Getting Started
Build your channel from the ground up with these best practices and
get inspired by the ways fellow Civics Partners are engaging with the
platform.
YouTube is the primary, global destination
for public online video
2B 1B
100
LOGGED IN-VIEWERS
VISIT YOUTUBE EVERY MONTH.
HOURS OF YOUTUBE’S
INCREDIBLE CONTENT ARE
WATCHED EVERY SINGLE DAY!
LOCALIZED VERSIONS OF
YOUTUBE ARE NOW LIVE
IN MORE THAN 100 COUNTRIES
ACROSS 80 LANGUAGES.
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60
+
MINUTES OF AVERAGE
WATCHTIME ON MOBILE APP
DEVICES EACH DAY.
+
YouTube is a video and search platform
that focuses on different metrics than social
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COMMON
METRICS:
Reach
Followers
VIDEO METRICS:
Views
Watch Time
SEARCH METRICS:
Impression Share
SOCIAL METRICS:
Likes
Comments
Why do users come to YouTube?
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To have access
Content that enables viewers to
connect with personality
To learn
Content that educates the viewer
and answers their questions
To be entertained
Fun content that is
made for YouTube
To be inspired
Personality led-content
that inspires
01 - First Steps
02 - Content Planning
03 - Content Creation
04 - Content Discovery
05 - Additional Strategies & Resource
Table of contents
Please note that these best
practices are tips to guide based on
observations we have gathered
from what has worked on the
platform, but they are not a
guarantee for success.
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First Steps
Find your “Why”
Think about your mission on YouTube.
Is it to generate support for a cause, keep constituents informed
about current government affairs, or build an online community to
spur your next election? To help find your “why,” consider:
- Who is your “ideal viewer”? (e.g. age, demographic, political
identity)
- What do you want your audience to get from your content?
(e.g. general knowledge, entertainment, understanding of
current events)
- What value can you or your organization uniquely offer?
- For inspiration, check out this channel trailer that breaks
down the “why?” in compelling fashion
U.S. Department of State: Leading our Nation's Foreign Policy
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A channel banner can highlight your credentials,
preview your content’s style and tone, share your
social links, and inform viewers of when you’ll be
posting content.
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A channel avatar is a signature image or logo that
represents your channel and will be visible when
leaving comments, community posts, or live chats
(among other things).
Your channel trailer is a short video displayed on
your channel page to unsubscribed viewers. You
can use this to give a sense of the style, flow, and
feel of the content they will see on your channel.
Playlist shelves organize your content, giving
viewers a direct source to playlists featuring
content organized by theme or format.
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Think about branding
WEEKLY COVERAGE BEHIND THE SCENES INTERVIEWS EXPLAINERS
Q&A LISTICLES COLLABORATIONS LIVE STREAMS
Learn the format(s)
Especially early in your YouTube journey, consider leaning into existing formats that online audiences
already know. Below are a few of the popular formats that may suit your organization’s YouTube mission.
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Content Planning
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Be consistent
You want to set expectations for your
audience, so it’s crucial that you reliably
express them.
Stick to a consistent release schedule and
communicate content breaks in advance.
- Consistency doesn’t equal volume. It’s far
less important that you post frequently
than it is that you post on a reliable
schedule.
- Keep your content manageable. High
production videos are great, but can be
very difficult to sustain. Find a balance
between content quantity and quality that
you can maintain over the long term.
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Program with purpose
When programming your channel, always think about the intended audience, goals, and scope of each video.
A great place to start this
process is bucketing your
videos across three content
categories:
HERO, HUB, & HELP.
HERO
HUB
HELP
HERO Content
- Frequency: Rare. Usually built around a major event, moment, or idea.
- Content: Mass appeal topics that lean into increased interest in the
general public at a particular time (Ex. Election day, State of the Union
address, major legislative vote, etc.).
- Audience: Hero Content attempts to cast as wide a net as possible and
be accessible to viewers who may be unfamiliar with your organization
or content.
- Goal: Provide a moment of significant visibility for your content,
converting a large amount of casual viewers into long-term
subscribers.
EN VIVO | Ceremonia de asunción presidencial.
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HERO Collaborate
Stick to a consistent release schedule and communicate content breaks
in advance.
- Choose thoughtfully. The most popular creator on the platform may
not be the best pick. Instead, focus your efforts on Creators who
already have the audience you most want to reach. (Ex. Phil DeFranco’s
news & current events-centric audience or Family channels that can
help you reach a broad audience and serve as a “voice of the people”)
- Consider what you uniquely offer to Creators. Whether it’s access to
world class experts or major political events, think about how you could
supply opportunities Creators otherwise wouldn’t have.
