate for us. Well, that’s where fake views really start to fall apart as a path to success.

Revenue is generated from ad views and YouTube Premium subscriptions. Clearly, the fake viewer seller is not going to be buying YouTube Premium subscriptions for their bots—that would be a quick way to lose a lot of money. As for ad views, a sizable portion of ad views earn their money on interaction (clicking the ads) and bots don’t do that.

There is still money to be made from simply viewing an ad, of course, but YouTube—or, more specifically, Google—have built their business on selling advertising, and they’re not about to let that business collapse because advertisers are sick of wasting their money on fake views that don’t generate leads.

In other words, YouTube is very good at sniffing out fake views, and the improvement of that skill is one that is in constant and active development. It can also affect the numbers game we mentioned above since YouTube has been known to erase fake views from a video’s view count after the fact.

Another negative side of fake views is the way YouTube sees your channel. Even if a fake view gets through YouTube’s elite fake view defences, YouTube is going to see your channel getting a lot of views and very little engagement, which is a bad sign for your recommendation prospects. This means that, not only are fake views not helping you succeed in the short term, they can actively harm your chances of succeeding the right way in the long term.

Are Fake Views Allowed?

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but fake views are not permitted under YouTube terms of service. Or, rather, you are not permitted to artificially inflate viewing figures.

Practically speaking, if you are not a serial offender, the worst you’ll face is probably your fake views being removed and your money wasted. That being said, YouTube could decide to take more severe action against you—such as banning you from the platform—and you should be prepared for that eventuality if you decide to take this risk.

Final Thoughts

Like many shortcuts in life, fake views are not worth it in the long term. And, with YouTube constantly improving their fake view prevention mechanisms, it is increasingly becoming the case that fake views offer little benefit in the short term, also.

It takes patience, but genuine, organic growth is the way to go, and there are plenty of resources right here on this blog to help you do just that!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
DEEP DIVE ARTICLE LISTS SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Top YouTube Alternatives

Top YouTube Alternatives

Given the body of work on this website and the YouTube channel, this topic may seem a little unexpected. It shouldn’t be, however, as knowing your alternatives allows you to make the best of any situation. There are times where YouTube isn’t the best platform for a particular piece of content, and it’s not necessarily a failing on YouTube’s part.

In this post, we’re going to look at some of the top YouTube alternatives, outline what makes them different (if anything), and talk about when and why you might want to use them over YouTube in some cases. But, before we get into the alternatives, there’s something we need to address.

Online Platform Competition

It’s perfectly normal to think of comparisons like this as a competition, but that’s not really applicable most of the time. When you consider services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, you can make a direct comparison because the services are essentially offering the same thing. They can enter into this kind of battle because there is a lot of subjectivity about who is better. If you like the shows on Netflix more, you’re going to prefer that service. In this manner, both services can co-exist.

Things are a little different for platforms like YouTube. Essentially, everyone is striving to offer something a little different, because going into direct competition is dangerous. If one platform manages to get a significant upper hand, it can spell the end for the other platform.

So, what does this mean for this post? Simply put, when directly comparing YouTube to an alternative, the “best” platform will often come down to how you are using it.

Anyway, enough of the caveats, let’s get to the alternatives!

Top YouTube Alternatives 1

Top YouTube Alternatives

Bear in mind that these alternatives are in no particular order. We’re not saying the first on the list is the “best”.

Twitch

Probably the most widely known user-generated video streaming service out there is Twitch, the Amazon-owned gaming platform. Now, if you know anything about Twitch, you will already know an important difference here.

Twitch is primarily a live streaming service.

While YouTube has recently started moving into the live streaming business in a big way, Twitch is mostly focused on it. There is some functionality to upload videos to Twitch as you would with YouTube, but you need to have Partner or Affiliate status to gain access to that functionality. Additionally, the service really isn’t intended for this kind of content, so don’t expect anywhere near the levels of engagement (or revenue) as you would get from a YouTube upload.

For live streaming, however, Twitch is really the only other game in town. In fact, it’s more than fair to say (for now) that Twitch is the top dog when it comes to live streaming. If your content is heavy on the live streaming, you won’t find a more ideal platform with as large a potential audience as Twitch can offer, other than YouTube that is.

DailyMotion

When talking about direct competition for YouTube, DailyMotion is probably the closest thing you will get to a service that tries to beat YouTube at its own game. It even has a similar layout and many of the same features, such as playlists, recommendations, and categories.

The main appeal of DailyMotion is the restrictions, of which there are fewer. Of course, there are still limitations on what you can upload, but you are far less likely to run into trouble with DailyMotion over things like graphic content and nudity than you are with YouTube.

There are also fewer users, which in turn means less money to be made. The flip side of this is that the general quality of user-generated content tends to be higher. Another downside is that users are limited to 4GB of uploads unless they are a pro user, which means paying a subscription fee.

Metacafe

Metacafe, like DailyMotion, offers a recognisably YouTube-like service, though it actually predates YouTube having been around since 2003. The focus for Metacafe is on shorter content (imagine some kind of lovechild between TikTok and YouTube), and tends to be of a lighthearted nature.

As a creator, you can get paid making content on Metacafe, with the going rate being about $5.00 per 1,000 views.

Vimeo

Vimeo started out very much a YouTube competitor, but over the years has grown into a more specific niche that has worked very well for it. If we could offer a single phrase to compare Vimeo to YouTube, it would be “quality over quantity”.

Don’t get us wrong, we love YouTube, but there is a lot of low-quality content on there. Vimeo isn’t going to give your fill of funny animal videos, but you will find award-winning shorts, premium events, and a range of other high-quality types of content.

Vimeo enforces strict quality guidelines to ensure that this level of quality is maintained. They also place quite heavy restrictions on their users, such as a 500MB per month upload limit, though you can pay to upgrade to a 5GB per month limit.

Final Thoughts

If you were looking for an alternative to YouTube that offers exactly the same service, the closest thing you’re going to find is DailyMotion, though the service isn’t identical, and the userbase is far smaller. For users making independent movies or other types of higher-quality content, Vimeo is probably the way to go. Streamers need look no further than Twitch.

Ultimately, every service has its strengths and weaknesses, but for the service offered by YouTube, you’re not going to find a like-for-like alternative that does things as well. It’s all about deciding what you need and looking for the service that does that the best.

Of course, these are certainly not the only alternatives online, so we thought we’d include a few honourable mentions that didn’t make the cut;

  • Vevo
  • 9GAG TV
  • DTube
  • Crackle
  • Internet Archives Video Section

Some of these are alternatives in a purely viewing sense, but again, it’s all about what you need from your video streaming service.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can I Use YouTube to Store My Videos?

Can I Use YouTube to Store My Videos? 1

Many great features and services have spawned from people using online platforms in ways that the creators had either not intended or not even considered. For example, way back in the early days of Twitter, users started including the “@” symbol to signify they were speaking to someone and the “#” symbol to denote a topic long before it was ever a feature officially implemented by Twitter. Sometimes using a platform in a way the creators hadn’t intended can cause them to incorporate new features, sometimes it can just be a cool little trick to make your life easier.

YouTube is usually the first place anyone thinks of when the subject of user-generated video online comes up. Of course, the site is intended as a platform for uploading and viewing that content, but can you use YouTube to store your videos?

The short answer is yes, you can use YouTube to store your videos. As always, however, there’s plenty more to talk about with this topic.

Using YouTube To Store Your Videos

While YouTube technically is not intended for storing videos, the functionality of the platforms allows for it with absolutely no “hacking” or playing the system. When you upload a video, you have the option to have it be public, private, or unlisted.

Naturally, most YouTubers want their videos to be public, as this is how viewers get to see those videos. But when you have your videos marked as private, you are essentially just storing them on YouTube’s servers. YouTube does not presently impose any restrictions on how many videos you can upload or how long you can keep them on YouTube’s servers, regardless of whether they are public and making revenue for YouTube or private and just taking up storage space.

Technically speaking, you are using YouTube to store your videos even when those videos are public and available to view and generate revenue, since you can always get to them, and they can serve as a backup should anything happen to your original files.

Why Use YouTube To Store Videos

The most obvious reason to use YouTube to store your videos is that video files are notoriously large and YouTube is free. If you were going to store tens—even hundreds—of gigabytes of video files on a service like Dropbox, you would almost certainly end up having to pay for that service.

While YouTube reserves the right to leverage any videos you upload for promotional purposes and to display ads against, they do not charge you for the privilege. And, if you are not concerned about keeping the videos private, you could even make some money yourself. What’s more, if the videos you are uploading are videos you would be making regardless, any revenue you generate through YouTube would be truly passive income.

