The Complete YouTube Guide for Business Owners

video_guide

Everybody loves YouTube. And do you know why? Because everyone will find useful information on Youtube, no matter what their interests are. And did you know that you are hurting your business because you don’t have a Youtube channel? This guide will give enough information on how to create a Youtube account, a channel, upload a video and use Youtube’s video editor.

Setting Up Your Account

 

Before you can upload any YouTube videos, you’ll first need to setup your own account. Having your personal account will allow you to save favorite videos, compile playlists, like or dislike videos and of course upload your own videos.

Here’s how to setup your account.

Step 1: Click “Create Account” & Fill Out the Signup Form

 

Create a Google account: https://accounts.google.com/ . If you already have a Gmail account, you’ll be prompted to link that with your YouTube account.

Fill out the YouTube signup form if you don’t have a Gmail account.

1-Click-Create-Account

It’s that simple! You’ve now created your YouTube account. Before you start posting videos, it might be a good idea to add an avatar and fill out your profile.

Step 2: Click Account Preferences

Right after your account is created, click “account preferences.”

Step 3: Click Profile Setup

 6-Profile-Setup

In your account settings, you can setup all kinds of things like privacy settings or notifications that don’t actually influence how users see your video.

The one area that really matters for video publishing is your profile.

Click “Profile Setup” to access the setup screen. This is where you can enter a description for yourself, your website URL, your real name if you so choose, etc. You can also upload a profile photo or avatar here.

To upload a picture, just hit “Change Picture.” Once you’re finished with all your changes, click “Save Changes.”
You’ve now setup a new YouTube account or linked an existing Google account to your YouTube account. You’ve also setup your profile so others can learn a bit about you in your profile.

 

Setting Up Your YouTube Channel and Customizing It

 

Your YouTube channel is a bit like a TV channel. You have all your uploaded videos in one place, and people can “surf” your channel and look through all the videos you’ve uploaded in the order of your choice. You can also throw in other people’s videos in the mix.

You can customize quite a bit about how your channel looks and operates. Here’s how to setup your channel and customize it.

Step 1: Accessing Your Channel

 

To access your channel, click the little dropdown arrow next to your name in the upper right corner of your screen.

A menu will appear. Click on “My Channel.” The controls for your channel will be laid out along the top. A preview of what your channel looks like will be directly below it.

1.2 - Edit-channel

Step 2: Edit About information

Add a link to your website on the “Links” section and your business description on “Channel description”.

2-About

Step 3: Personalize the Account

 

Add a channel cover customized for your business. You can have a custom made YouTube cover to include your logo or any graphic element that is related to your business.

3-Personalize

Step 4: Channel Settings

 

Your channel settings are where you can set your channel’s tags, your channel’s title, whether or not it’s searchable, the type of channel you run (YouTuber, musician, etc) and a few more settings.

Click on “Settings” to access this menu.

4-Settings

This section allows to verify the account, enable monetization settings

Verified accounts (there are two verification methods Voice call or SMS) are allowed to upload videos longer than 15 minutes or do live streaming events.

 

How to Upload and Customize a Video

 

You’ve put a lot of time into shooting great video and editing it into a masterpiece. Now how do you actually get it online, on YouTube? How do you make sure your video’s settings, such as whether or not people can comment on your video, are set correctly?

Here’s how to upload your video and customize its settings.

Step 1: Click Upload

 

Once signed into your YouTube account, click “Upload.”

1-Click-Upload

Step 2: Select the File

 

Select files to upload or just drag and drop them. A file selection box will pop up. Choose your video file. Once you’ve selected your file, you’ll see the upload progress box displayed.

 

Step 3: Enter Your Title and Description

 

YouTube allows you to edit your title, descriptions, tags, categories and privacy settings all while your video is being uploaded. Customize these settings right below the upload box.

Your title is crucial because it’s what a large part of what people use to decide if they’ll watch your video. Your description is the text that shows right below your video.

Tags and categories will help people discover your video.

The privacy settings and licenses will help you decide exactly where your video does and doesn’t end up online.

Once the upload is finished, you’ll see the processing screen. Wait for your video to get processed, which can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours.

 

 

Step 4: Accessing the Edit Screen

 

To edit your video’s settings, click on “Videos” and choose the video you want to edit.

7-Click-Edit

Step 5: Edit Basic Video Information

 

If you want to change your video’s basic information, you can change it here.

4-Title-Description

Step 6: Choose Thumbnail

 9-Choose-Thumbnail

Your thumbnail is a critical part of the YouTube video experience, because the thumbnail is what people first see when they’re deciding if they’re going to click on your video.

Unfortunately, YouTube by default only gives you 3 frames to choose from. If you don’t see a thumbnail you like from one of the three choices, you’ll need to shift your video slightly in a video editor and re-upload it to get new choices. (This example includes a video shot in the same angle so all of the images look similar).

Step 7: Choose Commenting Options

 

Choose whether you want to moderate comments, allow them automatically or not allow any comments at all. Also choose whether or not you want users to be able to vote on comments.

10-Choose-Commenting-Options

Step 8: Save Changes

 

There are a few other options you should check out, such as whether or not you want people to be able to embed your video on their own websites. By and large however, after setting up the settings above your video will be ready to go.

Click on “Save Changes” once you’re ready to publish your video.
Congratulations! You’ve now uploaded a video, added a title and description, tagged and categorized your video, setup your thumbnail picture and set your commenting options.

 

How to Use YouTube’s Video Editor

If you don’t want to learn or pay for an expensive video editing program, you can do quite a bit of editing with YouTube’s built in editor. While it doesn’t have fancy effects or advanced video editing features, you can easily paste together different clips of video, add in sound tracks and create an elegant video file all without having to learn any video editing skills.

Here’s how to use YouTube’s video editor.

Step 1: Accessing the Video Editor

 

Click “Videos” in the drop down box in the upper right corner. Then click “Enhancements” along the top navigation bar.

7-Enhacements

Step 2: Adding Effects<>

You can improve the image quality by choosing one of the effects.

1-Effects

Step 3: Adding Music

 

To add music, first click the music symbol along the top. Hover your mouse over any track and click the “Play” button to preview the track. When you find a track you want to add to your video, just click the “+” symbol next to the track.

 6-Add-Music

You can also sort the music by genre or artist. You can even search by specific artist name or by typing in a name of a song to see if YouTube has it available.
Once you’ve added a track to your video, it’ll be displayed under the video timeline.

Step 4: Add Annotations

 8-Annotations

Use Annotations to promote your business, add a phone number or links to relevant information presented in the video.

Step 5: Add Captions

 

You can use this feature to upload the video’s transcript or a subtitle if you want to reach to international customers.

9-Captions

Congratulations! You’ve just learned how to add your own clips to the YouTube editor, add creative common audio for your video, add annotations or captions. It is time to use this guide and start promoting your business!