Making a YouTube channel has always been an appealing idea for aspiring influencers, but nowadays it has expanded into the staple of a brand or company. If you want to engage your audience and keep them engaged, you’ll need a YouTube channel. TikTok might serve marketing purposes that simply stop at “We exist”, but if you want loyal customers who keep coming back and feel a connection with your brand, you’ll need in-depth information, charismatic presenters, and, most importantly, a YouTube channel. But the steps to creating a YouTube channel can confuse some people, so we’ve got this handy guide to walk you through it. Take a look at our guide to creating your YouTube channel.
Create an email account
This might well be the easiest part because it might already be done. You need an email address for a lot of ventures so that companies can contact you. In the case of YouTube, they’ll need to contact you with regular updates on the status of your videos and channel. You’ll know if there is a copyright strike on your video, how much attention your video is getting and other interactions with the YouTube support team via email.
However, sometimes you want a branded email address to go with your channel, or the idea of attaching your personal email address to a potentially popular YouTube channel is scary. Plus, because YouTube is owned by Google, a Gmail account is required. In those cases, you’ll need a new email address.
This is as easy as heading to Gmail and putting in some basic details. The provider will take you through step by step, where you’ll get to create your email address, ensure it’s unique and add your name.
Create your channel
As mentioned, you are then going to use your email address to create your YouTube account. If you head to youtube.com you’ll see an option in the top right hand corner to “Sign in”. The perk of sticking to a Gmail account is that you don’t have to remember a new email password, and as long as you remember your password to your email account, it will get you into your new YouTube account.
If you’re on a computer, you can click “Create Account” and then “For myself” or “To manage my business” according to your needs. If you are on a smartphone, you can open the YouTube app, click your profile picture, then click Add Account and follow the steps to putting in the details of your new channel.
You will have to input your phone number to verify your new YouTube channel. The site needs to know you are a real person and that they can contact you, and this is where your new email address and phone number come in. As for your channel, you will need to verify your account in order to be allowed to upload videos that are longer than 15 minutes, add custom thumbnails, start a live stream or appeal any copyright strikes you might face.
Verifying your account is as simple as waiting for a text to come in, which it should do in seconds of submitting your new channel, opening it, and inputting the numerical code into a forum on your YouTube channel.
Customize your channel
Don’t worry about getting everything right the first time. If there’s a typo in your channel’s name, well for one thing that fits the look and feel of being a YouTuber, but for another, there is an option to change almost anything you want in your page, and it starts with customizing your channel.
All the editing of your YouTube channel is done from the YouTube Studio, which you can find at studio.youtube.com after signing in. This forum will give you every last detail of your channel, including analytics and editing tools.
To get started with the basics, you can access things like Layout, Branding, and Basic Info from the left hand menu. You can do things like add a channel trailer, profile picture, video watermark, or featured video with stock music. You can also edit your basic information like your channel name, description and links to social media.
Conclusion
And that’s the initial steps. Now it’s up to you to make something of yourself on the app. Are you simply going to pursue a hobby or interest and hope others are interested, or are you looking to make a business venture? Do you have your niche already handed to you, or will you have to go looking for one? Will you bring a following over from elsewhere or will you start establishing yourself on social media? There are a lot of different ways you can go with your YouTube channel and there are countless tools and titbits of advice to help you along the way. Good luck!