It should be noted that YouTube applies a lot of compression to get the bandwidth costs of streaming down and downloading a video through YouTube Studio will return that compressed video, not the original full-quality video that you uploaded. If this is an issue, you can go to takeout.google.com, which allows you to request any data YouTube has stored about you… which can be a lot. Scroll down to YouTube and request an archive of your video files. These video files will be the original uncompressed files, however, you cannot pick and choose which video files to download. If you have a lot of high-quality videos, getting a single video back this way will involve a lengthy download including every other video you uploaded.

The Risk

Few good things in life are completely without risk, and this is no different. The risk in this case is that YouTube are in total control of their platform—as you would expect—and are at liberty to make changes to how things are run at any time.

YouTube has been a notorious money pit in the past, and while Google’s record for putting unprofitable ventures out to pasture would imply YouTube has at least reached a stage where it is breaking even, it would certainly not be out of character for Google to make drastic changes to balance YouTube’s books.

Now, there has been no wording, actions, or rhetoric that suggest YouTube might be about to impose restrictions on video uploads, or perhaps require any uploaded content to be public so that they can advertise on it, but they could make those changes if they wished. In using YouTube as a method for storing your videos, you run the risk of this kind of change happening.

Remember, YouTube is not intended to be used as a video storage tool, so there are no guarantees offered in that regard. In contrast, services like Dropbox and OneDrive will give certain assurances because their business model is built around offering file storage. It would be a poor offering if they said your files could go missing at any time. In contrast, YouTube’s business is providing a platform for user generated content, and their assurances will revolve around that side of things.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that, while storing a video isn’t free, it is the watching of those videos and the continual use of bandwidth that really racks up the bills for YouTube.

Final Thoughts

YouTube can certainly be used as a free tool to backup your video files, but it certainly shouldn’t be your only storage solution. If you are looking for a home for your files because you intend to delete them from your hard drive, you should absolutely seek out an additional backup, even if it is physical media, such as a DVD. Putting all of your eggs in the YouTube basket could come back to bite you in the future, and making decisions like that based on the hope that nothing bad happens is rarely a good strategy. After all, that’s why you have backups in the first place.

That being said, if the videos you are storing are also videos you are happy to have publicly viewable, you will probably be safe from such a hypothetical scenario, since any change like that would undoubtedly be driven by the need to make improve revenue.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
LISTS MARKETING TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

5 Free Branding Tools Every YouTube Vlogger Should Know

5 Free Branding Tools Every YouTube Vlogger Should Know

Vlogging is all about your brand. You need people to recognize you on other socials as well as YouTube and post your videos out from them. Branding yourself carefully at the beginning is a great way to set yourself up for success. Here are five free branding tools that every YouTube vlogger should know.

LogoCreator

 LogoCreator is a free logo maker that is full of hundreds of templates that you can use and alter to suit your needs. You can convert your logo into a variety of formats for free download and use it in any way you like.

 Why Use It?

 When you brand your vlog with a logo, you show your fans who you are and the style of your brand personality. Give people something to easily recognize when they watch your vlogs. This way, when they see another pop up on YouTube or your logo head a photo you post for content on Instagram, they will know that it is you. This is how you develop a brand following for your business.

Canva

 Canva is an online design tool that allows vloggers to use customizable templated videos to create content for their socials and vlogs. They offer hundreds of templates for free and you can alter them to suit your brand.

Why Use it?

Using a video template can be a great way to ensure your vlog looks professional every time. You can use it to put across your branding in your video, which makes your business easier for consumers to follow and associate with.

Biteable

Biteable offers a vast array of customizable videos. Much like Canva, but with more features. Biteable is a dedicated video site, offering free video templates as long as you have their watermark on the vlog. If you want to lose their logo and add your own, price plans start at just under £14 per month.

Why Use it?

If you want to set up a vlog but don’t have the technical or creative know-how to create videos yet, then a template can help get you started. Once you are a master vlogger, you might want to move to a different tool, but for the beginner, Biteable has almost no competition. 

Open Broadcaster

Open Broadcaster, or OBS is a great piece of software for the more experienced vlogger. It is a free open-source piece of software that is designed for video streaming and recording. Many people use it to stream themselves playing games or vlog about certain topics. It is sponsored by Twitch, Facebook and YouTube so you can rely on it to be updated fairly often. You can add graphics and overlays to your OBS to sync it with your brand.

Why Use It?

OBS offers an enormous amount of guidance with how to use their software. They have a downloadable quick start guide, a more detailed OBS Studio overview and a Discord community forum. All of this assistance means that vloggers can feel supported and get the help they need when creating their videos.

Shotcut

Shotcut is an open-source video editor that can be used cross platforms. It offers an incredibly detailed repertoire of features. Shotcut offers wide-angle support, device transfer options and a sleek, intuitive interface. They offer an astounding amount of video and audio options that can help you brand your vlog. They also have an option to add a watermark which can be great for branding if you use your logo.

Why Use it?

Shotcut has all of its previous versions available for download and a detailed site map available with FAQs, contact options and an active forum. It is a great bit of kit if you are looking do get in deep with vlogging.

When vlogging it is important to brand your videos to create a direct link between your socials, emails, website and videos. Your brand is also the first point of contact for most of your audience so branding your vlogs is a sure-fire way to get viewers acknowledging you brand and building a relationship via association.

Categories
SEO TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Write a YouTube Bio

How to Write a YouTube Bio 2

So you’ve decided to start a YouTube channel? Perhaps you’ve had one for a while and just never got around to writing a bio. Regardless of the reason you’re here right now, the important thing is that you are here.

The YouTube bio—or “about” page—is often overlooked, and not without good reason. Think about it; how often do you check out a YouTuber’s about page? It’s a few clicks off the beaten path, and the chances are you already know what you need to know about them from the video. And, of course, the fact that so many people neglect their YouTube bio is another reason why so many other people never bother to look at them.

A good YouTube bio about us page summarises in the first 170 characters the core premise of the channel. WHY they would watch your content, what value they will get from you. Do not lead with who you are, you can add that later in the bio. Your bio is there to hook people – make them curious.

These are perfectly valid reasons for thinking a YouTube bio is unnecessary. However, they are built on a flawed premised. You see, the YouTube bio isn’t for viewers.

Of course, it should be there if they want it, but the reason to have a well written bio has more to do with Google than it does the person clicking on your videos.

Why a YouTube Bio is Important

One word. Or, rather, one acronym; SEO. Search engine optimisation is the reason you should put some effort into your YouTube bio. And your video descriptions, for that matter, but that deserves a post of its own.

The YouTube recommendation algorithm is not the be-all and end-all of video discovery. Sure, getting favoured by the algorithm will see mountains of traffic flowing your way, but Google’s regular old search engine shouldn’t be neglected.

Many people come across YouTubers, not through searching YouTube itself, but through searching Google and having a few video recommendations thrown their way. But Google needs to know that the videos—and the YouTuber making them—are relevant to the search term in question, which is where you bio comes in.

How to Write a YouTube Bio 1

How to Write a YouTube Bio

So, hopefully we’ve impressed upon you how important your bio is for comprehensive growth, but how do you go about making sure it is up to the task of bringing in those organic search results? Why, with our handy list of tips, that’s how!

Tell Viewers What to Expect From Your Channel

This one isn’t as important from an SEO point of view—though search engines are getting smarter all the time—but it is important for those few intrepid users who do find their way to your about page.

Remember, even if the only reason a page exists is for SEO purposes, you should always aim to write it so that it reads naturally and contains useful information. If for no other reason than search engines are always improving, and they could well come up with a way to detect whether your bio reads naturally before long. It’s better to write good content from the start than have to go back and change things because of a search engine update.

Put the Important Stuff First

Humans, sadly, have a remarkably short attention span. And its getting shorter all the time. If you have something important, something that you want viewers to know if they read your about page, put it at the top.

More than that, make it compelling. In an ideal world, someone reading your bio would take in the whole thing before moving on, but in the absence of that ideal world, you should aim to make sure they take in the vital stuff before they click away.

Use Keywords

This is where we start getting into that SEO we talked about. You’re going to want to squeeze a few keywords in there. Again, your priority should be to write useful, natural-sounding copy, so you might need to put your thinking cap on for some of the more awkward keywords.

As for what those keywords are, this is where you’ll need to do a little research. There are many ways—both free and paid—to find keywords, including just using Google auto-suggest. The trick is to find keywords that are as underserved as possible while still being in demand enough to bring an audience. A plumbing company in Toronto would be foolish to try and target “plumbing” for their keyword because there would be far too much competition, but “emergency plumbers Toronto” would be a good fit with a smaller audience.