- Create content for your collaborators’ channel, too. To fully capitalize
on this powerful promotional opportunity, make sure you work with the
Creator to make an amazing video they’ll post on their channel.
Ted Cruz | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 54
HELP Content
- Frequency: More often than Hero, but less than Hub
- Content: Evergreen topics targeted towards specific questions or areas
(Ex: What is the NHS, How would “The Green New Deal” work, etc. )
- Audience: Broad and targeted appeal, typically this type of content can
appeal to more casual viewers who do not normally engage with your
channel
- Goal: Provide evergreen videos that continuously gain viewership and
convert subscribers at a steady rate
Follow these simple steps to avoid spreading of
Corona Virus…
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HELP Fill the search void
- Search: Using tools such as Google Trends, YouTube Analytics search
traffic, or checking autocomplete topics in YouTube search can help
you understand what users are looking for.
- Content: Develop evergreen topics targeted towards answering those
questions or filling the search void
- Audience: Often, the audience for help content, starts core, but
overtime becomes dominantly casual. Be mindful of viewers who may
not be familiar with you intimately, use this opportunity to tell them who
you are and what content your channel offers.
- Goal: Provide videos that fill a core question among your constituents
that can stand on its own and maintain relevance over a longer period
of time.
Bernie's Damn Bill Pt. 1: What Is Medicare for All?
(Narrated by H. Jon Benjamin)
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HUB Content
- Frequency: Your regular chosen cadence. Think of Hub Content as your
channel’s “bread and butter.”
- Content: Sustainable, targeted content that appeals directly to your
subscribers’ tastes and expectations. (Lean into your formats!)
- Audience: Your existing subscriber base, plus those viewers who’ve
been watching but haven’t subscribed.
- Goal: Keep your audience coming back with steady, consistent content
that appeals to their expectations and desires. Secondarily, provide a
bank of content for new viewers to explore after subscribing.
Sen. Josh Hawley Questions Former Deputy AG
Rosenstein Over Crossfire Hurricane Investigation
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HUB Build a release schedule
- Be sustainable: Think of formats that you are capable of doing on an
ongoing basis
- Be consistent: Find a regular cadence to release content consistently.,
e.g. expert interviews each Monday or explainers released the first
Saturday of each month
- Audience: Your existing subscriber base, plus those viewers who’ve
been watching but haven’t subscribed.
- Goal: To create a consistent habit and clearly communicate with your
audience when the content they seek from you will be available.
Weekly reports on Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s channel
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HUB Lean into current events
- Be timely. The news cycles and YouTube ecosystem moves at an
incredible rate, so it’s important to engage with trends while they’re still
fresh.
- Be accurate. That said, don’t take research and fact-checking shortcuts
that could impinge your credibility in the long run.
- Be creative. Don’t be afraid to use your uniqueness when creating
content. Not only will your content feel fresh, it will also stand out
among the noise. this sustainable over the long term?
Elizabeth Warren Responds to Donald Trump's
Press Conferences on Authority and Accountability
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Content Creation
Stay accessible
Remember, YouTube is not TV; audiences want to see the real,
unfiltered you.
- Personal content is best. Distance and mystique are not your friends
here. Don’t be afraid to grab the camera and talk directly to your
audience.
- Imperfections are your friend. While it may seem counterintuitive,
don’t be afraid to keep your videos rough around the edges.
- Check out this video for an example of how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
used YouTube to make herself accessible through a live Q&A session
with her community.
Coffee and Conversation | AOC LIVE
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Capture great audio
Good sound can significantly impact how viewers experience your video.
Audiences are typically more forgiving of camera and lighting mistakes
than they are of poor audio. Let’s look at how to avoid sound missteps.
- Keep audio in mind when choosing locations. Consider how ambient
noise or the acoustics in a room (such as an echo) can negatively
impact your audio capture.
- Use external microphones. While something as simple as a
smartphone can film incredible video, you’ll want to use external (not
in-camera) microphones to record audio of the same quality.
- To help you get started, this Creator Academy video explains the basics
of creating a fantastic audio and video experience.
Looking for an overview of making YouTube content?
Check out the “Production Skills: From Ideas to Video”
playlist, brought to you by YouTube Creator Academy.
