Social Media Articles

Article / Updated 11-04-2022

Listen to the article:Download audio The search box at the top of Facebook's site allows you to search for a specific person by name. You can use it to find people you're already friends with and you just want to go to their timelines, or to find people you aren’t friends with yet. But basic search can be a little confusing because Facebook auto-completes the names that you type and assumes you’re trying to get to your friends’ timelines. If you’re the type of person who is used to pressing the Enter key to begin a search, this can send you to friends’ timelines when you meant to search for someone else named James, for example. Read on to learn better strategies for finding people on Facebook. You can also use the search box at the top of the site to find posts, pages, groups, events, and even things your friends have liked. Two basic ways to use Search in Facebook You’ll wind up using search two basic ways. The first way is if the name of the person you’re looking for (or at least someone with the same name) appears in the auto-complete menu. You can accomplish that sort of search following these steps: Begin typing the name you're looking for in the search box. Pay attention to the people who appear in the autocomplete menu. Facebook displays first your friends and then friends of friends. There’s a good chance that you may find the person you’re looking for in this menu. If you see the name in the autocomplete menu, use your mouse or arrow keys to highlight the person you're looking for. Click the name or press Enter. This brings you to the person's timeline, where you can verify that you know the person and add them as a friend. Use "See More" for a further search Type the person's full name in the search box. Click See More at the bottom of the search menu. The search menu expands to reveal new options for search. So, if you type Jane Smith and then click See More, you can now either search People Named Jane Smith, Pages Named Jane Smith, or Places Named Jane Smith. Click the People Named option. A blue friend icon is next to this option. A search results page appears with larger previews of people’s profile pictures and timeline info. The right side of the page also has options for narrowing your search using fields such as Gender, Employer, Current City, and so on. Use the fields on the right side of the page to zero in on your actual friend. This might be information like where your friend works or where they're from. When you find the person you’re looking for, add them as a friend.