If you focus on a specific type of content, highlight that. If you primarily do Photoshop tutorials, don’t just target “image editing”, mention Photoshop.

Treat it Like a Business Page

This part is important because, SEO aside, a lot of people who seek out your about page will be looking to contact you for some reason or other. In the best cases, that reason will be something like a brand deal offer, or to talk about a collaboration.

Make sure your contact details are up-to-date. Google hides your contact details, so you don’t just get inundated with spam from bots scraping the page, but you want legitimate enquiries to be able to reach you. You can also take this opportunity to politely mention any kind of correspondence you are not interested in. For example, tutorial channels often get inundated with requests for direct help, which, for larger channels, is not feasible. In these cases, a little note asking people not to use these contact details for that reason might save you a lot of time in the long run.

Final Thoughts

In truth, your bio is not the most important thing you will craft for your YouTube channel. Organic Google search traffic is important, but, for most YouTubers, it is far from the largest source of traffic. And most of the organic search traffic ends up going directly to a video page.

Still, if you are looking to get noticed on YouTube, there is no denying that SEO is a factor, so there is no sense in neglecting your bio for the sake of half an hour’s work. Just remember to research keywords, put the important information up top, and give an accurate account of what your channel is for.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
TIPS & TRICKS

Do YouTubers Need a Business License?

Do YouTubers Need a Business License?

Many YouTubers find themselves caught off-guard by the realities of their success. It is one thing to get millions of views on a viral video and achieve a brief moment of Internet fame, but it is quite another to start making good money as a result of that success.

As much as people in certain parts of the political spectrum may be unhappy about it, we each live in a society that requires certain things of us, namely contributions to that society in the form of taxes. In an ideal world, we would all voluntarily contribute, but the reality of human nature means that governments have to take steps to make sure we all do our part, and business licenses are part of that system.

What is a Business License?

Before we get into this, we should point out that business licences are primarily a United States thing, with India also using them. We will do our best to explain the purpose of a business licence, and for those of you living in countries or regions that don’t use them, you should be able to identify the equivalent systems where you are.

Business licences are required for any… well… business. The precise nature of these licences will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, as well as depending on what the business actually does.

Businesses are required to pay business taxes, and licences—which are essentially permits—are part of establishing what taxes that business should pay.

Do YouTubers Need a Business License?

There are three answers to this question; yes, no, and yes with an asterisk. Let’s start with the easiest one of these to answer.

If your YouTube channel does not make any money, you are not required to have a business licence for it. There may be some uncommon situations where this is not the case, however.

For example, if your YouTube channel involves owning or renting premises, or any kind of disruption to the local area, you will almost certainly need a business licence regardless of whether you make any money.

The chances of any of that being the case for a YouTube channel that is not already established and profitable, however, are very slim. For most people if, their channel is not making money, they won’t need a licence.

Now, onto the definite yes.

If your channel is making a lot of money, you almost certainly will need a business licence if you are in a part of the world where business licences apply.

But what about that yes with an asterisk?

Now, let’s be absolutely clear; this is not a business advice blog.

You should absolutely check the laws in your locality before making any decisions about things like business licences. That being said, it is worth noting that there has to be a reason for a government agency to come after you. If you make enough without paying taxes, they will notice. If you cause disruptions for your neighbours, and they report you to the authorities, you may bring attention to your YouTube shenanigans. In most laws, if you have a venture that makes any money at all, you should be getting a business licence for it, but the reality is that it is unlikely you will get in trouble if you are only making pennies.

But just to reiterate, the law typically doesn’t deal in likelihoods. If you get caught making pennies that the authorities don’t know about, you will still get in trouble.

Other Systems

There are, of course, many different systems in place across the world—the United States alone has different rules from state to state—so naturally, we can’t cover them all. One particularly relevant example for an English-speaking YouTube audience is the United Kingdom. Here there are no business licences, but you would be expected to declare yourself as a sole trader if you are making money, and become VAT registered if you are making a lot of money.

Do YouTubers Get Paid for Views?

What Counts as Making Money on YouTube?

This may seem like a bit of a silly section to include, but it is worth pointing that government organisations do not let you off if you play dumb or claim that you have only committed a minor crime.

All of the money you make is, legally speaking, supposed to be declared to your government. It doesn’t matter to them whether that money came as result of the YouTube Partner Programme, Super Chats, merchandise, Patreon, or anything else.

In other words, if you get a business licence for your YouTube channel, you can’t just declare the earnings that come directly from YouTube and hope to play ignorant if the government finds out about your Patreon.

Should I Apply For a Business Licence Straight Away

If you are not making money or doing anything that would warrant being classified as a business, there is no sense in rushing to getting a business licence. They are not prohibitively expensive, but they do cost money. And the process of getting one is rarely long or complicated. After all, business licences are essentially a means for taxing you, and governments aren’t in the habit of making it harder for them to get your money.

How Do I Make Money on YouTube?

All of the above may feel a little like getting ahead of yourself if you’re not sure how to make money on YouTube in the first place. Broadly speaking, it is a case of more views equals more money, but there are a few steps along the way to making that happen.

YouTube Partner Programme

Unless you have a compelling reason not to, your first goal should be to become part of the YouTube Partner Programme. There some requirements for doing this, but one of the advantages is that qualifying for the Partner Programme means you have reached certain milestones that show you are on the right path. Those requirements are;

  • Adhere to YouTube monetisation policies
  • Be in a region where the Partner Programme is available
  • Have at least 4,000 hours of valid public watch time over the last year
  • Have at least 1,000 subscribers
  • Have a linked AdSense account

Once you meet that criteria, you will be able to apply to the Partner Programme and, in the vast majority of cases, you will be accepted. From then on, YouTube will begin showing ads on eligible videos, and splitting the revenue generated from those ads with you.

Memberships

If and when you manage to build up a loyal audience, you can start to look at memberships as an option. If you are eligible, you can use YouTube’s built-in membership platform to do this, but there are also services like Patreon that can enable you to do this as well.

The premise is simple enough; users contribute a recurring amount to you to support your content, and as an added sweetener, you can offer exclusive content and other perks to encourage viewers to become members.

Merchandise

Merchandise isn’t for every channel, but for those that it is a good fit for, there are plenty of third party options, as well as YouTube’s own partnership for eligible channels. On-demand services mean you can offer merchandise without having to buy the stock in advance yourself, which significantly reduces the barrier to entry.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a way in which you can leverage your existing content by providing links and offers to your viewers which you get commission for. The most commonly used example of this is Amazon, where channels that review products or talk about new tech or similar can link off to those products through their Amazon affiliate links and earn a little money any time someone buys something through those links.

Affiliate links are handy because they can be used in a range of situations by a variety of channels. For example, a channel about improving your YouTube content might not have anything to sell, but they can leave a list of the equipment they use as affiliate links for people who are interested in using the same gear.

Final Thoughts

Business licences (or the equivalent for your jurisdiction) are the kind of thing that, practically speaking, won’t apply to most YouTubers. Sadly, the vast majority of YouTubers either don’t make any money from their channel, or they make so little that they’re probably never going to have to worry about the IRS paying them a visit.

That being said, if you earn any money from your YouTube channel, you will almost certainly be expected to declare that money to the government. While it’s true that you probably won’t have to worry if you are only making a few dollars here and there, you are still technically obliged to declare that money, and as such, legally in the wrong if you don’t.

Given the reach of YouTube and the many differences between states and countries, it is impossible for us to fit all of the relevant laws and regulations into one post. Always check your local laws and make sure you adhere to them. If you take your chances by not getting a business licence when you should, you do so at your own risk.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How do Virtual YouTubers Work?

How do Virtual YouTubers Work? 2

Like many new trends on YouTube and beyond, there are plenty of question marks around virtual YouTubing. What sets these questions apart, however, is that the head-scratching over other YouTube trends tends to be along the lines of “why do people watch this?”, whereas, with virtual YouTubers, it is often literally a question of how it works.

Virtual YouTubers, a type of YouTuber that uses a digital avatar as their on-screen persona, typically use innovative motion tracking software to copy their movements in real-time and animate their 3D avatar automatically. There are different ways that this can be achieved, as well as different software options for achieving it.

In this post, we’re going to take as much of an in-depth look into the way virtual YouTubing works as we can without drifting into the realms of computer science and other topics that might need a masters degree to understand. So, if you’re curious and have asked yourself “how do virtual YouTubers work?” keep reading!

What Are Virtual Influencers?

What is a Virtual YouTuber?

We’ll keep this section brief as the question of what a virtual YouTuber—or VTuber—is, can be quite in-depth, which is why we already have a dedicated post on that very thing. This post is going to assume you already know (hence why you’re curious how they work) but for anyone who isn’t, here’s a quick primer.

