Your Brand and YouTube

We all know YouTube to be the popular social media site for video sharing and streaming. I like digging for upcoming movie trailers on YouTube myself. But aside from that, I like how a lot of helpful vid-casts are available for me to view on this mainstream video sharing site.

But it is unknown to many; YouTube can also help your personal brand flourish. The question now is, how do you do it?

Name your channel

Claiming your brand’s name is just as important as any an aspect in establishing your brand on YouTube. And when you do it, you have to be consistent with it. Remember that you have to be careful when naming your channel as these cannot be changed later when you feel like it.

When choosing a channel name, choose from your full name, the company’s name, or an eye-catching show name. If there are multiple voices speaking on the channel, name it under the company’s name or the topic those speakers talk about.

If there is only one face for the channel, then brand it under the speaker’s full name. An attention-grabbing show name, on the other hand, would be easier for viewers to remember for future visits. Whatever name you choose, it’ll reflect on your channel’s URL, which will appear in this format: http://www.youtube.com/user/yourusername.

Once you’ve settled with a channel name, don’t forget to fill out the necessary information on your user’s profile. Remember to upload a user avatar and add your company’s website or your personal page on the URL section so that people can get a better grasp of who you are or what your company is about.

Also, don’t forget to customize your channel. You can choose a specific YouTube account type that best fits your channel, as well change the layout of your YouTube page. Don’t forget to add a channel title that best captures what your channel is all about, and tags that would make locating your channel easier on the YouTube homepage.

Produce great videos

We’ve always put an emphasis on the importance of great content in blogs or websites. The same thing applies on YouTube. Only this time, the content is more diverse, as it mixes the use of various media like audio and video. For this you have to put two things into consideration:

The content. You have to find compelling and exceptionally interesting content to make sure that people keep coming back to your channel for more.
The equipment. You’ll need a video camera to turn your idea into an actual video. You can choose to go with a basic video cam or invest on a more advanced, high-definition video camera. As for audio, you can choose to just go with what the video camera recorded or use a separate audio device to record the sound parts clearer.

Do your promotions

Unless you’re THAT famous, there’s no way that people will find your channel, however great your content may be. Start with the people you know and ask them to pass the word around for you. From there, you can start working on other means to promote your content. Facebook’s got a nifty app that allows you to automatically post your YouTube videos onto your profile of Fan Page. Also, Facebook allows you to share videos from YouTube on the wall post.

There are also auto-share options on your YouTube account settings. This will automatically post recently uploaded videos to popular social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. There is also an option for you to share your video posts to you blog (WordPress, TypePad, Blogged, etc.) in just a few clicks.

Of course, YouTube’s embed code allows you to post these videos just about anywhere an HTML code is allowed. So if you’re commenting on other people’s blog entries or websites, you can simply attach the code and easily share the video from there.

With YouTube’s millions of followers, it would be a shame if you didn’t take the promotional opportunity it presents to your brand. Why not take the time to learn your way around YouTube and use it to your brand’s advantage? There’s nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain from it.

If you have any other tips on building your brand on YouTube, I’d appreciate it if you could share it over at the comments section. Let’s talk more about this, shall we?