Article / Updated 10-19-2022

When someone infringes on copyright — whether it’s someone doing it to you or you doing it to someone else — there will be consequences. YouTube takes the breach seriously and will take down the infringing video. It also penalizes the offender with a strike. And as in baseball, if you get three strikes, you’re outta there! YouTube boots you and your channel if it gets to this point. To ensure that it doesn’t happen to you, follow this advice: Remember who owns the copyright It’s fairly simple: If you created the video, the copyright belongs to you; if you upload content created by someone else, the copyright belongs to that person, and you better get their permission before you upload it it. As soon as the work is created, so is the copyright, and since 1992, there’s no longer a renewal process. Copyright lives with the creator — and even lives on for a period after the death of the creator. Attribution does not absolve a copyright violation Some people steal other people’s work and claim it as their own, and that’s blatant infringement. But it’s no less of an offense when you use content and then add a line saying, “Created by so‐and‐so," or "No copyright infringement intended," or "All rights belong to their respective owners." It’s still a breach that can earn a strike and a block of the video. If you use someone else’s work in your video without that person’s permission, it doesn’t make it less of an offense just because you give the person credit. You’re still in violation because attributing the creator doesn’t absolve you if you don’t get permission. Know the consequences Two things can happen if you commit a copyright violation, and though they sound similar, they’re completely different: Takedown notice: If someone spots content they’ve created being used without their permission, they can send YouTube a complaint. If it’s a breach, YouTube takes down the video and issues the offender a copyright strike. If you feel compelled to lodge a complaint, just be extra sure that it’s your content and that the breach is accurate, because you’re initiating a legal process. Content ID match: Content ID is a system YouTube uses to automatically match content that violates copyright against the millions of videos uploaded every month to the site. For Content ID to work properly, copyright owners have to upload so‐called reference files — original versions of their work that prove they own the rights. Normally, record labels, movie studios, or TV stations go through this process for all the work they publish, so individual artists don’t have to worry about it. Every new video uploaded to YouTube is checked against this huge library of reference files, and if there is a match, YouTube automatically files a copyright claim for the owner of the work. No matter how a copyright violation may have been discovered, if you breach another content creator’s copyright, that creator is in a position to have YouTube take down your content. In the event of a mistake, you can send YouTube a notice saying that an error occurred, but you had better be darn sure about it. If the claim ends up being proven correct, or if you were untruthful in any way, you may find yourself in much bigger trouble, including legal action. The profit motive is irrelevant Some folks will say, “Hey, it’s all right if I use someone else’s content, because I’m not looking to make any money.” Say that before the judge and the verdict will still be “Guilty of copyright infringement!” Whether you intend to make money from the video or you simply want to share your masterpiece with the world, it still doesn’t mean that you can violate copyright law. You need to get permission from the copyright holder. Getting permission for using copyrighted material Getting permission to use someone else’s copyrighted material is often well within the realm of the possible. A nicely written note explaining how you would use the content usually is enough for a rights holder to grant permission. Just remember that it can get dicey, because sometimes permission comes with the caveat that you cannot monetize the overall video. That restriction can hurt big‐time if your intention is to quit your day job, but it may end up being a bittersweet solution if you’re merely looking to add flavor to your video. Fair use is complicated Albert Einstein never failed math, unicorns don’t exist, and fair use is anything but easy — or fair — to understand. Debunking the first two of these myths is easy. All right, maybe the first is, but when it comes to fair use, that’s a single‐horned horse of a different color. Many misconceptions exist surrounding fair use, among them the notion that you can use anything you want as long as you don’t go beyond some arbitrary time constraint. But it’s much more complicated. In some editorial situations, you can use copyrighted material without permission, but you must fully understand those situations to avoid future trouble. If you feel the need to exercise fair use, and the use is for nonprofit and educational purpose, here a few acceptable uses to consider: Criticism: Reviewing a movie or some form of music makes it perfectly acceptable to use copyrighted material without permission, for example short clips on the work you critique. Parody: If you’re poking fun at something, it’s acceptable to use content without first gaining permission. Commentary: This one depends on how you use the material. If it’s used just enough to illustrate your point, it’s acceptable. For instance, gamers on YouTube often record themselves playing a new video game and offer funny observations. This is, within limits, fair use. Academic: If you're creating educational content, it's considered fair to use to reference other works in certain situations. And now for the misconceptions: You can use 40 seconds of anything: It’s completely untrue. You can’t use even 4 seconds if it doesn’t comply with the circumstances in the preceding list. As a best practice, use the least amount of copyrighted material to get your point across, and always credit the original copyright owner. The notion that you can decide fair use for yourself: Fair use is complicated for many situations, so you may not be sure exactly what you’re allowed to do. The thing is, if you stretch the limits of fair use too far, and harm the original copyright owner's ability to profit from their work, you can be sanctioned by YouTube. That’s why a copyright attorney should decide any serious question over fair use. Don’t let copyright issues on YouTube lead to a strikeout Three strikes and you’re out is a common understanding when playing baseball. But in baseball, you get another chance after another eight batters have had their try. YouTube doesn’t share this benevolence, so if they give you three strikes — especially for copyright issues — that means a lifetime ban from its partnership program. That’s something you don’t want on your record; worse yet, once that happens to you, you won’t be able to recover any of your videos. So, you want to avoid getting strikes at all costs. There are two types of YouTube strikes: Community guideline strike: This type can result from a variety of causes, ranging from uploading objectionable content to having a misleading thumbnail or caption. You can learn more about these guidelines on YouTube's Community Guidelines page. Copyright strike: If some part of your video includes content from another creator and that creator did not grant you permission, you can get a copyright strike. You can appeal it or take down the video to avoid a possible strike. Other things you should know: Mandatory copyright school must be completed: After your first strike, YouTube requires that you take an online course and take a little quiz to be sure you’re up to speed on copyright regulations. Strikes come down, eventually: As long as you haven’t struck out, community guideline strikes and copyright strikes disappear after 90 days from the time they’re issued. At that point, YouTube restores any channel privileges you lost while you waited out the strike. If you draw three community guideline strikes or three copyright strikes over a 90-day period, your YouTube channel will be terminated. Your fate usually lies with the copyright holder: That person can decide whether the video you uploaded should be removed, flagged in certain regions, or even monetized. Yes, that’s right: Even though the video may contain only a small portion of the person’s material, they're entitled to all monetization proceeds. They can even put ads on your video, if you haven’t added monetization. Wipe the slate clean If you get a copyright strike from YouTube and you’re positive that you’re in the right, go ahead and appeal the strike with a copyright counter-notification. If you’re not sure whether you can win, maybe it’s better to wait it out until the strike expires. You see, after you appeal the strike, your personal information goes to the copyright holder and that person can possibly sue you for copyright infringement. If the situation gets to this level, you still can work out an agreement directly with the copyright holder and see whether they will file an appeal with YouTube on your behalf if you both agree that you were within your rights to use the copyrighted material. It’s worth a shot. YouTube’s robots are good at finding copyright infringements Whether intentional or inadvertent, sometimes the content of other creators gets used in a YouTube video. Sometimes the breach is noticed, and at other times it goes undetected by the original creator. But as YouTube continues to refine its copyright detection system, the system will find infringements more quickly than ever. Part of those refinements to YouTube’s copyright detection system include sophisticated algorithms that scan every uploaded video and compare it to similar uploaded content, looking for matches with music, video, or pictures. It seems music gets detected the most. Even if it’s background music, you may get sanctioned. Usually, YouTube blocks the video, and you must submit a dispute form. Copyright is not forever, but it’s forever enough for YouTube Copyright lasts for 70 years past the death of the author; after that point, the copyrighted content enters the public domain. When that happens, the content is no longer protected by intellectual property laws, and anyone can use it without permission. Of course, for many people on YouTube, that content isn’t available to use without permission until we near the next century. Of course, if the creator (or the creator's heirs) files a copyright extension, they can hold on to the rights — that way, the video of your dog dressed as a spider can stay in the family for as long as possible.

Article / Updated 10-19-2022

If you forget your YouTube username or password, don't panic. YouTube has your e-mail address, and you can retrieve your forgotten username or password from them. (When you first register with YouTube, jot down your username and password, especially if they’re different from those that you use regularly on other websites.) Go to YouTube.com and click the Sign In link at the top-right corner of the page. Bam — the sign in page appears. Click either the Forgot Username link or the Forgot Password link. Enter your username. Enter the verification code from the multicolored text. Be sure to copy it exactly, using uppercase or lowercase, as shown in the code. Click the Reset My Password! button. YouTube sends an e-mail containing your password to your registered e-mail address. If you still can’t log in with what you’re certain is your correct username and password, it’s probably because you don’t have cookies turned on in your browser preferences. If you’re using Chrome, for example, at the top-right corner of the screen, click the three vertical dots icon. Choose Settings. Under Security and Privacy, click Site settings. Scroll down and click Cookies and site data. From here, you can choose Allow all cookies, Block all cookies, or select other options.

