YouTube is so much more than watching cat videos and learning how to fix your toilet. While certainly YouTube is packed with endless entertainment and helpful content, it’s also an incredible resource for marketing your business and growing your customer base. It’s the perfect place to showcase the “authentic you” that exists at the core of your business because you can be helpful and entertaining too! But most importantly, it’s a great way to achieve a more intimate and engaging connection with your customers. So let’s talk about how to start a YouTube channel.

Why YouTube?

There is a common phrase among YouTubers. The riches are in the niches. Because if you’re an expert in a particular niche, you can control the narrative. With a regular following of viewers (i.e customers—both potential and current) you can become a knowledge resource by sharing your expertise, thoughts on upcoming trends, helpful tips, and observations on rapidly changing industries. You’re able to respond to comments from viewers and communicate with them in a public way. This kind of transparent engagement is how you build community around your channel (and your business).

Oh—and YouTube is owned by Google so it's a search engine in its own right!

In the end, YouTube is another marketing channel, and like anywhere you do your marketing, you have to be authentic, captivating, and interesting. The goal is to strengthen the trust in your brand. And the best YouTubers have people waiting for their newest video to drop like it was the next episode of White Lotus!

And don’t forget…

There’s another sweet bonus about YouTube—if you gain enough viewers tuning in to the clever knowledge in your videos, you’ll get advertisers. And advertisers add another source of passive revenue for your business. To reach this level, you’ll need at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours over 12 months. It’s a hustle, but the rewards can be significant.

How to set up your YouTube channel

Now that you know the why, let’s cover the how. Setting up your YouTube channel and getting started is pretty simple. Keeping up with producing new videos is the bigger challenge for most small business owners. Here are nine steps to get you rolling.

1. Narrow down your niche - Think about what’s missing from your industry and be the expert in that area. Research what your niche competitors are making content about and find an area that isn’t being covered yet. Be clear who your channel is for and growth will happen much faster.  
2. Bring your brand to your channel - When you start making videos, grab your logo, brand colors, messaging, etc. from your brand asset library and make sure they are consistently used in your videos. If someone goes from your video to your website, you want to have a consistent look and feel on every touchpoint of your business.
3. Create your YouTube account - This part is easy if you have a Google account. If you don’t, you’ll need to create one. With your Google account, go to YouTube and sign in. It’s that easy.
4. Create your channel - This one’s simple too. Click on your business/profile icon and select ‘Create a channel.’ Then just set up your channel name, description, and logo, etc.
5. Start filming - Great news, you don’t have to be a filmmaker like Martin Scorcese or Sofia Coppola to be a success on YouTube. Your mobile phone does the job nicely. We would recommend a small investment in a ring light or something similar just to make sure your appearance is bright and consistent. Choose your first topic, let your personality shine, and shoot that video! To polish up your video you will want to brush up on your video editing skills. There are numerous free tutorials you can find online depending on how you like to     edit. Editing can be frustrating at first but gets easier with each video. Hot tip! If you’re looking for super easy video-editing software, check out Canva.
6. Choose a title and thumbnail - Don’t overlook this critical step! These are the first things people see before they watch your video and like pictures of desserts on a menu, they can make the difference whether someone clicks on your video or not. Hot tip #2! Check out     Canva for creating thumbnails; they have templates specific for YouTube.
7. Put it out there! - Hit that publish button and launch your first video into the world. Don’t expect the flood gates to open and a rush of new customers to start following your channel. Nothing in marketing creates miracles overnight but planting the seed is the first step to growth.
8. It’s in the numbers, dude - There are two metrics you’ll want to pay attention to: Click through rate (CTR) and average view duration. CTR is how many people actually watched your video or at least part of it. And average view duration is how long someone watched your video. The longer someone watches, the more YouTube will dish up your videos to more people. This is why the content of your video is so important.
9. Stay consistent - Consistency is everything in any kind of social or content marketing. Create a content calendar to plan out videos in advance. Enji’s content calendar can auto-populate and remind you when it’s time to post a video to your social channels to promote it     to your followers. That’s a time-consuming task made easy with the Enji platform.

Pro-tip: Be sure to promote your new videos on all your marketing channels! You can send email newsletters about new or popular videos, create clips and turn them intoInstagram reels or TikTok videos, or share the link to your Facebook, Linkedin, or Google Business page.  

Release your inner videographer

Now you’re ready to show the world the knowledge and insights that only you can provide! Remember, consistency, authenticity, and likability are all essential for YouTube success. And one more important step we didn’t include above is to always engage with your viewers. Respond to comments, ask for feedback, and find out what topics people would like to learn more about. This is the easiest way to build up loyal viewers and encourage more people to share your video with others.

Lights, camera, action. You got this!