How long should your YouTube video be? When you’re thinking about the length of your videos, you have a lot of factors to consider. Is it a live video or edited content? Are you a beginner or a veteran video blogger? Who’s your audience? Because of all these factors, the answer will be different for each person. That’s why this post is dedicated for entrepreneurs and vloggers who are just getting started on YouTube.

How long should your YouTube video be?

What does your audience want?

The number one thing to consider is your audience. Why is your audience watching you on YouTube? This may depend on your content, but if you don’t have an audience, you have to think about who you want to watch your videos.

You don’t want to build a list of random subscribers because that would be useless to you. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re basically on YouTube to market and make money, so you should keep who your target audience is in mind. Everyone else who subscribes is a bonus or a future client because you never know.

Let’s say your target audience is entrepreneurs who are moms. They have busy lives because they’re balancing their business, their family, and their personal lives. If they’re going on YouTube, they’re searching for the shortest video that can help them. I’m the same. If I go on YouTube to search for something, I always choose the shortest video.

If you’re a beginner creating content, basically you should be asking ‘Does my target audience have time for this?’ If you don’t know, then research other YouTube videos  (competitors in your niche, because every genre is different) and see what they’re doing. While you’re researching, check how many subscribers they have. If it’s a big number, check how many videos they’ve created and then look through their middle videos because we all know the first videos we create are not great and with their newer videos, they can get away with creating longer content if they have a huge following of loyal fans.

Get more confident on YouTube

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If you want to be legit on YouTube, it’s not about filming and uploading anymore. With all the competition, users are looking for high-quality content to consume. Everyone knows that audio and video quality are important. In fact, it’s easier than ever to record high-quality content with just your phone. So what’s the next step? Design. To look professional, you need a brand and a website. Here are 5 reasons a Youtuber needs a graphic and web designer.

5 reasons a Youtuber needs a graphic and web designer

It’s time to look professional. I’m not talking about wearing a suit and tie. I’m talking about looking like a legit business, or an authority in whatever content you’re creating.  It has to look like you have a production team producing your video, even though it’s just one person. Besides saving you time and energy to focus on creating your videos, here are the ways that a designer can help elevate your YouTube channel.

01. Logo and branding

One of the first things you must have to look professional is a logo. Your logo will be everywhere and help with brand recognition. You’ll use your logo on your YouTube channel in the channel art, your YouTube video, on your website, media kit (if you plan to apply to affiliates), business card (if you plan to network), and so on.

Besides your logo, you also need a graphic designer to research and develop your brand. Why is branding important? You can think of it as creating a signature style for your channel and other assets. It keeps everything consistent. You’ll use the same fonts, colors, imagery, and so on. Sounds boring, right? Well, this helps with brand recognition. If you keep using the same style, people will start to know you for it. Not only that, but it saves you time in content creation. You’ll never have to guess which font and colors to use because it’s already decided.

02. Title graphics and channel art

A graphic designer can design your channel, title, and thumbnail graphics for your videos. If you already have an established brand, this will help with brand recognition. For your YouTube channel, the cover art is the main graphic on the page. It should showcase the important details of your channel.

Another thing you might not think about is the branding watermark on the bottom right side of the video. This graphic is usually the logo, but it could be a submark or an icon that’s relevant to your brand.

Thumbnails are the first thing people see when they’re browsing videos. Great thumbnails will obviously get more click-throughs. Not only that, but some people will also use title graphics in their videos to showcase what the video is about. Check out this video from Jenn Im for an example of cool title graphics. You’ll see that her thumbnail video and title graphics are completely different. Read More “5 reasons a youtuber needs a graphic and web designer”

Want to keep viewers watching your YouTube videos? Learn how to add an end screen to your YouTube video.

So you want people to keep watching your videos after they’ve found you? Well, there’s an easy way to do that, and that’s end screens.

How to add end screens to your videos.

YouTube is great, because once people find your videos, and they like you, they’ll binge-watch all your videos, so why not make it easy for them by adding an end screen?

Before we get started, make sure you’re logged into your YouTube channel, of course, and just so you know, you can actually add an end screen to a video that you’re uploading, or an already uploaded video.

So let me show you how to do that. First, of course, we need to upload a video, now you want to  create an end screen. So, the point of the end screen is to keep people watching your videos, so they can keep watching your most recent video, your best video, and you can also have a subscribe icon.

So on the right hand side, I already put in the subscribe button. I’m going to add an element, I’m going to add ‘Video or Playlist’, and I’m going to put ‘Most Recent Upload’.

So you’ve filmed and edited your video, but now you need to upload it to YouTube. In this video, I’m gonna show you how to upload and schedule your video to YouTube.

Before we upload the video the first thing we need to do is, of course, log in to our YouTube account.

So, I’m already logged in. Now I’m gonna go to this little camera icon with the plus button. When you hover over it, it says ‘create a video or post’. So you just click on it. Then you have the option of uploading a video or going live. So we’re just gonna upload a video. Then you just need to select a file to upload. I’m just gonna pick this video right here.

So then we’re gonna go to the right where it says private. You can either make the video public or you can schedule the video. When you make the video public it’s gonna go live as soon as this video finishes uploading.

But I’m gonna schedule the video.

I’m gonna choose January 10th at 10:00 a.m. Then you see this little button right here, ‘publish on Thursday, January 10th’, and then click, and it’s scheduled. That’s how you upload a video to YouTube.

So now you know how to upload your video, but don’t hit publish yet. In the next video, I’m gonna show you the five things you need to do before you hit publish. So if you’re not subscribed go ahead and subscribe, and hit the little bell notification, and you’ll be notified when the new video comes out. I’ve also created a checklist for you.

Grab your checklist here.

Are you launching a YouTube channel this year? Let me know in the comments below.

– Paigon