Article / Updated 10-19-2022

As a YouTube channel manager or content creator, your work may well be done when you’ve uploaded your videos and set the metadata. The last step when uploading a video is to publish it. Publishing is all about configuring the privacy settings that are most appropriate for your users and clicking Save during the upload process or by selecting a video on the YouTube Studio Video tab. For most channel managers, that means specifying one of the following: Private: Only you and people you choose can watch the video. You can manually send an invitation, or YouTube can send it to the email addresses you specify. Once you select Private, the Share Video Privately link appears. Click the link and enter the email addresses of your recipients. After you enter the addresses, click the "Notify via email" checkbox. When invitees get the invitation via email, they must log into their Google account to view the video. Unlisted: Anyone with the video link can watch the video. The difference between this setting and Private, is that anyone who has the link can share it with others. Public: The video will be available for anyone on YouTube that finds your video from the search engine, or stumbles upon it. When you choose this setting, you have the option to Set as instant Premiere, which means you and your viewers can watch it at the same time. Schedule: Choose this option and a dialog appears enabling you to set the date and time for when the video will be available on YouTube. When you schedule a video, you also have the option to set it as a Premiere. After choosing an option, you save, publish or schedule the video. If you choose the make the video Private or Unlisted, click the Save button. If you choose Public, click the Publish button. If you choose Schedule, click the Schedule button. Be sure to keep YouTube's copyright rules in mind, and follow them carefully. YouTube takes copyright infringement very seriously and there will be consequences if you violate the rules. After you publish videos, you have the option to unpublish them or delete tone or more videos To accomplish either task, log into YouTube, click your avatar and then choose Your Channel from the drop-down menu. Click Your Videos to display the Channel content page, which lists all your videos starting with the most recently published. To unpublish a video: Double-click the video thumbnail. The Video Details page appears. In the Visibility section, click the down-pointing arrow to the right of current visibility state. The Visibility options appear. To delete a video: Open the Channel content page as outlined previously. Click the Options icon. It’s the three dots to the right of the video thumbnail. Choose Delete Forever from the drop-down menu, as shown in the Figure below. YouTube displays a warning dialog that this action is undoable. Click the checkbox to acknowledge that deletion is permanent can cannot be undone. Before you delete a video from YouTube, you have the option to download it. Click Delete Forever. Poof. The video disappears in a cloud of virtual smoke. To delete multiple videos: Open the Channel content page as outlined previously. To select videos for deletion, click the check box to the left of any video you want to delete. You can select contiguous or non-contiguous videos. Click the More Actions link. A drop-down menu appears with the option to delete forever. If you choose one video, you also have the option to download the video. Choose Delete Forever. After choosing this option, YouTube displays a warning that you are about to delete (the dialog lists the number of videos you are about to delete) forever. Click the checkbox to acknowledge that deletion is permanent can cannot be undone. Your only other option is Cancel. Click Delete Forever. The videos are lost in cyberspace.

