Market segmentation 101
Google has more than 101 ideal market segments worldwide. So, creating more than 101 YouTube channels that feature videos on a wide range of topics, from product demos to visiting speakers to Google's offices, is a wicked smart strategy.
If you look at Google's YouTube directory, you'll see that 42 channels are focused on users and advertisers in 36 different countries and regions. That's wicked smart. Why would you create just one channel for users and advertisers who speak 27 different languages?
Another 30 of Google's YouTube channels are focused on users of different products, and four more are focused on developers. That's also wicked smart. If you want information on Google Chrome, just go to the Google Chrome channel. Why force users to search through videos on other products?
Finally, 20 of the official Google YouTube channels are company-wide. That's probably smart, too. If a user wants to subscribe to Google Search Stories to be informed as soon as a new one is released, why make them receive updates about other topics they're not interested in watching?
Unless your company has only one ideal market segment, then it makes little sense to have just one YouTube brand channel.
Improving the batting average of your branded YouTube channel
Hopefully this article has helped you to take your channel to the next level. If nothing else, I hope my new lousy scale has demonstrated what not to do when creating your brand's channel.
If we've learned anything from these three lousy branded YouTube channels, it's this: Don't jump to conclusions.
When YouTube launched its new channel layouts in December 2011, it made it easier for all channel creators to organize and showcase exactly what they wanted. This included a more streamlined and consistent design as well as new, more flexible layouts for featured content.
So, incorporating banners and background images to match your brand's look and adding links to other sites is necessary but not sufficient to creating a very good YouTube brand channel. To avoid ending up with a lousy channel, you also need to generate more subscribers per uploaded video than other channels in your category.
This means you need to improve the batting average for your branded YouTube channel. And it's worth nothing that "batting average" is a statistic that measures the performance of batsmen in cricket as well as hitters in baseball.
Greg Jarboe is the president of SEO-PR.
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