YouTube’s playbook for content creators

Search YouTube for “content marketing” and you’ll have your choice of over 450,000 videos, many of well produced, quick-hit segments by companies pitching their expertise in creating custom and native content.

Ads are becoming content, only this is content that people chose to watch to become educated about a marketing brand to make an informed decision. The challenge for those responsible for the marketing strategy is creating the compelling content that attracts attention and gets shared.

Enter Google.

youtubebook1_artThe parent company of YouTube released “The Creator Playbook for Brands,” a how-to guide for content marketing success on the platform.

The guide presents the tools and know-how developed by a generation of YouTube content creators that can help brands develop content strategies that will resonate with today’s consumers.

The guide, downloadable here, is fairly comprehensive at 100 pages and divided into seven sections, each presenting several strategies for building engaged audiences on YouTube:

  • Content marketing as part of your brand strategy. This helps you, as a content creator, develop it for YouTube and define how it should fit with your overall brand strategy.
  • 10 fundamentals to create content people love.
  • Schedule your content. This advice helps you decide what your channel stands for, how best to communicate this, and what you need to map out the different types of videos and the best times to release them.
  • Optimize your content. From metadata and annotations to playlists, what you need to know for a successful optimization strategy.
  • Promote your content with paid media.
  • Amplify your content with social.
  • Measurement. Use the tools to help track metrics around all of your paid, owned and earned media on YouTube.