Virtual YouTuber channels present themselves like a regular YouTube channel with the exception that the YouTuber in question is a digital avatar that is brought to life by the person or people behind the channel. These avatars are often in the style of Japanese anime, but there is really no limit to what a virtual YouTuber can be, which is a big part of the appeal for this kind of channel.

How Do Virtual YouTubers Work?

There are a few stages to the process of running a virtual YouTuber channel, and they can each seem a little daunting to the uninitiated.

While it is true that the technology behind much of this is both remarkable and complex, the end-user experience is actually quite simple. It is often a statement on how far technology has come that we can do things on our phone that would have taken a team of experts and a lot of expensive equipment weeks or months to do in the past.

Let’s take a look at the different stages involved and what they entail.

Avatar Creation

We’re going to call this the first step on the road to a virtual YouTube channel. Now, granted, the actual first step would be coming up with a premise for your channel, as well as things like a format and possibly making branding decisions. However, that first step is not unique to virtual YouTubing, since you should be doing that with any new YouTube channel.

A digital avatar is something you can animate that will serve as the on-screen personality. It may just be something to look at while the YouTuber talks, or it may be a fully-fledged persona, like a character that the YouTuber is acting the part of. We’re going to give you three examples of different styles of virtual YouTuber to illustrate (pun intended) the methods used.

It should be noted that not all of these examples refer to themselves as virtual YouTuber, though that does not mean they don’t technically fit the definition.

Old School Animation

Our first example is a channel called Code Bullet. This style of virtual YouTubing is perhaps the most time consuming, and we’d only recommend this as an artistic choice since the money you might need to spend to use the other two methods could easily be justified by the time saved in not doing things this way.

Code Bullet creates videos where he does things like tries to create an AI that can play Tetris, or an AI that can play the perfect game of Snake. The on-screen visuals are accompanied by an illustrated avatar of a human body with an old-school computer monitor for a head.

Now, if you were to adopt this method and animate every frame, you would be in for a difficult time indeed. Code Bullet videos have been known to creep over the half-hour mark on occasion, which would mean a lot of work if he were creating smooth animations for the entire thing.

As it turns out, Code Bullet has a few tricks up his sleeve to lighten the workload. Firstly, his avatar is not on-screen the entire time, which reduces the amount of animation required. And, secondly, the avatar is not properly animated. Instead, individual poses are drawn, and the avatar snaps between them. It would make for a jarring animation style in a cartoon or animated movie, but it works well for Code Bullet and suits the style of video.

For this style of digital avatar, you would need some artistic flair to be able to create the artwork, or perhaps hire an artist or enlist the help of a talented friend to do it for you. It would be ideal if you could do it yourself because you would always be able to get new illustrations as you need them. As we said, though, this method is easily the most time-consuming.

Live 2D Animation

For this style of digital avatar, you would still need the artwork to create your avatar, but the ongoing process of running the channel will be much easier. Our example for this kind of avatar is Gawr Guru, a VTuber who plays videos games through the persona of a girl with questionable maths skills but impressive gaming skills. These 2D avatars are “rigged” so that they can be animated naturally, almost to the point that they look three dimensional.

This is done by moving parts of the 2D animation together so that the overall effect is one of natural motion. For example, move the face to the right a little while keeping the head stationary and you get the effect of the avatar looking a little bit to the side.

There are many applications available for the creation of these very things, making the process of creating a ready-to-animate digital avatar as easy as the average character creator in a video game. Some of these applications also take care of the animation part of the process (which we’ll get to shortly) while others just handle making the avatar itself. It is also possible to pay other people to create a rigged avatar for a relatively small price. The main downside to this style is that the technology is limited in terms of what you can do with the avatar. The above example of moving the face slightly works to great effect… but only if you move the face slightly. If you move it a lot, it starts to look unnatural. And, of course, you can only the parts of the avatar you have the artwork for. The software can’t guess at what the back of your avatar’s head looks like.

How do Virtual YouTubers Work?

Live 3D Animation

Opting for a 3D avatar is probably the most costly option in time or money (or both) in terms of getting things set up. Once you are ready to go, however, the operation of a 3D avatar is no more complicated than a 2D avatar, but with the added bonus that you have far more options in terms of movement.

Our example for this style is AI Angel, a virtual YouTuber who makes a lot of types of content along the same lines as an account like PewDiePie, but does so from the persona of an artificial intelligence.

3D avatars are complete three-dimensional models, meaning they have no limitations on what angle you can film them from, what positions you can put them in, or what props you can have them work with.

The downside to this style is that it takes a lot more work to set up—especially if you want your avatar to look realistic (cartoonish avatars are easier to make). It will also require more computing power, the more detailed your avatar and their environment are. A relatively simple avatar probably won’t tax your system too much, but if your computer is already straining to live stream, record video, and play video games at the same time, adding a complicated 3D avatar into the mix might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Animating the Avatars

Once the digital avatar is ready, it’s time to think about animating it. This section only applies to the live 2D and 3D animation styles—if you are using the traditional illustration method mentioned above, your animation style is drawing more frames for your avatar. Like we said; it’s not the quickest method.

The main benefit to having rigged avatars is that they can be animated in real-time; there just needs to be something to animate them. Fortunately, there is plenty of software to take care of this.

Now, you could animate your avatars by hand, though it would be an incredibly time-consuming way to go about it. Granted, it would be much quicker than the traditional method of drawing each frame of your avatars animations, but it would still be far more time-consuming than the alternative.

The alternative in question, of course, is motion capture.

Motion capture works by tracking parts of your body and translating them to the same parts of your avatars body. So, you raise your hand; the software sees that your hand is raised and raises your avatar’s hand. The two most common ways of achieving this motion capture are through video-based motion recognition, and through the use of motion-sensitive devices like virtual reality controllers.

The trade-offs between the two are fairly straight forward. Using motion-sensitive devices such as a VR headset and controllers will usually give you more accurate movements, avoiding the kinds of jerky stuttering movements that can sometimes happen with inaccurate motion-capture. The downside, however, is that you have to wear said devices. This may not be an issue for you, but most people would probably opt to carry out a task without a bulky VR helmet on if they had the option.

Conversely, video-based recognition is much less invasive. It tracks your movements through your webcam, or the camera on your phone, making it far easier to use and more natural feeling. If you hadn’t already guessed, the downside to this method is that it is less accurate, and the range of motion it can track is more limited. For example, if you were to spin around three hundred and sixty degrees, a VR setup would be able to detect that, whereas a video-recognition-based system would likely get confused.

How do Virtual YouTubers Work? 1

What to Styles and Methods to Choose?

So, you’re ready to start a virtual YouTube channel of your own? Fortunately, the decision-making process is relatively simple here. Firstly, we can almost universally discount traditional animation as an option. Unless you absolutely must have a particular style that can’t be replicated with live animation methods, the additional time it takes to animate your avatar just isn’t worth it.

As for the choice between live 2D and 3D animation, if you intend to do a lot of movement—especially if you are animating a lot of your avatars body and not just the upper part—you should go with 3D. The range of motion available to you with a 2D avatar will not do the trick. On the other hand, if you do not need all that freedom of movement, 2D avatars are easier to make and less resource-intensive on your computer.

As for the method of animating your live avatar, you may be able to rule out VR devices on cost alone. If you have a VR headset and controllers already, or money is no object, and you can afford to buy one, that’s great. But if you don’t have one, you could be looking at a lot of money to get one, which may be enough of a reason to go video-recognition-based. If both options are on the table, go with the VR option if you intend to make a lot of body motion that needs animating. Otherwise, a good webcam and decent lighting will be a far more sensible option.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Why do YouTubers Jump Cut?

Why do YouTubers Jump Cut? 1

While the depth and breadth of content that can be found on YouTube has grown immensely since the early days of wall to wall vloggers, it seems as though the jump cut will forever be considered synonymous with YouTube.

YouTubers use jump cuts to speed up the pace of the video, to hide mistakes and/or to keep you engaged for longer than just simple talking head videos. If you are moving around the screen it helps the video flow better and gives the viewer something new to focus on, preventing viewer fatigue. 

That being said, even today there are plenty of channels that make use of the technique, with perennial favourites like Philip DeFranco—who arguably helped push jump cutting to the forefront of YouTube consciousness—still doing their thing all these years later. But why do they do it? Or, for that matter, what is it?

We’re going to answer both of those questions and more, so settle in, and let’s get started.

What is a Jump Cut?

The proper definition of a jump cut is a sudden transition from one scene to another. That is, no fading in and out, no special effects, just one frame you are looking at one scene, and the next frame you are looking at a different one.