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Create in bulk
Creating videos takes time and resources, so it’s always smart to try to
maximize the output of your production days.
- Batch shoot. Whenever possible, get multiple videos out of each shoot
you do. For instance, if you’re interviewing experts within your
organization, is it possible to schedule two or more in the same day?
- Think flexibly with your footage. Be creative with the extra footage you
may capture at different events you go to and consider how that can be
packaged to give you more content to share.
Hosted by prolific YouTube Creator Simon Whistler, this
Creator Academy video explores the many benefits of
batch shooting and “monotasking.”
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Curate a conversation
As you think about if and how your YouTube
presence will interact with viewers, keep the
following in mind.
- Focus the narrative. Consider turning
off Comments when speaking about
sensitive topics or live streaming in
order to keep the focus on the
information in the video.
- Cultivate community. Outside of
Comments, features like Stories and
Community are a great way to maintain
consistent, lightweight engagement.
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Content Discovery
Create effective titles & thumbnails
Titles and thumbnails can make a big difference in a viewer’s decision to
watch your video, especially when they work together. Let’s take a look at
some best practices.
- Be accurate. Make sure your title & thumbnail combination is a true
representation of the video.
- Be concise. Try keeping titles under 70 characters and focusing on the most
important words/ideas at the front.
- Be searchable. Whenever possible, include search-friendly keywords in your
title.
- Be engaging. Use the combination of your titles and your thumbnail to create
an engaging tease of the content.
UFO footage released by the Pentagon: Raw Video
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Give viewers somewhere to go
End screens give you the opportunity to extend watch time on your
channel by directing viewers to up to four different elements
during the last 20 seconds of your video.
- Maximize impact. End screens can be paired with an in-video
“end card” that visually houses links and features a call-to-action
directing viewers to additional videos and to “like, share,
and subscribe.”
- Use YouTube cards. Cards are notifications that appear in the
top right corner of your videos. Try pairing cards with relevant
moments in your video.
- Choose wisely. End screens are most successful when they give
your viewers something relevant to watch. Consider using them
to drive traffic between episodes of your formats or series.
Cory Booker recorded a standard, custom end screen
video that his team could append to his uploads and to
help direct viewers to take action.
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Impressions highlight how many times your video
thumbnails are shown on YouTube
Click-through-rate shows you what percentage of your
impressions on YouTube turned into views.
Views - we want to make sure that videos are viewed by
actual humans and not computer programs. This is why
your public and internal facing view counts can be delayed
as our systems verify the legitimacy of the views.
Traffic Sources give you a sense of how viewers are
discovering your content.
Watch time refers to the amount of time that viewers have
spent watching your content and gives you a sense of what
is actually being watched (as opposed to clicked on and
then abandoned).
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Analytics at a glance
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Additional Strategies & Resources
Cross promotion strategies
Consider leveraging your social media handles and different
YouTube features as to further promote yourself and new content.
- Features are your friends: Lean into promotional features on
platforms like Snapchat and Instagram such as“swipe up”. Use
YouTube Community polls to ask your followers what kind of
content they’d most like to see and YouTube Stories to promote
your channel or content in a light-touch manner.
- Go beyond trailers and montages: Incentivize viewers by linking
content across your social platforms.
- Calls-to-Action are key: While promotional clips or trailers of
your YouTube content can be effective, posting videos where you
speak directly to your audience is one of the best ways to
motivate them to check out new content.
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Lean into audience data
Unsure about what topics to cover in your
content? Here are some ways you can use data
from your audience, and from Internet users
generally, to help guide your decisions.
- YouTube Analytics. Within YouTube Studio,
take a look at Traffic Sources > YouTube
Search. There, you’ll find what terms viewers
are using to find you.
- Google Trends. Google Trends allows you to
track the popularity of various search terms by
time period and geography, and see related
searches. Consider searching for your name,
topics related to your policy, or government
institutions and then reviewing related
searches for additional insight into future
video ideas.
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Analytics at a glance:
Traffic sources
The data available in Traffic Sources breaks out the
individual locations wherein your content is surfaced
to viewers. Here are the major ones to know.
- Suggested videos are shown to viewers on the
right side of the watch page under ‘Up next,’
below the video on the mobile app, and as the
next video in autoplay.
- Browse features refers to traffic generated by the
home, trending, and subscriptions feeds.
- YouTube Search looks at the search queries that
directed viewers to your content.
- Notifications are alerts sent when a new video is
made public. They can be sent via mobile push
alerts or emails.
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Thank you
