Branding | How to be a YouTube Content Creator 101
What is Branding?
To assign a name or icon of your channel of distinctive design, something that makes you, you. It’s like how when you see a curved M we know it’s McDonald’s or how bro-fist makes us think about PewDiePie. Basically, when you think of a logo or a channel name, and you feel like advertising your channel out there to the public, with or without any sort of weapon of presentation (logo, channel art, thumbnail), stop and think. Ask yourself this question; What kind of first impression do I want to make?
Why is first impression important?
It’s the first glance, the first gaze, the first visit a new person or audience will see in your channel. It’s the bait to keep them biting until we reel them in as a permanent subscriber.
If we give them a good presentation of what our channel is about, how we present our channel, why they should subscribe and where this channel is going, then no doubt they won’t hesitate to smash that red button. If we send out our channel unarmed and unprepared for war, it’ll come back to haunt us. How? Well, you could be, for starters, frustrated with why you were ignored or they denied your invitation to check out your channel. Sending our channel without properly arming it with a well-designed channel art matching your niche and logo representing your beloved channel and the toughest part is going out there with a gun that isn't loaded. Which leads us to having videos with (a) no thumbnail, (b) hard-to-read text or (c) unappealing thumbnail.
Just think of it this concept. When you go to someone's channel, you discovered them for the first time. What is your first impression of their channel? What made you subscribe to them? Now that is something we will talk about in another blog. For now we are going to focus on your channel brand.
NICHE/CATEGORY
There are dozens of niches and sub-niches out there that we can choose. There are also crossovers that are possible and collaborations. The question now is, which niche will you be choosing?
No, no, wrong question. The question is; what do you love to do that is who you are that you want to show to the world?
Questions like 'am I gonna burn out?' or 'do you think I will tire out in the long run' is only if whatever it is that you are doing in front of the camera and (1) get tired of it or (2) is not really something you enjoy doing, then it will conclude your journey in YouTube in days, weeks, months, even years. One can endure in years if need to.
Which is why it is very important to do something that you love. And be who you are.
You should also take into consideration that there are struggles when you choose a niche. Let's discuss those struggles..
Is it in DEMAND that you actually choose this niche?
For example, you choose a traveling niche. And, for example, the lockdown and quarantine situations are getting tougher to deal with it. It will be difficult to work on a travel vlog with very limited place to go to.
Or you can look at how much COMPETITION you have when you choose this niche?
We have here, for example, a gaming niche. There are thousands of gamers out there who play the same games and upload the same let's plays. What makes you different from any of the rest of them?
I will write a separate blog that discusses more about this. For now, you get the idea.
CHANNEL NAME
Let's start with the basics. Who do you want to be known as? How do you want people to remember? This could be anything out of your imagination. Of course, some of these names are related to what your niche is or is not related at all.
Disclaimer: These images belong to their rightful owners. These are just shown as sample.
Name ideas:
It could be just your names. Like nothing fancy here, just simply use your real names and be known for who you are and what you are good at.
Like how Brooklyn and Bailey (check out their channel they are amazing, twin vlogs at your service), Kurt Hugo Schneider (he is superior in music, never heard of the instrument IKEA?), Daniel Thrasher (this guy is really good at skits), Daniel LaBelle (is this guy cartoons coming to life or what) and April Han (her work-out works I tell you, check her out) just uses their names, plain and simple, as their channel name. Easy to remember, and plainly who they are.
It could also be something special, a username or alias or just your real name but with numbers for whatever special reason or no reason at all.
Just like Davie504 (seriously, stop asking him why 504 or he will slap that bass), moviekidd826 (to be fair, he started his YouTube career way before he hit as a star in Hollywood), TheOdd1sOut (the animation is just inspiring) or TwoSetViolin (these two are hilarious).
Or add any pre, mid or post letters and words within your name to be creative. There's Markiplier (from Mark, but I don't know why or where -iplier came from), SammieBug (my queen, please check her channel out, especially them Outlast videos), RadBrad (the very first gamer I watched I suppose), Jacksepticeye (who would have thought that now green eyes are very iconic) or GamerGirl Jessi (how can I not mention myself, come on)
And it could be just as random as it can be. Anything you can come up with, or something that has special meaning to you or something that describes you. PewDiePie (bro-fist forever), Black Gryph0n (he owns the gryphon now), RoomieOfficial (goodbye brother, it was nice watching your videos, boyinaband (he is underrated, go watch him now), MrBeast (will he be flying to other countries and host his games near me, I kinda want to join), Emirichu (not really made-up name but more of Japanese version, but she does great art and really inspiring), nigahiga (I miss you, man) or Brit Girls Go Stateside (they are amazing ladies, I'm quoting Barney that shotgun for all eternity, the number one fan title is mine).