This is the definition of a jump cut as it applies to things like television and cinema, but the YouTube variant is a little different.

In the context of YouTube, a jump cut does not need to cut to a different scene, and often doesn’t. Jump cuts on YouTube are far more often used to cut from one part of a scene to a later part of a scene, essentially snipping out the intervening footage. This is possible because the idea of YouTube jump cuts is established. What would once have been considered messy, unprofessional editing is now a style, and viewers have become used to it and don’t wonder what’s gone wrong with the video when jump cuts happen and the YouTuber snaps from one position to another.

Of course, it is still a jump if it does cut from one scene to another—the established definition still applies when relevant—it is just that, on YouTube, it is more often used in this manner.

Do YouTubers Use Their Real Names?

Why do YouTubers Jump Cut?

So, now that you know what a jump cut is, why do YouTubers use them? There are a few reasons why this technique is so popular, so we’ve broken them up into the big ones.

Give the Video More “Punch”

You don’t need to be an expert in psychology to understand that the average attention span of a human being, shall we say, not what it used to be. Sure, the subject matter of a video can be enough to draw people in if they are interested enough, but on an online platform like YouTube, dry, slow content will not bring in the new viewers.

Jump cuts allow a YouTube to speed up the flow of their video so that the beats of the content hit closer together, leaving the viewer less time to become disinterested and click away to something else.

Reduce “Dead Air”

On a very similar note to the last one, jump cuts provide a handy method for cutting out some of the more awkward pauses, sniffles, sneezes, and mistakes that might otherwise have required a reshoot of a particular part of the video.

As we mentioned above, the fact that jump cuts are now something viewers are used to makes it possible to use jump cuts to edit out mistakes without having to worry about continuity between the remaining footage. If the YouTuber suddenly cuts from one position to another, that’s just the style of the video.

Keep the View Time Down

If you have a lot to get through, jump cuts can be a great way to keep the overall time of the video down, since excessively long runtimes can be off-putting in certain niches.

Keep the Editing Time Down

Jump cuts are quite possibly the lowest-effort method of cutting a video together, short of paying someone else to do it for you. Almost all YouTubers start out doing everything for themselves, including editing. And, when they are trying to upload multiple videos a week—often around a job or education—anything that saves time on the overall process of making the video will be welcomed. It is said that, on average, you will spend five hours editing for every one hour of footage you recorded, so this is certainly an area to focus on when trying to save time.

Fast Talking is More Persuasive

One way or another, you are trying to persuade your viewers of something. You might have a point you are trying to get across or the persuasion might just be that you want them to keep watching. Well, it turns out fast talkers are more persuasive and, while a jump cutting YouTube might not be a particularly fast talker in day to day life, jump cuts allow them to create the impression of fast speech by cutting out the gaps between sentences.

Comedy

A well-timed jump cut can be pretty funny. That’s all there is to this one.

Monologuing is Hard

Granted, scripting makes things a lot easier, but sitting in front of a camera and talking for three to ten minutes solid is no easy task. And, unless you are planning on hosting a late night show, it’s not a skill that has a great deal of use in mastering. With jump cuts you can dive into your monologues without worrying about getting through the whole thing in one take.

When Not to Use Jump Cuts

As long as that list of reasons why YouTubers use jump cuts is, they are not perfect in all situations, as most things aren’t. Here are a few reasons to steer clear of using jump cuts in your YouTube videos.

You Want the Viewer to Digest What You’re Saying

Jump cuts are fine for getting relatively light information across. The aforementioned Philip DeFranco makes good use of them, but DeFranco covers daily news and entertainment stories. He occasionally dives into big topics, but there’s rarely anything you need to fully engage your brain on.

For something like a VSauce or a PBS Spacetime, a jump cut format would be wholly inappropriate, because the presenters want the information to get across in a methodical, thorough way, and bombarding you with key points on something like the physics of a black hole will likely overwhelm you (unless you happen to be an astrophysicist of course).

Why do YouTubers Jump Cut?

You’re a Slow Talker

All the notes about how fast talkers are persuasive and how “dead air” can be a turn off for the viewer aside, some people are just slow talkers, and it’s not always something you can do anything about. This isn’t a death knell in your YouTube dream’s coffin, of course, but you need to play to your strengths. If you can string fast sentences together, jump cutting works. But if you speak slowly, jump cuts will look awkward and stilted.

It Reduces Your Watch Time

Now, let’s be clear, we are not suggesting you stuff your videos with awkward silences and drawn out sentences just to increase the watch time, but if your content sits well without the jump cuts, this could be a reason not to add them.

As most of you probably know, watch time is one of the most important metrics to improve when you are looking at boosting your visibility in the YouTube algorithm, not to mention increasing the revenue you get from the YouTube Partner Programme. The more time people spend watching your content, the more ads YouTube can show and the more likely they are to promote your videos in the future.

Just remember, this only works if people watch your videos. Having a thirty-minute video will do you no good if viewers click away after two minutes because the content is boring.

The Non Sequitur Jump Cut

All the talk so far has assumed the jump cuts being used are done so in a linear fashion, such as would be the case if someone recorded a five-minute monologue and then used jump cuts to edit out all the “uhm”’s and “ah”’s.

A well established convention on YouTube is the non sequitur jump cut, which is almost like a regular jump cut, only instead of cutting from scene to scene, it is cutting from one train of thought to another. This is often used to interject small asides, almost like footnotes in a book, and allows the YouTuber to add more context to a topic, or interject their personal take on something they are talking about in otherwise neutral tones.

Final Thoughts

The jump cut, like many techniques and tools at a YouTubers disposal, is a powerfully useful thing when used correctly. And, like most useful things, it can be overdone. If you cut too often, you can very easily give your video a white noise feel, where the information is coming at the viewer so fast that it is hard to absorb.

Used correctly, however, it can make a video punchier, more entertaining, and better-flowing. And, like all things on YouTube and in life, you can learn how best to utilise jump cuts with practice… but looking at other YouTubers who do it well won’t hurt, either.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Do YouTubers Use Their Real Names?

Do YouTubers Use Their Real Names?

When first starting out as a YouTuber, there are many questions you find yourself having to answer. Things like what kind of channel you are going to run, how often you are going to upload new videos, what demographics you want to target are all things you should be deciding early on. In terms of questions that are typically not thought to be a big deal, yet cause a lot of head scratching when it comes down to it, deciding what to call your channel is up there.

When making these tough decisions, it is only natural to look to other YouTubers—probably successful ones—to see what they did. So, do YouTubers use their real names? Sometimes. Many YouTubers do in fact use their real names, but many don’t. So what is the reasoning behind these decisions, and what should you do with your channel? We’re going to explore all of this and more in this post.

Why Do YouTubers Use Their Real Names?

So, we know that some YouTubers do and some don’t, the next step is understanding what influences that decision.

One of the main reasons to choose your real name as your YouTube name is branding. In truth, this is one of the best reasons to choose any name for your YouTube channel, but it applies just as equally to real names.

If you have—or intend to have—a related career outside your YouTube channel, you will probably want to build recognition of your name, and YouTube is great for that. An example of this might be a comedian or musician who is making content on YouTube while also booking gigs in the real world. A working comedian would be kicking themselves if they uploaded a viral hit to their YouTube channel and nobody knew it was them because the name was different.

You could just as equally use your YouTube name as a stage name in the real world, but the truth is, while “Be0wulf2077” or something similar might be fine as a YouTube name, it would raise a few eyebrows at open mic night.

Incidentally, we just made “Be0wulf2077” up, so apologies if someone out there is using that name.

Of course, this can work both ways. Perhaps you have a respectable career in the real world, giving very serious talks about important issues and such, and you don’t want people to associate that persona with your YouTube channel making mash ups of goats making cat noises. In this case, you might intentionally not use your real name on your YouTube channel.

There is also the apathy factor. Some people choose their real name for their YouTube channel simply because they can’t or don’t want to think of an alternative. This often happens when the point of the channel is to supplement something else, and the YouTuber is not necessarily interesting in being a YouTuber.

The other main reason a YouTube channel might not use the real name of a person is, of course, if that channel has more than one person running it, or if it is part of an organisation.

Do YouTubers Use Their Real Names? 1

Deciding Whether to Use Your Real Name

We’ve looked at why other YouTubers might use their real names, but what should you do? The first thing you should consider when deciding whether to YouTube under your real name is whether there is any reason you would not want to be personally associated with the content you are producing.

Now, in a world where people are increasingly losing their jobs over everything from mere political opinions to outright hate speech, the first thought that comes to mind here will probably be someone saying controversial things online who doesn’t want their employer or family to know about it. And that is certainly one situation where you might want to keep your YouTube life separate from your real life, but it is not the only reason.

