YouTube has always straddled the lines between social media channel, video-hosting platform and search engine. This versatility often results in multiple cooks in the YouTube strategy kitchen.
Depending on area of speciality, internal stakeholders have different priorities when it comes to YouTube management. Do you prioritise Shorts to get more eyeballs on your content? Or perhaps champion SEO to rank more highly in search results? What about housing a breadth of video content to utilise on your website?
Regardless of your organisation’s marketing goals, the big-picture stats can’t be ignored. As of 2024, YouTube is the world's biggest video-sharing platform and the second-biggest social media platform, beaten out only by Facebook. More specifically, penetration rates are through the roof in New Zealand (93.8%) and Australia (89.1%) compared to a worldwide penetration rate of 37.6%.
If your B2B brand is using or plans to use YouTube in any capacity, these best practices cover everyone’s best interests.
Make an excellent first impression. (Yes, even if you only use YouTube for your website’s embedded video content.) Think of this as setting up any other social media account where you’ll need to tick all the boxes while staying on brand; here are the basics.
Your logo serves as your profile photo to visually identify your branded account. This image should be in a square format, ideally 800 x 800 pixels. Using the same logo or profile photo on all social media platforms will create brand consistency and be easily recognised.
Tell your audience about yourselves; the About section serves as a channel description. Include keywords within the general description about what type of content viewers will find on your channel and a bit about your organisation. Grab some copy from your website’s About section for a head start, then use one of HubSpot’s YouTube Description Templates.
Nested within the About section, here’s where you’ll add social proof. Include links to your website and any other live social media channels. Bonus points if these additional social media channels showcase consistent branding and are active.
Funnily enough, this is the element that trips brands up the most. Why? Sizing on multiple devices. The general size requirements are 2560 x 1440 pixels, but be careful where you place text or specific images lest you ruthlessly chop someone’s head off in the mobile view. Pro tip: Take the guesswork out of sizing with Canva’s YouTube banner smart templates.
This feature lets you categorise your videos, making them accessible and appealing to your specific audiences. When a user finishes one video, the next consecutive video in that same category will autoplay, so this is an opportunity to keep viewers on your channel longer by strategically planning these playlists.
Now that your channel looks top-notch, this video checklist can be applied to each piece of content you upload. These little details can make or break video optimisation and ensure you appear as the experts that you are.
Before we get into the technical nitty-gritty of YouTube features, the video content you’re about to upload must be sized and edited correctly. Video production can be costly and time-consuming, so having this locked in early on is beneficial as part of your overall content planning strategy.
YouTube Shorts: Vertical orientation, 9:16 aspect ratio, 1920 x 1080 pixels, up to 60 seconds long.
YouTube Video: Default 16:9 aspect ratio, multiple pixel resolution options, up to 15 minutes long.
According to Google, 90% of the best-performing videos have custom thumbnails. The thumbnail acts as the cover for your video, so it should be eye-catching and offer a taste of what’s inside. Know your target audience and tailor the thumbnail with a hook to capture their interest. Be aware that thumbnails also display differently across devices, so using a template (like these ones from Canva) ensures your design will look good at multiple sizes.
A well-considered video title can increase visibility through SEO and result in a higher CTR. Keyword-rich titles rank within YouTube—the second-largest search engine in the world—and within traditional search engines like Google. In fact, YouTube states, “Well-written titles can be the difference between someone watching and sharing your video or scrolling right past it.”
Your video title and description go hand-in-hand. YouTube suggests, “Identify 1-2 main words that describe your video and feature them prominently in both your description and title.” But don’t become a robot either; ensure your video descriptions bring valuable information to your audience and are hyper-relevant to the video content itself.
Help people find what they need within your video. This can be done manually by adding timestamps to your video description or by utilising YouTube’s Automatic Chapters feature (here’s the how-to for both). Chapters become particularly important for content generated from a search engine query—everyone wants answers fast.
Your official video CTA: what do you want users to do now? The end screen, or the last 5-20 seconds of a video, will most commonly include a call to subscribe to the channel or promote other videos. These can be created using a template and include many customisable elements, which are all listed here.
Determine where this video can appear and who can watch it. Privacy settings are significant if you’re using YouTube to host website content but may not want these videos visible to everyone. Privacy can be set per video or playlist.
Public: Anyone can see and share these videos, and they will show on your channel and appear in YouTube search results.
Private: These videos can only be seen by the channel owner and individuals of your choosing. Viewers can be added via an email address.
Unlisted: Share these videos with anyone via a link, but they are not visible on your channel or in YouTube search results.
All audio is not fair game on YouTube, so play by the rules. Copyright music is the most common culprit for videos being taken down, restricted, or demonetised. Be particularly mindful if you’re repurposing existing content and have music embedded within the video.
Utilise the YouTube Audio Library and follow guidelines to attribute this audio appropriately. There are also a number of other resources available that provide access to royalty-free music, both free and paid—just do a quick search, then do due diligence for usage guidelines.
Accessibility and viewer optimisation are also crucial when considering how your video’s audio is being managed, particularly regarding subtitles. Ensure that viewers can consume your narrated video content without sound by including a closed caption file. YouTube recommends a few different file types, the most common one being SubRip (or .srt for short).
Take note if you’re embedding YouTube videos on a website. GDPR, or the General Data Protection Regulation, sets guidelines around the collection and processing of personal information, in this case, YouTube tracking cookies that your website visitor has not consented to.
Thankfully, there’s an easy GDPR-compliant solution. All you have to do is enable “privacy-enhanced mode” when embedding the video, which automatically modifies the URL to a “nocookie” version. See more about the technical side of this workaround here.
Contact the Aamplify experts if your B2B business is searching for creative muscle, content strategy support or an SEO overhaul.