What are you waiting for? Come up with that name already and let's hear them!
Remember, you can only change your custom URL 3x. So it would be wise to come up with something you will stick with for the rest of your life.
LOGO
Now that you have your name ready. Now is the time to conceptualize what your logo would be. It is not limited to any form, shape, text or color. You can see the examples below that people can be creative. Remember, this is something that will shout "it's ___ (the YouTuber)" to the people.
A good logo and channel art establishes your channel's "brand" and it would be a good appeal to it. It could be a cartoonized avatar like Pewds or an iconic action of yours like brofist, just pure text like 21st century fox, etc. So everyone has their own creativity and I will not judge on what their styles are, this is just a tip on how you can look at your logo/channel art. Try asking your friends or people to SURVEY your final work or you can judge it yourself and ask yourself if you like it.
Let me use myself as an example. Whenever people see a girl with glasses and red bonnet shouting "What's up boys and girls this is your GamerGirl Jessi", I just marked my territory right there. Anything to help you stand out and be your own person among the thousands of millions of content creators out there.
With Nat Geo's logo, I mean, you could say they just turned a simple golden border into a shape of fame. Or be like Davie504 who uses his photo and changes it now and then. It is all up to you. Go ahead, meticulously plan your superhero costume before you reveal yourself to us.
This one is my preference:
I would prefer a real logo (like, an icon or something) and not a photo of the content creator because it gives off a "profile picture" vibe than a channel.
There are those who uses cartoonized version of themselves instead of an actual photo. People use cartoonized version or minimalist art or text, 3D etc, instead of their photo.
Although again, some famous content creators out there still use their real photos as the logo of their channel but they edit it out as some sort of iconic pose already.
But again, this is creativity and entirely your choice.
CHANNEL ART / BANNER
This is sometimes referred to as channel art or banner. Whichever you are familiar with.
Disclaimer: All channel art belongs to their respected content creators.
As you can see in the samples below. Your channel art's creativity depends entirely on your niche, your channel name and your theme. Like for example Jacksepticeye's logo has green incorporated in it, so his channel art matches it, which makes his theme color; green. Or if you know Kurt Hugo Schneider, he is anything music-related and he is really good in cinematography (video editing skills are superb), an awesome music producer and just really awesome musician really. So to showcase those skills, his channel art is a collage of what he can do.
Sometimes they share what they are promoting or what they are all about. For example, you will see Mackenzie Porter shared her music album she released just beneath her name or you can add your social media accounts to promote people to follow you. Like what Agent JDB3 and GamerGirl Jessi did.
Make sure it is incorporated with your channel's theme, niche, category. The better it looks, the more professional/appealing your channel would look like. Without a channel art, some or most members (try to do a survey to 15 people who are not your friends to verify) are already turned off by the channel unless they got a viral video.
It all really depends on your own imagination or hire a graphic artist to do the job. Ahem, ahem, I am a graphic artist, ahem ahem.
ARMED and READY!
And there you have it! Your channel is now armed and ready for the public!
Wait, wait, hold up, you are missing the most important part of your channel! —videos.
Yes, that's right, you need videos of course! But we will be discussing that in a separate blog. For now, these are the things you need to prepare yourself with before you start promoting and sharing your channel to people.
It takes time, it takes effort, it takes resources - YouTube is not an easy-method to earn money. So does not mean you start a channel, you expect your kite to fly sky high. This is something you raise like a kid and invest in. More on this in another blog.
If any of these thoughts has ever occurred to you;
"I've done all of this already, it does not work!"
"So many things to do, I just want a channel and make money."
"I'm not applying as a Brand Manager, YouTube is supposed to be simple."
"Who needs all of this when I can pay people to make me a channel with 4000 watch hours and 1000 subscribers."
"People told me this a hundred times already. Got anything different?"
Then you better stick around for future blogs and your questions will be answered!
Special mention to these awesome YouTube content creators! Make sure to check them out!
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