Article / Updated 09-30-2022

Instagram has a ton of filters to help improve your photos. Start by taking a shot for an Instagram post. The photo you take appears in the Instagram viewer of the Filter screen. The screen contains the following four sections, from top to bottom: The top menu bar, with a < (back) icon on the left, the Lux icon in the center, and the Next link on the right The viewer, which displays your photo A row of filter thumbnail images so you can see what your photo will look like with a filter applied The bottom menu bar, with a Filter menu option (selected by default) and the Edit option Not interested in editing your photo in Instagram? Simply tap the back icon in the upper-left corner to save your photo. Instagram saves your photo automatically and displays the camera screen so you can take a new photo if you want. Applying an Instagram filter Below your Instagram photo in the viewer is a row of filters. Each filter includes a thumbnail image so you can see the filter’s effect on your photo. Swipe from right to left in the row of thumbnail images to view all 23 of Instagram’s filters, from Clarendon to Nashville. (Normal is the default image, without a filter.) Tap a filter thumbnail image, and the photo in the viewer changes to show you the photo with that filter applied. To return to the original photo, tap the Normal thumbnail. To continue processing the photo with a filter, either tap Edit at the lower-right corner of the screen to edit your photo further, or tap Next in the upper-right corner of the screen to add a description to your photo. What happens when a filter is not quite to your liking and you’d like to tweak it? You can change the intensity of any Instagram filter (except Normal) by tapping the filter thumbnail image again. A slider appears; move it to the left and right to change the intensity. The photo in the viewer changes to reflect the selected intensity. The default intensity for each filter is 100. In iOS, a white box appears to the right of the slider. Tap this box to add a white frame around the photo. If you don’t like having the white frame, tap the box again. When you’ve set the intensity to just the right amount, tap Done (iOS) or the check mark (Android). If you’re still not satisfied and want to return the photo to its original intensity, tap Cancel (iOS) or the X (Android). Keep in mind that any Instagram filter settings will revert to the default after you leave this screen. If you want to see how the photo with a filter compares to the original photo, tap and hold down on the viewer to view the original photo. Release your finger to see the photo with the applied Instagram filter. Managing Instagram filters Are there too many filters or are your favorite ones are too far down in the list? No problem. Swipe to the end of Instagram’s filter list, and you’ll see a Manage icon. Tap the icon to open the Manage Filters screen where you can perform three tasks: Change the order of filters in the row, add filters, and disable filters. The filters on the Manage Filters screen appear in the same order as they do in the Filter screen. You can change the order of Instagram’s filters as follows: Tap and hold down on a filter name in the list.The filter name gets larger after you hold down on the name for about a second. Move the name in the list.As you move the filter name, other filter names helpfully move out of the way so you can see where your selected filter will appear in the list. When the filter is where you want it, release your finger.The filter name appears in your desired location in the list. That’s all there is to it! To return to the Filter screen, tap Done (iOS) or the check mark in the upper right (Android). When you swipe up and down in the list of filters on the Manage Filters screen, you may see several names that don’t have check marks to the right of the filter name. These filters are disabled, but it’s easy to add any of them to the Filter screen: Simply tap a filter name that doesn’t have a check mark to the right of the name. A check mark is added, which means the filter is active. Tap Done, and you return to the Filter screen, where you see your new filter in the row of filters. If you decide that you don’t want to include one or more filters in the Filter screen, you can disable it by tapping the filter name in the list on the Manage Filters screen. The check mark to the right of the name disappears. (To add it back, just tap the disabled filter name again.) When you’re finished, tap Done (iOS) or the check mark in the upper right (Android). Tweaking your Instagram photos with the editing tools When you’ve finished experimenting with filters, view Instagram’s editing tools by tapping Edit (iOS) or Edit/Filter (Android) at the bottom of the screen. (Some Android users may see a wrench icon instead.) A row of editing tools appears below Instagram’s viewer. Swipe from right to left in the row of editing tools to see all 13 tools. Tap a tool to open it below the viewer. What you see below the viewer depends on the tool you tapped. For example, when you tap the Brightness tool, a slider appears so you can increase or decrease the photo’s brightness. No matter what tool you use, the photo in the viewer reflects the changes you make and a gray dot appears below the tool icon. Here’s what you can do with each of Instagram’s editing tools: Adjust: You can adjust your photo in several ways by using the Adjust tool. Instagram automatically adjusts your photo to center it before you make any adjustments. A row of three icons and an associated slider bar appear below the photo so you can make the following changes: Change the vertical or horizontal perspective of the photo by tapping the left or right icon, respectively, below the photo. After you tap the icon, it’s highlighted in black. The slider bar is a series of vertical lines. Swipe left and right in the slider bar to see the change reflected in the photo. As you slide, the highlighted icon above the slider bar is replaced with a box that shows you the change amount measured in degrees. If the object in your photo appears tilted, tap the straighten icon in the middle of the icon row. Then swipe left and right in the slider bar to tilt the photo so that the object appears straight. As you swipe in the slider bar, a