best practice guide - youtube city, university of london · the distillery london confidential - do...

CITY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON BEST PRACTICE GUIDE - YOUTUBE

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6145904?hl=en&ref_topic=6145903

https://www.a-p-a.net/

CONTENTS

The Distillery London Confidential - Do Not Distribute

Slide 03 ………………………………… Consistency

Slide 04 ………………………………… Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Slide 07 ………………………………… Cards / Info buttons

Slide 09 ………………………………… Trackable links

Slide 11 ………………………………… Custom thumbnails

Slide 12 ………………………………… Titles

Slide 14 ………………………………… Video descriptions

Slide 15 ………………………………… Trends


Consistency refers to look, feel, tone, production elements, posting schedule, titling, thumbnails, video description and themes.

Keeping all of these elements consistent will keep your current subscribers engaged and attract new subscribers as well.

Frequent and regular video uploads will engage your audience as they are expecting a video every week/fortnight from your channel.

If you have a predictable schedule, it’s almost a guarantee your viewers will tune in quickly - especially current subscribers.

CONSISTENCY


Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is important. Tagging all of your videos with relevant tags allows your video to be more search friendly.

For example, if your video is about the courses offered in the School of Health Sciences at City, University of London, effective tags to use would be: nursing, health sciences, medicine, nhs, London

This means that if a viewer were to search ‘nursing courses in London’, your video would appear in their search, resulting in reaching a wider audience.

Every video must have the follow tags included defaultly:City, City University, City University of London, University of London, London, Study in London, International Study, Degree, Higher Education, UK, England

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION (SEO)



Organising your videos into playlists can drive more traffic to your channel.

A playlist rich with keywords gives more information about the topic of your video, and it means if viewers are looking to know more about one topic, they have easy access to the videos in one area.

You can also select the desired video to be the thumbnail of a playlist. You can do this by following the above instructions.

City logo (top right of page) > Creator Studio > Video manager (left hand side) > Playlists > Select the desired playlist > Edit > Select desired video > More > Set as playlist thumbnail



City logo (top right of page) > Creator Studio > Video manager (left hand side) > Videos > Edit (on a video of your choice)

You can edit the title, description and video tags of a video here.

As you can see on the image to the right, there are many options on the tabs that you can choose to make the video more search friendly and engaging.


CARDS / INFO BUTTONS

YouTube cards / info buttons are interactive ‘panels’ that slide in and out when a video is playing, encouraging further interaction from the viewer.

You can make cards to suggest another video the viewer could find interesting. *You can also use cards to direct viewers to your website or other sites you want the viewer to visit.

Cards can show playlists, customised images, titles and call-to-actions.

*To link cards to an external website, Monetisation must be enabled. This is done through following the requirements and submitting a request, YouTube must then approve.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/97527


There are four card options you can add:

Video or PlaylistChannelPollLink

There is also an option of when the cards will pop up during the video, indicated by the timeline below.

CARDS / INFO BUTTONS

City logo (top right of page) > Creator Studio > Video manager (left hand side) > Videos > Edit (on a video of your choice)


Links need to be trackable and associated to your website, pages on your site or other relevant sites/pages.

A trackable link allows you to see how many visits/clicks go through to your site from a specific source. Each link is made unique for the desired video (or social post).

You are also able to see what social platforms drive the audience to click on the link the most.

Knowing where your traffic originates from allows you to utilise the data to push site and video links on appropriate social platforms for the best results.

