YouTube recently added five tailoredPlaybook Guides – for education, media companies, music, nonprofits, and sports – to be used in conjunction with Version 3 of the Creator Playbook, which is the main resource for site-wide best practices.
After reviewing each of the five new Playbook Guides, it’s clear that one size does not fit all when it comes to audience development. Although every YouTube channel needs great content to be successful, the strategies for building audiences around each type of content are significantly different.
Education
For example, YouTube EDU is home to high quality educational content from around the world. YouTube’s ambitious goal is to provide a global platform where anyone, anywhere can teach – or learn – anything they want. From Pre-K (e.g., Sesame Street) to Primary and Secondary Education (e.g., Khan Academy), to Higher Education (e.g., Massachusetts Institute of Technology), to Lifelong Learning (e.g., Big Think), YouTube wants to encourage creators in this category to continually discover, create, and share educational videos with the world.
However, some schools block access to YouTube, so the Education Playbook Guide talks about a gateway feature called YouTube for Schools that provides school networks with access to YouTube education videos, while continuing to block the rest of YouTube. Additional features include disabled comments and related video suggestions that are limited to YouTube EDU content.
Media Companies
There are two main types of media companies on YouTube. The first type creates “new” content that is tailored for YouTube’s audience and platform (e.g., PBS Off Book and Nerdist). The second type “repurposes” content that was originally produced for television or a partner’s owned and operated site (e.g., Comedy Central or TED Talks).
The Playbook Guide for Media Companies tackles a question that both types of media companies would ask: At what point is it smart to launch a new channel? The answer: If your content appeals to multiple, diverse audiences, then create multiple, diverse channels. And how should media companies leverage their existing audiences to drive viewership to a new channel? This particular guide says, “Annotations, calls-to-action (CTAs), description links, and promotional videos are effective (more…)
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