box appears in place of the straighten icon and shows you the number of degrees you’re tilting the photo. Rotate the photo 90 degrees counterclockwise by tapping the rotate icon in the upper-right corner of the screen. Keep tapping the rotate icon to continue to rotate the photo in the viewer. Crop the photo to a specific area by first zooming in (touch the photo and spread your thumb and index finger apart) in the viewer. Then hold down on the photo and drag it in the viewer until you see the part of the photo you want to post on your Instagram feed. If you decide you don’t want to crop the photo, zoom back out to the photo’s original size by pinching your thumb and index finger together in the viewer. You can overlay a grid on the photo to help you center it. On the iPhone and iPad, the grid icon appears at the upper-left corner of the screen. Tap the grid icon to change the size of the grid. On an Android device, tap the photo until you see the size of the grid you want. If you tap the grid icon or photo often enough, you’ll remove the grid entirely. Brightness: In the slider bar below the viewer, slide the dot to the left to darken the photo or to the right to make the photo brighter. As you move the slider bar, the photo in the viewer darkens or brightens accordingly. Contrast: In the slider bar, make the light areas of your photo even lighter by sliding the dot to the left. Make the dark areas even darker so the focus is on the lighter areas of your photo by sliding the dot to the right. Lux tool: At the top center of the Filter and Edit screens is an icon that looks like a magic wand. Tap it to open the Lux tool, which you can use to quickly change the exposure level and brightness instead of using the separate Brightness and Contrast editing tools. Move the slider to change the exposure level and brightness. When you’re finished, tap Done to save your changes, or tap Cancel to discard them. If you want to undo any edits you’ve made, tap the Lux icon and then move the slider to its default location, 50. (The default setting for the Brightness and Contrast editing tools, however, is 0.) When you’re done, tap Done. Structure: This tool enhances the details in the photo, such as adding color in an area that appears washed out in the original. In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to see how the tool increases the details of the photo in the viewer. If you think the photo is too detailed, slide to the left to make the photo fuzzier. Warmth: In the slider bar below the viewer, slide the dot to the right to make the colors warmer by adding orange tones or to the left to make the colors cooler by adding blue tones. Saturation: In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right or left to increase or decrease, respectively, the intensity of all colors in your photo. Color: You can change the color of your photo’s shadows or highlights or both, as well as change the intensity of the tint. Eight colors are available: yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, cyan, or green. To change the color of shadows in your photo: Tap Shadows, if necessary (it’s the default), and then tap one of the color dots. To change the highlight color: Tap Highlights, and then tap one of the eight color dots, which are the same colors as those used for shadows. To change the tint intensity for the shadow or highlight color: Tap the color dot twice. In the slider bar that appears below the viewer, slide the dot to the left or right to decrease or increase the intensity, respectively. When the intensity looks good to you, release your finger from the dot and then tap Done (iPhone or iPad) or tap the check mark (Android) to return to the Color page. Fade: Do you want your photo to look like it’s been sitting in a shoebox for years . . . or decades? In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to fade the color from your photo or to the left to add color. Highlights: In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to increase the brightness in bright areas of the photo. Slide to the left to darken the bright areas in the photo. Shadows: In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to lighten the dark areas in your photo. Slide to the left to darken the dark areas. Vignette: This tool allows you to darken the edges of the photo so people will focus on the center of the photo. In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right to darken the photo edges. Tilt Shift: You can blur the outer edges of your photo and keep the center in clear focus so people will automatically look at the focused area. Tap Radial below the viewer to blur all four edges of the photo and keep the center focused in a circular shape. Tap Linear to blur just the top and bottom edges of the photo. You can change the size of the “unblurred” area of the picture by tapping the center of the photo with your thumb and forefinger. Then spread them apart to make the area larger or together to make the area smaller. Tap Off if you don’t like the changes and want to keep your entire photo in focus. Sharpen: This tool sharpens features that aren’t visible in the original photo, such as the texture on a wall. In the slider bar, slide the dot to the right and left to make the photo less and more fuzzy, respectively. After you finish making changes to your photo, apply your effect by tapping Done (iOS) or the check mark (Android). Or discard the effect by tapping Cancel (iOS) or the X (Android). Saving the changes (or not) to your Instagram photos When you’ve finished using Instagram’s editing tools and filters, you can do one of three things: Discard your changes and return to the Photo screen by tapping the left arrow icon in the upper-left corner and then tapping Discard in the pop-up menu. Save your changes and continue editing by tapping the left arrow icon and then tapping Save Draft in the pop-up menu. Then Instagram takes you back to the camera screen, not your photo, so you’ll have to select the photo in your library to continue editing it. Add a description to the photo by tapping Next in the upper-right corner. The New Post screen appears, where you can add a caption and location, tag friends, and decide if you want to share the photo on other social networks. Now, go show the Instagram world all of your best shots!

