Description

The Butterscotch.com Beginner's guide to YouTube unlocks the power of this online video sharing phenom. Follow along over the next couple of weeks as we reveal some of the more advanced features that the typical YouTuber may never see.

Transcript

Welcome to the Beginner's guide to YouTube Series. YouTube is an online service that gives you a place to store all of your videos that you’ve created. Besides just giving you a place to store your videos, it also allows you to watch other videos that members of YouTube have added and if you chose to make your videos public, then people can watch your videos too. You can watch videos without signing up but in order to participate in the community, and upload your own videos, you’ll want to create an account, click on Sign Up. Since YouTube is owned by Google, if you have a Google account, you can simply sign in here with your Google Account information. If not, just fill up this form with an email address, a password and select a unique username, enter in your location, your date of birth, your gender, complete the word verification and check this box if you want other people to be able to find your channel on YouTube if they have your email address. Agree to the terms of use and click on Create my Account. You’ll now need to check your email address you’ve used when signing up for verification from YouTube. Click on the link in the email and now you’ve just created your YouTube account. When you first sign into YouTube, you’ll be brought to the YouTube homepage. Here, you’ll see videos that are featured on YouTube, the videos which are most active meaning their being viewed the most. Any activities that friends you’ve added to YouTube are participating in YouTube promoted videos and any of your videos from channels you’ve subscribed to. Look at into subscribing videos in the later video in the series. You can completely customize what you see on the homepage by clicking on Customize your Homepage and checking or unchecking boxes. This will remove or add the modules I just showed you. Click on Update and here are the changes. You can also rearrange the modules by clicking on these arrows moving them up or down. Also on your homepage, you’ll see your inbox which contains messages and friend requests, you’ll see information about videos you’ve added and information about your YouTube activity. Again, you can remove any of these modules by clicking on customize your homepage and unchecking the boxes. YouTube is a great place to find videos to watch. You can watch videos on the homepage or you can do a search for specific topic, you can search all videos or search for a channel someone has created dedicated to that topic. When you’re typing in your search term, YouTube will suggest things to you that might help you narrow down your search. And here are the videos that match my search. You can fill to your search by relevance, the date they were uploaded and by video type. Click on the Title to watch the video. On the video page, you’ll see the username of the person you added, the day it was added and the description. You’ll also see the categories as well as tags or keywords that helped to describe the video. You can share this with friends by sending them the URL or if you have a blogger web site, you can embed with the video with this HTML code. You can even customize the way the player looks. And choose to include related videos at the end of the video. You can visit the member’s channels page and view other videos they’ve added. You can subscribe to their videos so you’ll know the next time they add a new one. Each member has a profile like this. On the video page, you’ll also see some of the members, other videos and the related videos. You can also rate the video, share it via email or on a social networking site you belong to, save it to your Favorites so you can find it later. You can flag it if you think it’s inappropriate and you can add it to a playlist. A playlist gives you a way to organize videos. You can add it to one you’ve already created or create a new one. Just name it, add the description and the keywords you think help to describe it and you can make it public or keep it private. You can also check this box to get permission for other sites to use your playlist. One of the biggest reasons for becoming a YouTube member is to upload and share your own videos, click on upload, give your video a title, a description, and place it in appropriate category. Add any tags or descriptive keywords about your video. There are some suggested ones here that you can use by clicking on them. By default, your video is made public but you can change that to private and then add friends you’ve added on YouTube to be able to view it. You can also enter in the date it was recorded and enter in the location where it was found. If sharing options allows you to choose exactly who can comment, allow people to vote on commenting, allow video responses, ratings and give permission for other sites to embed your video on their site. You can also choose to allow your video to be viewed on mobile phones and TV. Next come is adding the video. Quick capture is simply recording a video with your webcam. You just need to give YouTube permission to access you webcam and then record as usual. If you have a video file stored on your computer, you’ll want to upload it. Quick on browse, select the video file, click open. Before you click Upload, make sure you have the proper permission and rights to upload the video. Uploading may take several minutes depending on the file size. When it’s all done, click on My Videos and here is your newly uploaded video. A great benefit of belonging to the YouTube community is the ability to participate by commenting on people’s videos. This not only provides feedback for the creator of the video but also can create a conversation among the people commenting. There are two ways you can pose a comment, you can click on post a text response and type in your comment here. You’re free to type what you like but YouTube members can rate your comment up or down by clicking on the stamp icons. When viewing text comments, you have the option of showing all comments or comments with a specific score based on those votes. You can also reply to a certain comment instead of the video as a whole. The other way to comment is by video. Click Uphost a Video Response. You can choose to record a video with your webcam, you just need to give YouTube access to your webcam first. You can also select a video that you’ve already uploaded or you can upload a new video. Besides just leaving and reading comments about a video you can also view statistics and data for the video. This shows when the video was added, how many times it’s been viewed