For handy tips and useful information, read our brief guide to You Tube.
- What is You Tube?
- Who uses You Tube?
- Key things you need to know
- Further resources you may find helpful
1. What is You Tube?
You Tube is a video sharing platform. You can set up your own channel to put all your videos on.
2. Who uses You Tube?
According to this blog on You Tube stats :
- 11% of adults 18-24 use You Tube
- 23% of adults 25-34 use You Tube
- 26% of adults 35-44 use You Tube
- 16% of adults 45-54 use You Tube
- 8% of adults 50-64 use You Tube
- 3% of adults 65+ use You Tube
More men tend to use You Tube. There are 62% male users and 38% female users.
In Autumn 2016, 23% of partners had a You Tube channel.
3. Key things you need to know
You Tube non-profit programme
If you use YouTube to share videos about your organisation consider signing up to YouTube’s Non-profit programme. It’s free and has a number of benefits, including:
- Customised YouTube channels which allow you to set a profile picture, create channel art and upload a channel trailer.
- Call to action overlays. These are similar to the paid adverts which appear on lots of YouTube videos. They allow you to create a link from your videos to your website or social media pages.
- External link annotations. Annotations are like notes that can appear to the viewer anywhere on your YouTube video. Non-profits have the option of linking these annotations to external pages such as your website or social media pages.
To sign up for YouTube’s Non-profit programme you’ll need a Google for Non-profits account and your organisation’s YouTube channel ID. Apply for a YouTube for Non-Profits account.
Customising your You Tube Channel
You can customise your You Tube channel in a number of ways:
- Adding a donate button
- Setting your profile picture and channel art
- Add a channel description
- Add a channel trailer
- Channel sections
- Playlists
Adding a donate button
You can add a donate button to your channel. Find out more in the You Tube outreach toolkit.
Setting your profile picture and channel art
Your Profile Picture and Channel art are a great opportunity to add your branding to your YouTube channel. For your profile picture we recommend using your logo. The profile picture needs to be 250x250px – the same size as profile pictures used on Twitter and Facebook. Your channel art image needs to be 2560x1440px.
Add a channel description
Your channel description will appear across the site, with the first few sentences appearing most prominently. So make sure you include the most relevant information first and be sure to include relevant keywords.
Adding a channel trailer
A channel trailer appears prominently on your YouTube homepage to visitors who aren’t subscribed to your channel. We recommend that your Channel Trailer provides an overview of your organisation’s aims and work. Many partners have an ‘About us’ film which would work well as a channel trailer. See: How to upload your channel trailer
Channel sections
Channel sections are a great way to group and promote content on your homepage. You can create up to ten channel sections. You could use channel sections to highlight your work, recent events or general news. See: Creating channel sections instructions
Playlists
Use playlists to group together videos in your Playlist tab and to populate your channel sections. Find out more information about creating playlists.
4. Further resources you may find helpful:
- Read all of our social media guides here
- Go to You Tube’s help centre for guidance
- Check out the Age UK national You Tube account for ideas
- To listen to our Social Media manager responding to partner’s questions about social media, see our Social media Q&A