Article / Updated 09-16-2022

The more you do, the more contacts you could have in your LinkedIn network! If you want to build and expand your LinkedIn network, follow these steps: Fill out your LinkedIn profile completely. Check for former colleagues and classmates who are on LinkedIn by using specific LinkedIn searches. Import your Outlook contacts. Add former email addresses to your account so past connections can find you more easily. Check for people who share a group or affiliation with you. Go through your business cards for potential contacts and search for them on LinkedIn. Send them an invitation or a request to join. Search through your first-degree network connections. Advertise yourself by joining and participating in LinkedIn groups. Use the People You May Know feature. Meet people on LinkedIn (through LinkedIn groups and jobs as well as your news feed discussions) and then invite them to join your network.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 09-02-2022

Twitch is an exciting entertainment platform. With Twitch, you can watch broadcasters show off their talents as they live-stream themselves playing video games, playing music, showing off their hobbies, and so much more. And you can set up your own channel and start broadcasting your own content. The great thing about Twitch is that you can interact with your audience while streaming, which builds a sense of community.

Article / Updated 08-10-2022

Video reports and audience retention graphs are designed to help you understand how well your viewers are responding to your YouTube channel content. To find out who’s watching your YouTube videos, you have to try a different tack: check out YouTube’s audience reports. Diving into YouTube’s demographics metrics It helps to know who’s watching your YouTube content so that you can make important content-planning decisions. The Audience tab of YouTube Analytics is a fascinating way to analyze your channel demographics, because you can get concrete information about your audience members’ gender, age, and country of residence. Certain audience reports allow you to filter to see results explicitly from your subscriber base. Sometimes, it’s interesting to see whether your subscriber demographics mirror your general audience demographics. To access audience reports, follow these steps: Go to YouTube. Log on to your YouTube account.If you see the blue Sign In button in the top right corner of the YouTube home page, enter your email address and password. Click the Logged-In icon and choose YouTube Studio from the menu that appears.The YouTube Studio navigation menu should appear on the left side of your browser. Choose Analytics from the navigation menu. Click to open the Audience tab on the Reports menu.Here you find summary reports of age and gender. Click the See More link at the bottom of the Age and Gender summary report, and examine the charts and their accompanying details.It’s terrific if your audience is exactly what you thought it would be. If it isn’t, revisit your assumptions. You may find that your content is having wider interest, which may be a good thing. Conversely, if you’re not seeing enough traction, perhaps you’re not engaging enough with key creators and fans in your core demographic to help you get the word out. Refine the report to show only subscribed viewers by choosing Subscription Status from the filter drop-down menu.Look closely at how the graphs change. If you see a big difference, determine whether subscription requests are working more broadly than expected, because your content certainly is appealing to others. Make it a habit to compare your demographic information over time to detect any shifts in your audience. Diving into YouTube subscribers metrics Knowing your YouTube subscribers’ patterns and where they’re doing their subscribing is an important part of your channel management responsibilities. YouTube is well aware of that, which is why it offers a subscription source report as part of YouTube Analytics. Here’s how to access it: Go to YouTube. Log on to your YouTube account.If you see the blue Sign In button in the top right corner of the YouTube home page, enter your email address and password. Click the Logged-In icon and choose YouTube Studio from the menu that appears.The YouTube Studio navigation menu should appear on the left side of your browser. Bring up the Analytics section of YouTube Studio. Click on Advanced Mode from the top right of the screen.Within the Advanced Mode window, click on More from the Reports menu and find the Subscription Source option. Look at the report’s table section to see where on YouTube your audience subscribes to your channel.In addition to subscriber gains, you see the number of subscribers lost, too, which is a normal part of channel activity. Interested in learning more? Check out our YouTube Channels Cheat Sheet.

