Social Networking your web site for Youtube

I don’t intend on writing a book about YouTube, but this should get you started on setting up YouTube for your business.  I’ll call out a few “gotchas”, but keep in mind that the Internet can be a dangerous and rough place when trusts are abused.  Always be cognizant of your privacy and exposure to those that may be looking to compromise you or your business in one form or another.  Surf Smart.

Before you can take advantage of the social network capabilities available on the Internet, you will need to establish accounts with at least these three services;

1. Facebook

2. Twitter

3. YouTube

You can do others too, and there might be some that have been added since this has been written, or others that may be highly specific to your industry.  If you already have personal accounts on any of these sites, you may already be familiar with how they work, but they may operate slightly different  if you have a business account set up to be used for socially networking your web site.  If you are already a guru with these services, remember that business accounts don’t work the same as personal accounts.

So , let’s get started with YouTube.

1.       Create a YouTube account for your business or site.  This can be done just like a personal account, except we recommend that you keep the account separate from your personal account in order to keep things organized and easily arranged.  Visit www.youtube.com for instructions on creating your account if you haven’t done so yet.

2.       Get familiar with the content and offerings from YouTube by browsing the site.  Be on the lookout for things that might relate to your site visitors.  Try to stay away from things that your visitors might find offensive or unrelated to what you may try to promote. (I’ll explain why later.)

3.       Know these YouTube concepts and terms;

a.       Channel – This is the view into your account.  It is your identity and it can illustrate how you and your business operate.  If YouTube was cable television, your channel is now available for viewers anywhere on the Internet and your channel is its own TV station.  Be true to the theme of your business.

b.      Favorites – This is a list of your favorite videos.  If you want to bookmark a video as one of your “favorites”, you can use the “add to” button on the video frame to add this video to your favorites list.  The same can be done for playlists, which I prefer for organizational purposes.

c.       Account Settings (Important!) – Peruse each and every setting available in this section.  Make sure that you only allow visibility to items that you would welcome your web visitors to see or know.  You will likely want to turn off advertising notification to help reduce SPAM.  Make sure you read each option carefully so you don’t do something you don’t really want to do.

d.      Subscriptions – Subscriptions are lists of channels that you may decide to follow.  This means that you will be notified if the publisher of a channel to which you subscribe adds a new video.  This can be convenient, but remember that your subscriptions may be visible to your visitors if your account settings allow.

e.      Like or Comment – These are terms that indicate feedback on a given video.  If you “like” a video, you may elect to give a “thumbs up”.  You may also type4 a comment that will be shown to others that view the same video.  Remember that visitors to your channel may be able to search and view the comments that you have typed or view lists of videos that you have “liked”.  The account privacy settings can be set to allow or disallow this behavior, so beware of your settings!

f.        Playlists – I saved this for last because I think that Playlists are the most powerful way to manage the videos you like or want to share with your web site visitors.  I’ll go into more detail below, but for now, think of Playlists as file folders in which you will keep videos organized.  You can have multiple playlists and you can have the same video in multiple playlists.  It’s simple as long as you name your playlists with names that are indicative of the videos contained within.

4.       While you are logged into YouTube, navigate to your playlists and find a button that says, “New” or displays an addition sign.  The site may change its design, but you should be able to find it easily.  After all, it is YouTube, and it’s meant to be easy and user-friendly.  When you find it, click on it to add a playlist named “website videos” or something similar that will let you know that this is where you will place videos that you will want to share with your website visitors.

5.       Now, you have created your own “channel” on YouTube and you have set aside an area where you may place videos that you will share with your website visitors.  All that is left is to secure your privacy settings

6.       On the YouTube site, while you are logged in, go to your “Account Settings”.

7.       Click on the link for “Activity Sharing”.

8.       Select or deselect any of the options that you would prefer to share with anyone that may view your web channel, then “Save” the settings.

9.       Now, navigate to your “Playlists”, then click on the playlist that you created for display on your web site (ie. website videos) and click on the name to display the detailed settings.

10.   Select the “Privacy” tab or button and select the option for “Public”.  If you select “Private”, nobody will be able to see any videos saved into the playlist and this would defeat the purpose for your website.  If you have other playlists that you would not want visitors to see if they navigate to your web channel, you would mark them as private.

11.   This should cover most concerns.  Since these heavily utilized sites change frequently, menu options may change slightly, but should be close enough to get you started!

When you have everything set up to this point, you might consider adding a custom video player to your website for quick access by your visitors to your channel.  See our article on configuring your custom video player for more information, or look for other articles on incorporating social media tools into your business or website.