YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts

Introduce Yourself

After registering your account, the first thing you should do is edit your channel info. You'll want to provide a little basic information about yourself and about the videos you plan on uploading before anyone sees your profile. To edit your channel info, click the Account link that appears at the top of every YouTube page (Figure 4-5).

Figure 4-5. To access your account, click the Account link at the top of any page.

This will bring you to your account, which offers many options for customizing your YouTube experience. For now, we're going to focus on the Channel Info link, found under the My Channel heading (Figure 4-6). Click it.

Figure 4-6. Edit your channel info by clicking the appropriate link under the My Channel options.

Now you can input some basic information about your channel.

You can't change your URL; this is set because it is tied to your username. You should memorize your URL so that you can share your channel with others via email, via social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, or via instant messages. (We'll cover various ways to promote your channel in more detail throughout this book, but mostly in Chapters Chapter 7 and Chapter 10.)

The title refers to the text header that appears at the top of your channel. It can be your username, your real first name, or any funny phrase that represents your channel.

Figure 4-7. Inputting basic information about your channel is the first step after registering.

I chose "alanawesome" (Figure 4-7). You can change the title at any time, so don't feel locked in to the one you choose now.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Keep in mind that most of the information you provide YouTube when you set up your channel and profile is public. Do not include your mailing address, phone number, or other personal information that you are not willing to share with complete strangers. If you need viewers to mail you something, pay for a post office box. They're cheap and convenient and will keep strangers from ringing your front doorbell. This may also be true of your full legal name. Between identity theft and stalkers, it's probably safer if you use a nickname or simply just your first name while online.

The description of your channel appears directly beside your channel's featured video on your profile page. The text you enter here is important for new viewers visiting your channel. Most YouTubers include a bit of personal and contact information, (email addresses or instant messenger names). If you put your email address here, rather than just letting people contact you through YouTube, expect to get a lot more spam. Your description can technically be long, but try to keep it to a readable length, and include a link to your personal website if you want viewers to read your full bio.

PRO TIP

Make your channel description personal. Make it funny if your videos are funny, or make it professional if that better reflects your videos. If you plan on uploading instructional, educational, or how-to videos, include clear contact info or websites where viewers who want to get involved can. Your channel description should be more than "Hi. My name is Alan. I make videos. Please subscribe!" That doesn't tell me anything about you or your channel, and it won't keep me around very long.

This is a better channel description:

"Hi, I'm Alan. I like punk rock and help run a book and record distribution company called Fall of Autumn Distro. I live in Chicago and just purchased my first video camera (a Sony DCR-HC48 Handycam) a year ago. I edited my first short film, Five Stories, nine months ago, and it went on to multiple airings on the Independent Film Channel. I plan to upload a few vlogs about my projects and also show you some works in progress for your entertainment because I'd like some constructive feedback. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions, and I'll do my best to share with you what I know. My email address is…."

Now, that description may or may not excite you, but at least it gives you some idea of what to expect from the channel. Your description should do the same.

The channel tags are keywords you can enter that others might search for when looking for your channel. You should include your username and any other nickname you go by. You should include words that describe your style, like "funny, sketch, comedy" for comedians or "folk, rock, acoustic, punk" for musicians.

A few other channel options will allow you to choose who can comment on your channel and whether bulletins will appear on your channel, but you will learn about those in other chapters; for now, you can leave them on their default settings, or you can experiment and change them if you're feeling adventurous.

After you personalize all the settings, click Update Channel. You can now click your URL and look at your newly updated channel.

While all the text information you entered will be there, you'll notice your channel looks really plain, simple, and, well, unattractive. Let's sexy it up a bit by pimping your profile.