Article / Updated 08-04-2022

You may already be familiar with the concept of discoverability — helping YouTube get your content in front of the right viewers through recommendations and search so that they watch your content rather than somebody else’s. Though watch time is a critical part of YouTube’s recommendation engine, a video’s metadata — its title, description, and tags — plays an important role in getting the video found in the first place. Video search engine optimization (video SEO, for short) is all about telling YouTube something about your video. For traditional web SEO, search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo! would analyze the content on your site, figure out what was important, and then offer up your content to the most relevant searchers. Over time, these search engines factored in elements such as links, sharing, and clicks to determine how popular particular content ended up being on the web. YouTube doesn’t work like web SEO because it can’t (yet) watch your content to determine what your video is about. Instead, it has to rely on your metadata and how the community reacts by way of watch time, social media shares, and embedded links for the video on external sites. It’s a lot easier to get your video SEO house in order upfront rather than deal with it after you’ve published all your content. What exactly is meant by optimization in search engine optimization? Optimization is about intelligently and systematically putting together a proper description of your video so that YouTube understands what your content is about in order to better offer your video to the most appropriate searchers Search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo! understand your content and are thus in a position to add your videos to search engine results pages along with web content Viewers are more likely to click on your content versus other search results offered These are the goals you want to achieve. SEO tips for YouTube video titles The video title is the most important piece of metadata that you create. As important as the title is to YouTube and the major search engines, you have to also ensure that it works for people. The trouble is that it can’t look as though you’re trying too hard to grab folks’ attention. Exaggerated, inaccurate titles, such as “You won’t believe what happens to the 12 kittens in this video,” may generate more clicks, but the search engines won’t bite and they will likely ignore your content. Also avoid “breathless” wording such as “most epic” or “blow your mind.” Strike a balance between attracting humans and attracting search engines when you create and optimize a title for a video. Your title appears in many places: On the Watch page under the actual video In a YouTube search In Google, Bing, and Yahoo! searches As part of a playlist Under YouTube recommended videos Selecting a title isn’t complicated, but you must be somewhat methodical. Though you can use 100 characters in a video title, only 70 characters show up in search results on a desktop computer, though some mobile devices show only about 40, so you have to make the characters count. Titles on recommended videos are further truncated. You can create a longer title, but it’s visible only on the Watch page. The goal of video SEO is to attract viewers to the video in the first place. Limiting the title is no good either because it may impair search algorithm matching. Use the following approach to pick a title for your YouTube video: Determine the keywords. These are the important words that people search for. Make sure they’re part of your video content as well as the other metadata associated with your video, such as the Tag and Description fields. If you work for Acme Electric and you’re marketing the new Z500 convection oven, your keywords would include Acme Electric, Z500, and convection oven. Add a descriptive phrase to the title. Your keywords alone may not be enough. Determine why your viewers would be searching for your product or your video. They may want installation instructions or product reviews, for example. Terms such as “how to install” and “product review” aid you in both search and views. Move branding keywords to the end of the title. Viewers will search for your brands, but they need to see the descriptive information first. If your YouTube video is part of a series, include an episode number at the end of the title. Even if your videos are part of a playlist, your viewers may end up searching separately, so make it easy and logical for them to find another episode. Include title keywords in the tag and description metadata. Before you even upload anything to YouTube, it’s good practice to rename the video file itself to a title that accurately represents its content. YouTube keeps the original reference file title on the video no matter how many times you end up changing the title. SEO tips for YouTube video descriptions You should make good use of the 5,000-character field that YouTube provides for describing your video. It’s a great place to add details about not only your video but also your channel, along with links for other videos, subscriptions, other channels, and websites. In other words, it’s a goldmine for both metadata and user guidance. The viewers who care about your video will read the description, so make it worth their while. The YouTube video description should Explain in greater detail what your video and your channel are about. Extend the viewer’s experience by providing additional detail around what is shown in the video. For example, if you have a video on cooking, the Description field is a great place to include a copy of the recipe. Trigger the viewer to do something. That might include watching another video, making a purchase, supporting your cause, and more. Entice people to view. The first couple of lines of the description show up in search results, so you have to write compelling — and relevant — content so that the user somehow takes the next step of clicking and viewing. That’s also true on the Watch page, where the first couple of sentences appear under the video, compelling the viewer (you hope!) to watch. Aid in discovery. A great description should include hundreds of keywords that help with search. Be sure to use ones that are relevant to the video. The Description field isn’t the place for a transcript of your video. Be clear and concise, but make it interesting enough that people will want to read it. Always consider what information is visible in search results by being well aware of which devices your audience is using to search. The first few lines of the description show up on a desktop search, whereas no description data is currently exposed in a mobile device search. Two older terms from marketing and advertising are still quite relevant to today’s YouTube Description field: above the fold and below the fold. When people used to receive folded letters or advertisements, they often first looked at the top, which was “above the fold.” If the content was compelling, they’d read the rest of it “below the fold.” When viewers watch your video, they also see the first part of its description. If the description is compelling, they click the Show More link to see what’s below the fold. Make what’s above the fold in the video description count. The Description field should contain enough shortlinks to answer any questions your viewers might have about your video, your channel, and your business. The About page of your channel should contain links that complement your channel. It’s okay to repeat some of these links in the video description as well. The shortlinks in the description field can point to Your YouTube channel Other videos Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or Instagram A website A landing page Include only one link in the first paragraph if you want viewers to ultimately end up somewhere else. Include all relevant social links or product page links in the second or lower paragraphs of the description. Don’t create a fully customized Description field for each video. Put together a consistent framework or template that includes some repeatable information, such as subscription information, social media links, programming schedule, and contact information. Customize only the data in your framework that relates to the video itself. Keep everything else consistent. Your audience will appreciate the consistent layout of your field as well. Everyone hates email spam — unsolicited advertisements filled with overdone and repeated buzzwords. If the description sounds at all “spammy,” you’ll provoke a negative reaction. Instead, try to be informative by using a lot of descriptive words and appropriate shortlinks. SEO tips for tags in your YouTube video Tags are special descriptive keywords or short phrases that indicate what your video is about. They are used by search engines to help potential viewers discover your video. Tags also play an important role in helping YouTube make related video recommendations. (Your Description field also has keywords, but tags are used by YouTube to help categorize your video.) YouTube imposes a limit of 500 characters for the entire Tag field. A tag can contain one or more words, but each individual tag cannot be more than 30 characters long. Without wading too deeply into the math, you may end up with room for 10 to 30 tags. Use as many as you can. What’s the best approach to creating tags for your YouTube videos? Think broadly. Everyone searches differently — some use broad terms like oven, whereas others use Acme Electric Z500 convection oven. Use both. Choose synonyms. Though you may use oven only in the description and video, it’s okay to use the word stove in your tags. Add an action tag. Sure, people may search for video about the “Acme Electric Z500 convection oven.” Think about terms that are relevant, such as product review, how to install, and how to clean. Pick one around the video content. Combine and break up keywords. Language and people are imprecise, so take that into account and use both keywords, as in cook top and Tags can be modified. Just be sure that they reflect the essence of the content. Don’t use tons of irrelevant keywords to attract viewers and improve your search rankings. This will actually hurt your search rankings as YouTube will think it’s spam. Plus viewers may overlook your video if they can’t find it. SEO tips for YouTube thumbnails Thumbnails are visual snapshots of your video, similar to a poster for a movie. They have a tremendous impact on a video’s view rate, so choose a good one. Thumbnails by default are chosen by YouTube — three optional frames from the beginning, middle, and end of your video. You can, however, create a custom thumbnail for each video using Photoshop or any other photo editing program. If you decide to create custom thumbnails, choose a thumbnail that’s illustrative of the content in the video. Thumbnails show up in the following areas: Channel page Watch page Playlists Recommended videos Channel guide Subscriber feed YouTube search Web search Mobile display Mobile search Keep the following key considerations in mind when deciding on a custom thumbnail: Incorporate boldness: You’re competing for viewers, so you need to stand out among the many other thumbnails across YouTube and the web. Color contrast and image quality and visual layout matter. Add personification: Show the close-up view of faces, if possible. Viewers click on faces more than anything else. Strive for accuracy: The thumbnail has to relate to the content of the video. Don’t use the thumbnail as a way to trick viewers into checking out your video. Meet the technical specifications: The image must be 1280x720 pixels and no larger than 2MB. Add branding: Viewers may not look at your thumbnail for more than a few seconds; adding branding is a great way to quickly let people know who you are. Plus, consistently branding your videos creates a cohesive look across your channel. Want to learn more? Check out these tips to improve your YouTube search rankings.