the ratings it received, how many times it’s been saved to someone’s favorites and how many comments and responses it has. You can also see honors for the video which would you show you the high rankings it’s held or if it’s been highly discussed or highly viewed for a day. Last, you’ll see the sites that link to this video. Each member of YouTube has their own channel page which you can customize. Click on your username and then add a channel. First, you’ll see your channel information; this is a URL where people can find their channel with your videos. You can give your channel a name. By default, it will have your user name but you can change it to whatever you want. Add the description and then text which are keywords that describe your channel and will help people searching to find your channel easier. You can select whether or not you want to display comments and you can choose who can comment, everyone friends and so on. Channel type helps describe your videos so if you’ve directed the videos you’ll be uploading then your channel type would be director. If you’re in a band and will be adding music videos then you’ll be a musician. If you’re just uploading videos that don’t fit into one of this specific categories then you are YouTuber. Last, choose of users with your email address can find your channel. Now, you can choose a design for your channel. You can choose a basic two color theme for your channel. You’ll see a preview of the changes here under channel preview. Now, choose what sections you want displayed it on your channel. You can have a featured video which can either be your latest to video or specific video with a URL. You can add or remove the featured video, you can show video channels that you subscribed to and place it on the left to the right or remove it completely. You can choose to show a bulletin’s box, playlist box or you can remove it. Playlists are groups of videos you’ve created. To add a playlist, select it, and click on Add. You can also show recent readings, recent comments, your videos box, a video log box. You decide what you want or don’t want on your YouTube channel page. If you’re really into design, you can completely customize your channel by selecting different colors, and even uploading your own image. Anything from the colors to the font, you can change here under advance design customization. Also you have to customize your channel page even more in the next video. Once you’ve added some videos to YouTube, you’ll want to organize them and update some profile information. Click on your username and edit channel. Then organize videos, these are some videos I’ve uploaded and you can select up to nine videos to display on your channel. Just check the box next to the one you want to display. You can change them by clicking remove and adding a new one then click an update channel. You can also add some personal information to your profile, take a photo from your computer or you can select a still from one of your videos. You can also choose to have your profile photo automatically changed to the latest video image then add any information you want to share like your name, relationship status, some information about yourself and you can add the URL of your blogger website. You can choose what to fill in or leave blank. You can also add your location information. Click here to view your newly updated channel page as a public will see it. YouTube puts you in complete control of your videos even after you uploaded them. Go to your account and click on my videos. These are all of the videos I’ve uploaded. You have the option of editing all of the information about the video. You can also do something called audio swap. Audio swap allows you to replace the current audio with a selection here. You can search for specific artists, entry songs with a similar length to your video. After you’ve selected a song, you can preview it, choose to publish or cancel it. You can also add annotations to your videos. Select if you want a speech bubble, add a note or add a spotlight, enter your text in here. Select the beginning and end time for your annotation. You can also have your annotation length to another YouTube video by entering into URL here. Here’s a speech bubble I added. You can drag it around, resize it and change the text. You can preview it and then choose to publish it. You can also add close captions and subtitles to your videos. Close captions and subtitles help people with hearing difficulties or people who may speak at different language than your video. You need to have specific software in order to add close captions and subtitles then follow the instructions in the Help Center to add them. In order to make sure you making the most out of your YouTube experience and to protect your privacy, you want to check out your account page, click on account and more. Here, you’ll see your YouTube activity statistics. You can manage channels you’ve subscribe to and the content on your homepage. This is also where you can manage your videos, your favorites, your playlists and your custom videos players. A custom video player allows you to create a player filled with your selected videos that you can embed on your website or blog. Click create custom player name it give it a description, select a color theme and choose if you want one video player or a video player with multiple videos. Then you just need to select the videos you want added from your list of videos, from your favorites or from your playlist. Click Generate Code and simply copy it and paste it into the area on your website or blog where you want to add it. Back to the account settings, this is also where you can view the contents of your inbox, your friend’s invites and so on. You can also manage your channel information and your contacts and subscribers and all of your basic account information. Take the time to go through your account settings to make sure you’re getting the YouTube experience you desire. Once you’ve uploaded some videos to YouTube and people start watching them and commenting you want to check out what’s called insight, you’ll find insight by going to your account and selecting insight. What you’ll see first is a graph of how many viewers your videos are getting. You’ll see a list of your most viewed videos. And to the demographic of who’s watching them from eight range to male to female. We’ll also see how popular your videos are compared to other countries you can break it down by views, popularity and demographics. You can also show data for all countries or specific country and you can adjust the date range. This information is useful because you’ll see just who’s watching, what, and where they’re located which will helpfully help you create videos with increase popularity.