Any Tom, Dick or Harry can create a YouTube channel. But if you are looking to monetize your account and make a successful business out of it, your focus should be beyond just creating a channel. You need to build a brand.
Following are steps involved in creating a successful and recognized brand:
Customize Your Channel
The first step involved in creating a brand on YouTube is channel customization. In order to look pro, your channel needs the following things:
- Channel Logo: Your channel logo represents your channel across social media platforms. So create a logo that is simple yet strong. One that people don’t tend to forget easily.
- Channel Art: The banner at the top of your channel is called the channel art. You need to customize it in such a way that it represents your brand’s personality.
- Channel Description: The channel description, which appears in the ‘about tab’, should be a brief overview of what your channel is about.
- Channel Trailer: The channel trailer provides the viewer with a glimpse into the type of videos you make.
Be Unique, Be Yourself
The most important characteristic of a product or business is its uniqueness. Your brand should be synonymous to your beliefs. Sure, you can have idols who inspire your content. But it is illogical to try and replicate an existing masterpiece. The problem with copying someone is that they have already been there and done that. There would be nothing new for people to take away from your content. So it is imperative that you create content that is original.
Find your target audience
YouTube is vast. All sorts of content work on YouTube. Every material has its audience. As a creator, it only makes sense that you create videos that you are passionate about.
Once you have found your niche, you need to focus on the target audience. For example, let’s say you are a Grunge musician. Your target audience would be people who like Grunge music. But the problem is, not everyone on YouTube is a fan of grunge. So you need to find people who like rock music. Among fans of rock, you need to identify the crowd that likes alternative rock. And from that bunch, you need to filter out people who like grunge music.
You could also target people by age and geography. Grunge was particularly popular during the late 80’s and early 90’s when Nirvana was at its prime. So your target audience could be people who were born between 1975 and 1990. And if your music is in English, you could focus on countries that have a large English speaking population like UK, US, Ireland, Australia, Canada and India.
YouTube Video promoters like Promolta can help maximize your video’s reach and find your target audience faster.
Be Consistent
Now that you have found your target audience, you need to entice new viewers and also hold onto your subscribers. The key to this is consistency. Not just the uploading part, no sir. The quality of your videos, the message that your videos convey and the kind of graphics you use – everything needs to be consistent. Consistency creates an identity for the brand.
Widen your Brand’s social reach
Once you become proficient on YouTube, it is time for you to expand your brand’s reach. How do you do that? The most obvious answer is social media. Your brand needs to have its own, active accounts and pages on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Everytime you upload a video on YouTube, make sure to share it across social media platforms. Sharing garners more audience, increasing traffic to your YouTube channel.
Analyse and adjust
Analytics is very important to any business and YouTube is no different. It is a key component in determining the success of your brand. Analytics provides you with details of your videos’ performance. Armed with those details, you can start creating content that viewers like. Adjusting to your viewers’ requirements is critical. When one type of content performs better than another, you should start focusing more on the popular type of content.
Interact with your Viewers
As a brand, you need to gain your viewers’ trust. This is done by interacting with them. The basic thing to do is reply to comments. Allocate an hour or so after uploading a new video and reply to as many genuine comments as possible. Keep the tone of your replies in check. The tone has to be synonymous to your brand’s beliefs.
Never give up
Finally, never give up! If Steve Jobs and Bill Gates had given up when they were still budding entrepreneurs, there would have been no Apple or Microsoft. If you trust your content, then persevere. Success will be slow to come, but when it does, it will come with a bang!
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