Another example is teachers who, while doing nothing wrong, would nevertheless prefer to keep their YouTubing activities away from the attention of their students.

The point here is that if, for whatever reason, you want or need to keep your YouTube content separate from your real life, the decision on whether or not to use your real name has been made for you.

However, as a counter to that line of thinking, if you have any aspirations of making a career for yourself that is related to or centred around the kind of thing you are making YouTube videos about, we would argue you should use your real name. Branding is important, even when that brand is yourself. If your long term and wider aspirations tie in with your YouTube channel, it would be foolish not to leverage any success you get on the platform into a real world PR booster.

Choosing a Name

If you have read all of the above and come to the conclusion that you would rather not use your real name on your YouTube channel, the question remains; what do you call yourself.

Granted, the exact name you choose will be determined by your channel, content, persona, and your personal preferences. That being said, there are some things to bear in mind when you are picking your name.

Easy to Read and Find

The first priority should be choosing a name that is not too difficult to remember.

If your name uses numbers for letters and includes four special characters, people are going to struggle to remember how to type it, and you would be surprised at how many potential subscribers just give up at the first hurdle.

Something simple that sticks in the mind would be ideal, but at the very least make your name straightforward and easy to remember.

Content Appropriate

While this one is more of a guide than a rule, if you can choose a channel name that suits the type of content you are making, that will help it stick in viewers minds.

There is a lot of subjectivity about this, but it doesn’t necessarily mean calling your makeup channel something like “Makeup Videos”.

Try word association exercises; ask people what the first things that come to mind when they hear a potential channel name are, and if those things are nothing like what your channel is about, choose a different name.

Do YouTubers Use Their Real Names? 2

Demographic Appropriate

This one mainly only applies to family-friendly content, but there are other situations in which it could apply.

If you are directing your videos at a specific demographic, don’t have a name that will alienate members of that demographic.

The primary example here being having a name that is offensive on a family-friendly channel, but another (albeit far-fetched) example might be a name like “Satan Lives!” on a channel making Christian content.

Is There an Advantage to Using Real Names?

There are some advantages in the sense of what we have laid out above; perpetuating your name in a related field, for example. However, these advantages are not inherent to any kind of name. The key factor there is that you use the same name in your off-YouTube ventures, but that name doesn’t have to be your real one.

Ultimately, the way to benefit from your name is to ensure it is easy to remember and, if possible, related to your content. As any YouTuber who has tried to capture audiences in a foreign language to their own will tell you, using your real name doesn’t always guarantee that it will be easy to remember. A long Cyrillic name, for example, is very difficult for English speakers to recall. In situations like that, it may be worth giving your channel an alternative to your real name from a pure SEO perspective.

Another reason you might want to shy away from using your real name is if you are running a channel that you have ambitions of turning into something more than a one-person vlog affair. If your channel includes—or grows to include—other onscreen personalities, it can make things complicated if one of the people whose name is on the channel decides to leave. Changing an established name is never ideal, and, while it is sometimes necessary, there is no harm in taking steps to make it less likely.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, the answer to the title question of this post—do YouTubers use their real names?—is “sometimes”. There is no rule on YouTube that you have to use your real name publicly, and there is no inherent advantage from the perspective of your channel’s success. There are, however, plenty of reasons why you should and why you should not use your real name. As ever, the key is working out which ones apply best to your situation.

We can say that the name of your channel is often more important than it is given credit for. And, at the risk of crippling new YouTubers with doubt and indecision, it is definitely something you should put a good amount of thought into before setting any decisions in stone.

But don’t let indecision stop you. It’s not ideal, but you can always change your name later.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

 

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Promote YouTube Videos on Pinterest

How to Promote YouTube Videos on Pinterest

There is a seemingly endless source of opportunities for promoting your YouTube videos on social media, from Twitter to Facebook, and everything in between. Pinterest is rarely the first option that comes to mind when deciding where to promote you videos, but it is very much a viable tool for promotion.

Granted, Pinterest is typically known more for its image-sharing than video promotion, but the fact that Pinterest is primarily an image-based platform can be misleading, as its real strength lies in sharing content of all kinds by leveraging the appeal of images.

In this post, we’re going to look at how to promote YouTube videos on Pinterest, but before we get into the how, let’s talk about the what.

What is Pinterest?

In the most basic sense, Pinterest is an image-sharing platform that allows users to “pin” images from around the web to their profile. Users can create boards (essentially image galleries), and in doing so, build up collections of images on a specific theme.

Crucially for the purposes of this post, pinned images come with a link to the place they were found, so that anyone interested in the image can click through to the place the image came from.

How to Promote YouTube Videos on Pinterest 1

Why Pinterest?

You may be asking yourself, “if it’s a platform for saving and sharing images, what does it have to do with YouTube?” The key point is that the links to the image’s source is included.

Another key point is the fact that Pinterest receives a lot of organic search traffic from search engines. You may expect that this would mostly be from people running image searches and seeing Pinterest results, but Pinterest shows up a lot in regular text search results, as well.

Of course, it would be better if the search results took someone directly to your video, but if the choice is between someone arriving at your channel via Pinterest and not arriving at all, I think we both know which is preferable!

How to Promote YouTube Videos on Pinterest

Now that you know what it is and why it can be useful in promoting your videos, let’s take it a step at a time. Here’s how you promote your videos on Pinterest.

1. Preparation

We won’t waste time telling you that you need an active YouTube channel—we assume you already have one of those if you’re reading this post—but you will need to make a Pinterest account. You’ll also want to create a board specifically for your YouTube pins. This isn’t just for the sake of keeping everything organised (though that is helpful as well) but it helps with SEO, as all the pins on the board will be related, which will add a little weight to the board in the eyes of the search engines.

Another thing you should do as part of your preparation is ensure that your videos are branded. This means making it clear in the video who you are. You want to leave a lasting impression on the viewer (in a good way) that they’ll remember. The reason for this is that Pinterest viewers don’t need to open YouTube to see your video; they can watch it right there on the Pinterest page. That means they won’t see your subscribe button, video description, or anything else that might lead them to click more of your content.

As a general rule, this kind of branding awareness should be considered good practice in any YouTube situation, so, if you’re not doing it already, consider this a good reason to get started, but not the only reason.

2. Get Your Video Embed Link

You’ll need to grab an embed link from your video, but this isn’t as simple as it sounds. You will need the long URL for your video, which may already be the one in your browser’s address bar. If the full “youtube.com” address is there, you should be fine to copy that. But, if you click the “Share” button, make sure you are getting the full YouTube address, and not a shortened link. Pinterest will reject those shortened links as they see it as spam.

Once you’ve got your link, you can head to the next step.

3. Upload Your New Pin

Over on Pinterest, click “Add a Pin”, drop your video link in the box, and click “Find Images”. Make sure it is your video that is selected, and then pick the board you created for your YouTube videos. Finally, add a description. This could be the same description you used for your video over on YouTube, but it could also be beneficial to write something new, so search engines don’t count it as duplicate content. Regardless of which route you take, it should have plenty of relevant keywords in it. You’ll have to keep it under the Pinterest description’s character limit of 500 characters, however.

You can also take this opportunity to get a link to your blog or something similar, as this should count as a high-authority link in the search engine’s eyes.

4. That’s All, Folks!

And you’re done. You can repeat this process for other videos, perhaps set up automatic sharing to things like Facebook, but other than that, you’re all set to reap the rewards of promoting your video content on Pinterest.

Final Thoughts

When looking to promote your YouTube videos, not every method or platform is going to be right for you, but you should never rule an option out until you are sure it won’t work. This is the mistake that many fall into with Pinterest by assuming it’s no good for their needs and never giving it a try at all.

Pinterest is a powerful tool for driving organic search engine traffic to your videos, and that can only be a good thing. If nothing else, it removes some of your reliance on the ever-changing YouTube algorithm, which makes it less likely a minor tweak by YouTube will send your traffic numbers plummeting through the floor!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How Many Videos Should I Upload a Week?

How Many Videos Should I Upload a Week?

Upload frequency is one of those thing that it can be easy to get turned around on, since you can easily find opposing advice… sometimes from the same sources! In this post, we’re going to do our best to not only give you the information you need to answer this question yourself, but also explain why there are so many conflicting opinions on the matter.

And we’ll start by saying this; there is no definitive answer to the question of “how many videos should I upload a week?”. Like many aspects of success on the platform, it all comes down to your specific circumstances. Let’s dig a little deeper.