Article / Updated 08-04-2022

It’s tough to talk about analytics with YouTubers without hearing supporting terms like metrics and insights. Don’t be put off by all the geeky terms. Once you’ve set goals for your channel, you can access YouTube analytics to work with metrics and insights. Here’s the skinny: Metrics are quantitative measurements, such as the number of views and the click-through rates on your channel. Metrics gauge your goal attainment against your plan. Insights are qualitative and actionable things you learn and do from analyzing metrics — determining whether your YouTube content is working for you, for example, or figuring out whether your interactive cards are well placed in your video. YouTube Analytics shows you how you’re tracking against your goals and also where you may need to make adjustments. Understanding metrics and insights is relatively straightforward, but you need to know where to look in YouTube Analytics to get the data you need. As a channel manager, always think in terms of metrics and insights. You must act on those insights, though. For example, if the view count and number of likes (metrics) for your new video are only 25 percent of your target, your video may not be resonating with your audience or maybe you released it at the wrong time (insights). Take the time to fix what may be immediately wrong (such as poor metadata), or change future content or programming. You should monitor the video metrics again over time. As you become more sophisticated in your use of YouTube Analytics, you realize that certain metrics may depend on other metrics. For example, your earnings metrics may be impacted by view metrics, which may be impacted by engagement metrics. Don’t sweat the details — the relationship among all metrics comes together quickly. Reading YouTube Analytics reports Your go-to place for all aspects of YouTube Analytics is the Analytics section of YouTube Studio. To make your way there, do the following: Go to YouTube. Log on to your YouTube account.If you see a blue Sign In button in the top right corner of the YouTube home page, enter your email address and password. Click the Logged-In icon and choose YouTube Studio from the menu that appears.The YouTube Studio navigation menu should appear on the left side of your browser. Choose Analytics from the navigation menu.By default, you should go directly to the Overview tab. You can also bypass these report-reading steps in YouTube's Analytics. YouTube Analytics is divided into five subsections, indicated by the five tabs running across the top of the screen. They’re described, from left to right, in this list: Overview: Presents a high-level view of your channel’s overall performance. It includes the following summary reports: Main graph: Data on views, watch time, and subscribers over a specified period. If your channel is monetized, you also see estimated revenue data in this graph. Top videos: A list of your top videos for the selected period, ranked by watch time. Realtime: Displays your video views and top viewed videos over the past 48 hours. Latest Videos: Shows an embedded video of the latest videos you have uploaded, as well as its views, average view duration, and watch time. Reach: Displays the overall reach — how many people watched the content on your channel categorized by your different traffic sources, in other words. This section is composed of several summary reports: Main graph: Displays the number of impressions, click-throughs, views, and unique viewers your videos have generated over a selected period. Impressions and how they led to watch time: A funnel chart displaying how your video impressions led to views and, ultimately, watch time. This report also shows how often, on average, YouTube has recommended your videos to users. Traffic source types: Provides a breakdown of where and how often users found your videos on YouTube, such as YouTube Search, suggested videos, channel pages, and more. Traffic source: External: Displays a list of websites and apps outside of YouTube that link to or have embedded your video, as well as the percentage of times these sources led to views. Traffic source: Playlists: Shows the total percentage of views you accumulated from playlists containing your video and the names of those playlists that led to the most views. Traffic source: Suggested videos: Shows the total percentage of views you accumulated from other videos suggesting your content and the names of the videos that led to the most views. Traffic source: YouTube Search: Shows the total percentage of views you accumulated from the YouTube Search results and the keywords that led to the most views. Engagement: Presents a summary of what your YouTube audience is watching on your channel. It includes these summary reports: Main graph: Displays the total watch time and average view duration of videos on your channel over a specified period Top videos: Displays a list of your top videos ordered by their watch time in hours Top videos by end screen: Shows a list of your top videos, ordered by the number of end screen element clicks Top playlists: Provides a breakdown of your playlists ordered by the percentage of watch time attributed to each one Top end screen element types: Shows a list of clicks per each type of end screen element type you use Top cards: Shows a list of end screen cards, ordered by the highest number of clicks Audience: Describes who is watching your channel. It contains these summary reports: Main graph: Displays the number of unique viewers, average number of views per viewers, and subscriber growth over a specified period. When your viewers are on YouTube: Shows the times of day and days of the week your viewers watch YouTube so that you can determine when to publish your videos or launch a live stream. Age and gender: Provides a breakdown of your audience by gender and age bracket based on a percentage of views. Subscriber bell notifications: Shows the percentage of your audience that has turned on all notifications for your channel. Also displays a typical channel benchmark range for this action on other YouTube channels. Top countries: Shows what countries your audience is located in, based on a percentage of views. Top subtitle/CC languages: Displays your audience’s usage of subtitles as well as which languages are most frequently being used based on a percentage of views. YouTube reports demographics data for users who are signed in to Google. Because of this, the data you see may not completely reflect all traffic visiting your channel. Revenue: Displays a summary of earnings from your channel. It includes these summary reports: Main graph: Shows your estimated revenue, estimated monetized playbacks, and playback-based CPM (cost-per thousand impression) for a specified period. Monthly estimated revenue: Displays your estimated revenue for the past six months. Top earning videos: Shows you which of your videos are generating the most money and how much money they have earned. Revenue sources: Provides a breakdown of where your channel revenue is coming from, from sources like advertisements and YouTube Premium. Ad types: Shows the types of ads (such as skippable ads, non-skippable ads, bumper ads, and display ads) that are running on your videos, ordered by the percentage of revenue they provide. The Revenue tab is accessible only to YouTube creators who have been accepted into the YouTube Partner Program. If you want to see deeper analytics on any summary report described in the preceding list, you can click the See More link at the bottom of the report to open Advanced Mode, which provides access to additional metrics. Similarly, you can launch Advanced Mode by clicking the Advanced Mode link above the Date drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the page at any time to see more granular reporting details. To learn more about the main reporting tabs of YouTube Analytics as well as the summary reports just described, visit https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9002587. Breaking down YouTube’s Analytics report components Beyond the summary reports available within the main pages of YouTube Analytics, YouTube provides a richer set of reporting options within Advanced Mode that may seem overwhelming at first. You quickly discover, however, that navigating this comprehensive reporting module is quite easy because it consists of these four distinct sections: Filters: Over time, you do a lot different things with your channel, including adding video content, constructing playlists, engaging subscribers, and so much more. You’ll definitely want to set up dynamic filters that are meant to show you only the information associated with each of these aspects of your channel. The Advanced Mode filter section lets you do that. Reports: Advanced Mode reports provide greater detail than the summary reports that are available on the main pages of YouTube Analytics. You can also access some additional reports that aren’t available on the main YouTube Analytics pages and add additional metrics to all reports. You can access this feature from the menu beneath the filters and above the chart within Advanced Mode, or by clicking the See More link at the bottom of any summary report. Chart: After you’ve determined which report you want to analyze, you can get lots of information with some fairly flexible graphical representations (charts, in other words) to guide your understanding. This helps you assess the performance of your channel, your content, and your community. Table: Shows itemized details that correspond to the particular YouTube Analytics report. For example, in the Videos report, you can create a detailed, organized list of your top 50 videos, including name, views, percentage growth in view, estimated minutes watched, and average view duration. Want to learn more? Check out our YouTube Channels Cheat Sheet.