YouTube Best Practices

YouTube is the second most popular website in the world, allowing businesses and creators to tap in to a diverse audience with video content. If your department or college wants to engage in the YouTube world, here are the basic elements to include on your channel. 

Setting Up Your Profile

Links

Add links in your bio to link to your department page or the latest event you are promoting.

Social Media

Add your Instagram handle too if your department posts consistently and has updated content on the platform. 

Avatar

Use a TXST branded logo for your profile picture.

Naming

To be affiliated with TXST, add "TXST" in the name of your YouTube channel. 

 

Must Haves:

Record Horizontally 

For the best quality and for optimal viewing, record your videos for YouTube horizontally. 

Video Length 

The sweet spot for the length of a YouTube video is 5-7 minutes. Longer-form videos can make your audience lose interest. Try to be concise and get your point across within the first 3 minutes of the video. 

Be Clear 

Your video titles should be clear and describe exactly what is going on in your video. The description of the video is a great way to give more detail to the context of the video. The description is also a place to add relevant links and information for your audience to learn more. Key words like "dorm room" and "college life" are examples of phrases and terms that make your video more accessible and visible for your audience when they are searching for your video. 

Music 

Always use copyright-free sounds and music in your video in order for it not to be flagged or taken down for violating copyright laws. 

ADA Compliance 

Remember to caption your videos to stay within ADA guidelines. 

Features

Playlists - Categorize your videos by using a playlist, organizing it by the topic of your video so that your audience can view similar videos of yours in one place. For reference, TXST has a series of on-campus residential life videos that have been uploaded and added to a playlist. 

Tags - Use tags to help push your videos to the right audience. Keywords like "engineering," "Texas State," "higher ed," or "student life" are some of the examples that would be specific to a video's contents to help users find the video they were searching for. 

Thumbnails - A thumbnail is the picture that you see when you link to an uploaded YouTube video. The thumbnail sets the tone for the video, so make sure it is clear and represents your video in a single image. 

Additional Video Options

YouTube is a great option for sharing department or college videos, but if you would rather share your content internally, as in with your class or with other faculty members, TXST offers YuJa. YuJa is TXST's video platform that connects with Canvas and has various features including built-in editing, auto captioning, and more. It's a great option for those that do not want to add another social channel to their department's account.