A Late Video is Better Than no Video

The first thing to note is that, whatever upload frequency you have been told is the key to success, it will not work if you can’t stick to it. Many YouTubers set themselves lofty goals that they can’t stick to at the start, with declarations like “I will upload a new video five times a week!”

This is especially difficult for new YouTubers, who are often balancing work, family, and school around their channel, so committing to making a lot of video content several times a week is a non-starter.

Unfortunately, it is very easy to get from not being able to stick to your arbitrary schedule to not uploading videos at all!

Whatever your chosen system for creating YouTube content, it should be one that you can stick to, and without burning yourself out. Now, don’t mistake this for “easy”. We’re not saying succeeding on YouTube won’t be hard work, but there is a difference between working hard and running yourself so hard into the ground that you never want to make another YouTube video again!

How to Make Gaming Videos Without Showing Your Face 1

The Content You Make is a Factor

Many new YouTubers make the mistake of deciding what their upload schedule should be and then trying to make their content creation fit that schedule.

This is the wrong way round, folks.

You need to take a good hard look at your content before deciding on your upload schedule. How long do your videos take to make? What are the upload schedules of competing YouTubers in the same niche?

To give a couple of examples, someone like Philip DeFranco uploads daily videos because he creates news-style content that needs to be up-to-the-minute. He also has the advantage of his style of video not being too intensive to make, as it essentially just consists of recording his video vlog-style and then editing bits of it.

In contrast, someone like Colin Furze makes content around his projects, building various strange contraptions. Sometimes a project can take months to complete—even longer—so it wouldn’t be realistic to expect to put out a video every day.

As far as competition goes, you shouldn’t have to worry about being “undercut” by someone uploading more frequently. Using the Colin Furze example, other inventor YouTubers can’t really upload more frequently than Colin without taking less time to make the videos. At some point, they would cease being direct competition.

Quality Shouldn’t Suffer For Your Schedule

One thing that often happens with YouTubers who find themselves struggling to maintain their pre-decided upload schedule is a dip in quality as they cut corners to get the video out quicker. A common example of this is skimping on the editing—one of the most time-consuming parts of being a YouTubers—and leaving mistakes and awkward pauses in.

The problem is, your content doesn’t just appear and then disappear (unless you delete it). Once uploaded, your content is there for all to see, and someone might stumble across a video that you uploaded months ago as their first introduction to you.

For them, it won’t matter that you have uploaded a new video every single day for the past two year; all they will see is the video they are watching, which you cut corners making and is not your best as a result.

With almost no exceptions, you will find more success uploaded better videos than you will by uploading more videos. If you have to take an extra week to make the video you’re making, do it. It will pay off in the long run.

Public Domain YouTube Channels for Free Footage

YouTube Prefers Consistency Over Frequency

And here we come to the most important point; YouTube isn’t all that bothered about how quickly you get your videos uploaded, but they are bothered that you do it consistently.

Being able to count on regular and reliable uploads is something YouTube likes, because they know if they promote a reliable channel, the viewers of that channel will always have a reason to come back. On the other hand, a channel that uploads once a day for two months and then doesn’t upload for an entire year can leave a sour taste in subscriber’s mouths, and YouTube doesn’t want that.

Of course, we’re not saying that you should settle for just getting a new video out every year and leave it at that—there are limits to the “consistency over frequency” theory—but if you have a choice between putting out weekly videos but not always hitting your target, or putting videos out every two weeks and never missing an upload, you should probably go for the latter.

Final Thoughts

YouTube’s algorithm factors a lot of things in when it decides whether to promote a video or channel or not, and, in all honesty, it would appear that watch time and click-through rates are more important to YouTube than any of the aspects related to the upload schedule.

As ever, this should not be taken as an excuse to abandon any notion of a proper upload schedule, but it’s worth noting that it is far from the end of the world if you can’t seem to nail that schedule.

And if we can leave you with one piece of advice; some videos are better than none. Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from making YouTube content, even if it means not uploading as often as you’d have liked.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Write a YouTube Description

Do You Need A YouTube Intro and Outro? 2

YouTube video descriptions are perhaps one of the most criminally under-used tools available to YouTubers, so if you are one of the YouTubers who doesn’t take full advantage of their video descriptions—don’t worry, you’ve got a lot of company.

However, we do need to fix this.

YouTube video descriptions are important for a range of reasons, from searchability to usability. From information to promotion. In this post, we’re going to cover all of the things you can—and in some cases, should—do with your YouTube description. So, whether you’ve been wondering how to write a YouTube description, or you’ve never much cared before, this article is for you. Let’s get into it.

Be Descriptive

Let’s start with the basics. When you write your description for a YouTube video, you should make sure it is actually descriptive of what the video is about. If a viewer takes the time to look at the description, you don’t want to leave a sour taste in their mouth by not giving them what they want out of it.

Or worse; giving them a description that is not accurate.

See More

Be sure to make smart use of the fold. When your description is displayed, by default there will be a couple of lines and then a “see more” link. You want to make intelligent use of those first couple of lines, because viewers aren’t always going to click that “see more” link.

Get the basics of your description across as quickly and succinctly as possible. If the viewer is hoping for something specific from your video and is checking the description to save time, you should make sure they get the required information. If they don’t, they might just leave. And, if you are promoting something in your description, try and entice the viewer to click that “see more” link.

Write Searchable Descriptions

Descriptions are not just for the viewers, of course, they are also for the search engines. At the moment, search engines can’t (or don’t) search the actual content of videos when delivering their results, so you are forced to rely on well-written titles and descriptions to drive that organic search traffic to your content.

Do a little keyword research on your video’s topic, and try to find keywords that are low-competition while not being completely dead. The idea is to avoid competing with the biggest players in the niche while still using keywords that people will be searching for.

Be sure not to overstuff your descriptions with keywords, though. They should still read naturally and be of value to the person reading it.

Use Hashtags

It’s not as commonly known as it probably should be, but YouTube allows users to search by hashtag, just like all the other social media platforms. Likewise, YouTubers can use hashtags in their descriptions to ensure that their videos become part of those hashtag searches.

There is no hard rule on picking hashtags. It is not like keywords—where lower competition is better—because almost by definition, a low competition hashtag is worthless. Hashtags are a function of trend, and if it’s not trending, it almost doesn’t exist.

Instead, focus on finding the most relevant hashtags to your content. You may also be using hashtags to coincide with an event of some kind.

Promote Things

If you have things to promote—another channel, a book, a course, etc—be sure to put all the links in your description. There are only so many plugs you can squeeze into a video before your viewers start to get annoyed about it. And it’s really not that many.

Your description is a different kettle of fish altogether, however. If a viewer is looking at your description, it’s because they’ve made a special effort to come down there and view it. As long as you’ve covered the basics and provided an accurate and informative description of the content, they won’t mind seeing a few links to things you’re promoting.

If you are linking out to things under an affiliate referral system, such as linking to a product you featured through an Amazon Affiliates link, make sure you disclose that in your description. Viewers often don’t mind affiliate links, but they don’t like you being sneaky about it.

On a related note, you should also try and slide some links out to any YouTubers you might have collaborated with, or perhaps clipped in your video. It’s good to maintain positive relationships with other YouTubers where possible.

Implement Chapters

Chapters are a relatively recent feature on YouTube, but an incredibly useful one. If your video can be broken up into distinct sections in any meaningful way, we would strongly suggest adding chapters.

Adding chapters is easy enough. Note that you must have at least three chapters, and your video needs to be at least 10 seconds long. You add chapters by heading to your video description, and creating a list of timestamps, with the first one being 0:00. So it could look something like this;

0:00 Intro

1:23 Chapter One

3:45 Chapter Two

When implemented, the play progress bar of your video will be broken up into sections corresponding with your timestamps, and when the viewer hovers over a section, it will show a label saying the name you have given it.

Make it Entertaining

Last—but certainly not least—make it entertaining. Always remember that the content you put here is ultimately designed for human eyeballs, and humans get bored very easily.

This becomes even more important if there are promotional things in your description. It would be a shame to miss out on an affiliate referral because a viewer gave up before getting to the part where your referral links are.

What You Need to Know About Buying and Selling YouTube Channels

Final Thoughts

Descriptions are far more important than many YouTubers give them credit for, and that importance goes beyond just having something that a potential viewer can read. For evergreen content, a well-written description can ensure that organic views keep rolling in long after the algorithm has moved on. Descriptions can generate significant additional revenue with promotional links.

Now go, and write your descriptions well!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

Categories
TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Everything You Need to Know About Buying and Selling YouTube Channels

What You Need to Know About Buying and Selling YouTube Channels

Buying and selling YouTube channels is big—and small—business. If you have got, or are getting, into YouTube for purely financial reasons, it’s entirely possible that you have an endgame in mind, where you get out of the game while there is a financial impetus to make it worth your while.

