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

Get Your YouTube Script Template for Free!

Grab your script here!

If you think it’s too late to start a YouTube channel right now, then you’re completely wrong.  If you haven’t done your research, you’ll know that YouTube has over 2 billion subscribers and 1 billion hours of watch time daily. Yes, DAILY! If you’re ready to start your channel now, here are some tips on how to start a YouTube channel.

How to start  a YouTube channel 

01 Do you have a niche?

The first thing you want to think about when starting a YouTube channel is having a niche. If you don’t have a niche I would suggest that you do more research and try to find a niche for your business.

Should you create a script for your YouTube videos? The short answer is yes. The long answer is also yes. If you’re not creating scripts for your YouTube videos, then you’re not being efficient. If you think about it, every content has a script. TV shows, movies, news programs, interviews, radio shows and blog posts have scripts. This blog post has a script too. The script for this post is the outline I create before I start the rough draft.

I’m not telling you to write out a whole play. Just at least have an outline of what you’re going to talk about in your video. Here are the reasons why you should create a script for your YouTube video and how you’ll create awesome YouTube videos every time.

Why you should create a script for your YouTube videos

Saves time and energy

For me, this is the number 1 reason you should create a script for your YouTube video. You save so much time and energy. This is why I create an outline for everything I do. Whether that’s writing a blog or giving a presentation, I have one prepared in advance.

For a script, I would recommend having a template so that you can use it over and over again. We’ll go over this rinse and repeat method later because you’re not creating a template with the same exact words, unless you have some signature line you want to use over and over again, like ‘This is Paigon signing off with the Natasha Lane Design Co. daily report. Until the next time’. Cue cheesy wink and finger-pointing. That would be hella awesome!

When you create a template for your script, you’ll just create an outline of what you need for your video, but you’ll still have to think of new content every time.

Building a brand

When you create a script, you’re actually helping to form your brand (Ah, everything relates back to branding *wink wink*). By creating a script, especially if you have a template, you’re creating consistency in your video. Even though the content is different in every video, you’re still keeping elements of your video consistent.

When you create consistency within your script, your audience will know what to expect when you release your videos. It’s kind of like watching those Marvel superhero movies. First, something bad will happen, maybe a villain origin story or a revenge plot, then the superhero (a male lead) will be born or face some adversity to ‘supposedly’ become stronger, and then the superhero beats the villain.

*Warning, useless rambling that has nothing to do with the blog post* Can we take a moment to realize that all the superheroes are men and that the character, Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson is only a normal woman. If a normal woman can keep up with superheroes, then how awesome would a female superhero be. If I had my way though, I would create a female super villain character with awesome character development. Maybe like a female version of Lex Luthor.

*Getting back on track*

Every television show, live or scripted, follows a format, and we the viewers expect it. It’s part of the brand created for that show. As someone who’s creating video content consistently, you should treat your channel like a real television station. This alone will help you stand out from other channels who are creating random things and don’t have any type of format.

How to create a script for your YouTube videos

When you’re thinking about creating a script or template for your script, you need to keep it simple. All you have to do is think of the important aspects you want to add to every video. Don’t think about the actual content, but make sure you have a beginning, middle, and end. If you create content without a beginning, middle, and end, you still have content, but it’s probably bad content. Here’s what you need to know to create a script for your YouTube videos.

Get more confident on YouTube

Get Your YouTube Script Template for Free!

Grab your script here!

Are you invisible online? Want a quick way to build brand awareness? If you’re trying to build your brand online, then building your brand on YouTube will help. Keep watching to learn how to build your brand on YouTube.

How to build your brand on YouTube

A few weeks ago, in the video ‘Why your business should be on YouTube’, I talked about the many goals that your business has when it comes to marketing and growing your business.

Some of those goals include building brand awareness, building authority, and building a community. Basically, if your goal is to become more visible online and get more clients, here’s how to build your brand on YouTube.

Branding 101

First, we’re going to start with basic branding. I’m not going to go into great detail because I already talked about this last week.  If you missed it, check out ‘What’s the point of branding?’ here.