TRACKABLE LINKS


TRACKABLE LINKS Research Degrees http://bit.ly/2ynyebb

Foundation Courses http://bit.ly/2t9Ncww

School of Health Sciences http://bit.ly/2KHmNMZ

School of Mathematics, Computer Science & Engineering http://bit.ly/2kbVyyL

School of Art and Social Sciences http://bit.ly/2LhPalR

City Short Courses http://bit.ly/2M2hGaE

City Alumni http://bit.ly/2GC8qXF

Cass Business School http://bit.ly/2p9srOy

Accommodation at City http://bit.ly/2I3LoJR

International Students http://bit.ly/2wZinik

Department of International Politics http://bit.ly/2GBQ6Ou

Department of Psychology http://bit.ly/2IDNDck

Department of Sociology http://bit.ly/2rW2TGL

Department of Music http://bit.ly/2I0IUMl

Department of Computer Science http://bit.ly/2yoyJSx

Department of Journalism http://bit.ly/2KEEfSg

Department of Mathematics http://bit.ly/2K3SzXx

Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics http://bit.ly/2tfb94G

Department of Civil Engineering http://bit.ly/2IXIU4i

Department of English http://bit.ly/2K7W1Ri

Department of Economics http://bit.ly/2t8NljP

Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering http://bit.ly/2rUW3BG

Department of Library & Information Science http://bit.ly/2JYcPXm

Mainpage http://bit.ly/2IWUfS4

About http://bit.ly/2K2L2VF

Study at City http://bit.ly/2IVsedW

Undergraduate Courses http://bit.ly/2MGGSoq

Postgraduate Courses http://bit.ly/2rXrxHi

The City Law School http://bit.ly/2kepeeK

CitySport http://bit.ly/2rXV6aR

Here are some trackable links to use for cards and videos.

City, University of London uses bitly. You can create more on the account.

http://bitly.com


CUSTOM THUMBNAILS

All videos should have a custom thumbnail that follow the City guidelines. This generally makes the video more appealing, meaning viewers are more likely to click through and watch your videos.

Thumbnails are also a great way to visually inform the viewer what the video is about, especially if you regularly categorise your videos.

There are five PSD templates:

HERO, HUB_01 (Lecturers, Staff & Courses), HUB_02 (Events), HUB_03 (Students), HELP (Help Content, Education pieces).

Please see the City thumbnails guideline here.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lGCSS-y_LT6CgkAPpr1yNb2504-8M-pS

TITLES


All videos need to have search friendly, relevant and consistent titling.

Titles are important as they tell the viewer exactly what information and content they should expect to see by watching the video.

Using the right words in your titles make them search friendly and easier for your viewers to find. Using a tool like Google’s AdWords can help to identify what words your viewers are searching for around the keyword that your video/s occupy.

You should be as descriptive as you can, but watch the character count as long titles generally deter viewers from clicking on your video - get to the point.

You can also see City’s Writing Guidelines here.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1y0z1C76R-giBhA5GT1npDs-DwQb8A9Ey


TITLES

Video titles must either begin with:

City, University of London: XXX OR end with:XXX at CityXXX - City, University of London

This will make for the most effective search results. If a video is about a particular course in a ‘School’ within the university (i.e. School of Health Sciences), the title must begin with the school. In this case, there is no need to add the name of the university. Here is an example:

The City Law School: Helen Jeyakumar - LLB Graduate

All videos profiling students must include their full name in the title.

VIDEO DESCRIPTIONS


For more information about XXX at City, visit: INSERT BITLY LINK TO THE RELEVANCE OF THE VIDEO.

Visit our website for more information and follow us for regular updates:

Website: http://bit.ly/2IWUfS4Facebook: http://bit.ly/2s22WRBTwitter: http://bit.ly/2GDZroIInstagram: http://bit.ly/2GFM6fQLinkedIn: http://bit.ly/2IDik0W

Video descriptions should give more information about the content in the video, including links, who is in the video and other relevant information to the time of the release. However, following this information, EVERY VIDEO DESCRIPTION MUST END WITH THE FOLLOWING TEXT:


Stay ‘on-trend’ with the latest data and news surrounding your channel’s target audience. Taking into account the time of year as well.

For example, at the beginning of a school term (i.e. September) as Sixth Form / college students are likely to start looking for undergraduate courses. Releasing a video about life on campus, how to apply or courses available at City could not only bring more viewers, but potential students.

Use the Google Trends Dashboard to look for related topics and how keywords are performing. As you can see City, University of London is number 11 on most searchable with the term ‘undergraduate courses.’

TRENDS


www.thedistillery.tv

Tel: 0207 183 4315

Steve: [email protected] Lottie: [email protected]

http://www.thedistillery.tv

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

best practice guide - youtube city, university of london · the distillery london confidential - do...

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