Even for YouTubers who had no intention of leaving… things can change.

So, for those of you who are or might be interested in buying or selling a YouTube channel, here is our handy everything you need to know guide to that very activity.

Can You Buy a YouTube Channel?

Yes. There is no law preventing the sale of this kind of asset, there are mechanisms in place within YouTube for the transfer of ownership, and there are people willing to sell their YouTube channel. All the pieces are there, you just need to find the right channel.

It should be noted that YouTube itself does not facilitate the buying and selling of YouTube channels, meaning you would have to protect yourself (hire a solicitor/lawyer), unlike when you buy things through something like eBay, which has certain protections in place.

Can You Sell a YouTube Channel?

Again, yes! YouTube does not prohibit the sale of YouTube channels, and as mentioned in the last point, there is a mechanism for transferring ownership to another user. However, also mentioned in the last point, you’re on your own from a legal standpoint.

This is worth reiterating because if you do not legally protect yourself when making this kind of transaction, and the person selling the YouTube channel rips you off, you could be left with no legal recourse. Or, at best, a lengthy and expensive legal proceedings to get your money back.

How Do YouTubers Receive Their Money? 3

Is Buying and Selling YouTube Channels Legal?

From a legal point of view, there is nothing unusual about a YouTube channel as a digital asset, so it is no more illegal than selling an e-book, or a downloadable video game.

That being said, you should always be aware that you become legally responsible for that channel when you buy it, and, if the channel has engaged in potentially illegal activity, you could be liable.

Obviously, if the previous owner had committed a crime in a video, they would still be the one responsible for that crime, but if there are a lot of copyright-infringing videos, for example, that would then become your responsibility.

How Much are YouTube Channels Worth?

This question is a bit of a “how long is a piece of string” style of question, since the answer varies significantly.

As with many things in life, there is something of an exponential scale, with channels with seemingly quite large audiences being worth very little, but channels with enormous audiences being worth millions. Here are some factors that contribute to the worth of a YouTube channel.

Your Channel, Your Face

Many YouTube channels feature a person—or people—on camera, and their audience becomes comfortable with that person. It’s not necessarily a celebrity/fan relationship (though that does happen on YouTube), but it’s similar.

So, if the face of that channel suddenly disappears, there’s a good chance the audience will react negatively to the change, and a smart potential buyer will factor that in.

Videos Decrease in Value Over Time

Unlike blog posts, which tend to gain authority in the eyes of search engines the longer they are online, most YouTube videos decrease in value the longer they are up. Indeed, a typical video will make a significant portion of its revenue in the first few days of being online.

If a potential buyer is looking to purchase a profitable channel, the fact that the profit will start to drop immediately without new videos is a problem.

Buying the Cutting Room Floor

Many buyers would also want to purchase any raw footage that was shot for the channel, even if it was never used in a video.

This is something that a lot of YouTubers would be reluctant to sell, and that even more YouTubers wouldn’t be able to sell. After all, video takes up a lot of space.

It can also be a little disconcerting to the selling YouTuber when they realise the implication of this agreement. The buyer would essentially have the complete ownership of hours of unseen footage—potentially containing embarrassing or problematic out-takes involving the YouTuber who is selling—that they could upload whenever they wanted.

HOW TO LIVE STREAM WITH ZOOM

How do I Sell a Personal YouTube Account?

For YouTube channels that are set up as a brand, changing ownership is a relatively simple process that involves adding the buyer as an owner. You or the buyer can then remove you as an owner and the transfer is complete.

However, for personal accounts, things are a little trickier. These accounts are tied to an email address and cannot be converted to a brand account without deleting the channel. This means that the only way to safely purchase the channel is by purchasing the entire email address, which may have been the YouTubers personal email address.

If the email address is not bought as part of the deal, the new owner will not be able to keep the old owner out of the YouTube channel’s account page, which could present problems if that previous owner ever took it upon themselves to cause problems.

Final Thoughts

You can certainly buy and sell YouTube channels, but, for most YouTubers, it’s really not worth it. Channels with tens of thousands of subscribers can go for as little as a few hundred dollars, and that is assuming that amicable terms can be reached by both parties. Channels with millions of subscribers are worth much more, of course, but if getting millions of subscribers was easy, we’d all be doing it!

If you do decide to buy or sell a channel, make sure you protect yourself from a legal standpoint, as there is real potential to get shafted and left with no practical legal recourse.

Top Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

Categories
TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Write a YouTube Script

How to Write a YouTube Script

There are many YouTubers with what some would call the “gift of gab”, who are able to sit down (or stand up) in front of a camera and chatter away for a solid twenty minutes or longer with little more than a few scribbled notes for prompting. For those lucky few, YouTube can be a magical place. For many of us, much more work is required to make the YouTube dream a reality, and scripts soon become an important part of the process.

Unfortunately, knowing that you need a script for your YouTube videos and knowing how to write a YouTube script are two very different things. Fortunately, you have lovely articles like this one to help you along!

Know Your YouTuber

If you are writing a script for yourself—as many YouTubers do—this part should be relatively simple for you. We can all stand to learn a little more about ourselves, but hopefully you know yourself at least a little.

However, if you are writing a script for another YouTuber, it is important to know a little about them. Script writing can be a bit strange at times, since you are only creating part of the final product. A good script can die in the hands of a bad actor, just as a bad script can get by in the hands of a good actor. But the best scripts results are often achieved when the words on the page and the person reading them mesh.

If at all possible, you should write your script with the voice of the YouTuber who will be reading it in mind. We’re not talking about their literal voice (though that can sometimes help, too), but their voice in a broader, more metaphorical sense. Does what you’re writing suit their personality? Will it sound right coming out of their mouth?

Ultimately, a good YouTuber will be able to work with what they got, but why make it hard for them? And, if you are writing your own script, why make it hard for yourself?

How to Write a YouTube Script 1

Format Your Script Appropriately

Most YouTubers don’t embark on their YouTube career knowing how to write a proper script from the get go. Perhaps if you have a background in film studies, or you are an aspiring screenwriter, you will know the technical side of putting a script together.

However, that’s not what we mean.

Formatting your script appropriately is a contextual thing. If you are writing a script for a big YouTube channel, or perhaps you are making a short movie for YouTube, you should probably make that script look as professional and legitimate as possible. That being said, if you are writing for another YouTuber, they might have their own preferred format. And, if you are writing for yourself, you can pretty much do as you please as long as the result is usable by you!

Do Your Research

Working with a script provides a golden opportunity to be right first time. With live broadcasts—especially when the thing being broadcast includes interactions with uncontrollable external elements, like other people—there will always be an element of uncertainty. Things may get said that are not correct. Mistakes may get made.

Not so with produced videos.

If you are going to be taking the time to write out a script, take advantage of that process to ensure that everything you are saying is correct, both in a factual sense and in the sense that it works from a tone and cadence perspective.

Make Sure There is a Structure

When you boil it down, a script is just a story. In the same way that a work of fiction, or a blog post, or a news article has to have certain elements, so should your script.

There should be an introduction, where you establish the premise of the video while also grabbing the viewer’s attention. Remember, most viewers who decide to pass on your video will do it in the early stages. There should be a middle, which will contain the meat of the content. And, finally, there should be an end, or conclusion, where you satisfyingly finish the video and leave the viewers happy that they stuck around for the whole thing.

While the writing style is obviously very different, it can help to consider the elements of your script as though they were a blog post or short story. Is the viewer given reason to stay? Are they given what the video promised them? Is it entertaining?

Try It Out!

Do not, we repeat, do not just patter out a script on your keyboard, proofread it, and call it a day. As much as we all like to think that the voice in our heads is a reliable mirror of reality, the truth is that all manner of problems can be missed if you don’t—at the very least—read the script aloud before you mentally sign off on it.

The ideal scenario would be you reading your script to someone else, so you can get their opinion on it as well as your own, but if you can’t get another person involved, consider recording a dry read—it can be audio only—and listening back. This will often help you catch any weird quirks or difficult sentences that looked fine on the page.

Final Thoughts

YouTube scripts aren’t for everyone, and anyone that tells you otherwise should be given a healthy dose of suspicious side-eye.

That being said, they will help far more people than they harm, as most of us are just not that adept at free-flowing, natural sounding speech without something to help us along. Of course, speaking naturally while reading a script is also a skill that needs to be learned, but it is an easier skill than speaking off the cuff without any script at all.

If we could reiterate one piece of advice, however, it would be to read your script aloud before signing off on it. You would be amazed at what you can miss when you’re reading things in your head.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.