How to Set Up Your YouTube Channel Correctly (Brand Account vs Personal Account)

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The question of YouTube Brand Account vs Personal Account came up recently with a client, and I discovered that a lot of people might wish they knew the difference sooner rather than later. So let’s dive into how to set up your YouTube channel correctly!

Listen to Episode 46: How to Set Up Your YouTube Channel Correctly

Episode Summary

Do you know whether you have a personal YouTube account or a Brand YouTube account? You may want to find out!

Here’s why: if you ever want to have anyone–even a trusted friend–take a look at your YouTube analytics, update your thumbnails, or do anything on your channel, you will need to have a YouTube Brand Account.

You can tell whether or not you already have a brand account by visiting YouTube’s documentation here.

If you find out that you have a personal account, and you want to switch to a brand account, there are some things you need to know…

  1. You will lose your custom URL (if you had one) but, according to YouTube, you can set it up again. Follow the instructions here.
  2. You will lose any comments that your channel’s account made on your channel. So if you replied to any comments as your channel, those will be deleted. It seems silly, but it’s true. This is one of the reasons why it’s better to switch as soon as possible… don’t wait until you have an even bigger channel with more comments to lose.

If you don’t have a channel yet but you want to set one up, follow the step by step tutorial that I published inside of the Video for Bloggers and Content Creators Facebook group here. This will walk you through setting up a Brand YouTube Account from scratch.

Links

To listen in on the entire conversation with Guest, please listen to episode 46 of the Video Pursuit Podcast in iTunes, or your favorite podcast player. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: (00:00)
You are listening to episode number 46 of the video pursuit podcast. This is your host. Do you remember me? This is Meredith Marsh. I haven’t been here in awhile. I’ve been a little bit quiet in the podcast space. I took some time off for the summer and then you know, now it’s a, it’s a little bit into October and here we are. But in this episode I want to talk about whether or not your YouTube channel is set up correctly and you may not even realize that there’s two different ways to set up your YouTube channel. Neither is necessarily right or wrong, but is a better way if you want to move forward and uh, and grow your channel. And we’re going to talk about that today. So like I said, I took a break, um, for the summer. I basically just got overwhelmed to the amount of work that I really wanted to be doing versus the amount of time I wanted to be not working.

Speaker 1: (01:04)
And the podcast was kind of a little bit lower on my priority list for the summer. So I just let that kind of fall off and since then I’ve just been adding more and more ideas to my idealist. I’m drying questions out of the video for bloggers and content creators, Facebook group, I’m drawing questions from the video pursuit society, which is my paid membership program and this question actually arose out of a one on one client that I’m working with on her YouTube strategy and keyword research and setting a good content strategy in motion for her. So here’s the deal. We got on a call, we talked about how we could work together and what I could help her with and she was like totally on board. She was like, yes, let’s do this. And I said, okay, the first step, the first thing you need to do is to add me as a channel manager on your YouTube channel.

Speaker 1: (02:10)
And the reason why I needed to be considered a channel manager or get access as a channel manager is because I wanted to look at her analytics. If you don’t know, YouTube provides a ton of really insightful information in your YouTube analytics. Sometimes it’s a little tricky to know what in the world you’re looking at and which data actually matters. Um, but that’s one of the things that I, one of the services I provide to my one-on-one clients. So I wanted to dive into her analytics and there’s two ways that this could happen. One is that she gives me her username and password, so that would be her username and password to her Google account, which includes Gmail, Google docs, uh, all the things, all the things that are connected to your Gmail account, right? Including your YouTube channel or she could make me a channel manager and there’s different levels of [inaudible] of channel manager.

Speaker 1: (03:16)
Like there’s a community manager where you can moderate comments and then there’s a channel manager, um, where you can look at the analytics. You could, you could upload and like edit or delete videos. Um, [inaudible] but that’s not what I was going to be needing to do for her. The problem is there’s two different types of YouTube accounts and she had the type where in order for me to see her analytics, I was going to have to login with her Gmail, her Gmail address and her password, which gives me access to everything. And that’s just not smart. Not that I’m not trustworthy, obviously I feel like I am trustworthy, but I wouldn’t give anybody that information, so I would never ask or expect anybody to give me that information. I would say don’t give me that information. Right. Um, and so she had a personal YouTube channel set up and what she really needed to have was a brand account.

Speaker 1: (04:20)
Her channel needed to be under a brand account. And I don’t know why YouTube makes this so complicated, but a lot of times people go to set up a channel for fun or maybe they set it up like 10 years ago and just just recently they’re like, Hey, I’m going to take this seriously. I’m going to start a YouTube channel. And they realize it’s connected to their personal account, but that’s not a big deal. All they need to do is set up an account. So they do that. Um, and that’s a personal YouTube channel. But down the road there are some advantages of having a brand channel, um, that you might want to take advantage of. So there’s a couple things I want to dive into here. First of all, inside of the video for bloggers and content creators, Facebook group is a video where I walk through exactly how to set up a channel from scratch.

Speaker 1: (05:24)
So this is, that video has actually been there for quite a while actually, because that’s just a common question people ask me. They just need the like technical step-by-steps steps. So that video walks you through those exact steps and that includes setting it up under a brand account, setting it up the what I’m going to call the correct way. Um, like I said, there’s no right or wrong way to, you know, if you want a personal YouTube channel, that’s fine. It doesn’t make a difference on the outside of the channel. What, what people see on your channel. You can’t tell if something is under a personal account or a brand account. You just can’t tell. It doesn’t matter. From, from that aspect where it matters is how you can manage the channel on the back end. And here’s, here’s the important thing. When you have a brand account that technically owns your YouTube channel versus a personal account, you can add a channel manager.

Speaker 1: (06:31)
And why would you want to add a channel manager? Well, first of all, just like, just like I explained, I’m working with somebody who needs some help with keyword research. I’m not taking over her channel. She’s not hiring me to upload videos and do all the things. Um, you know, like it’s, this isn’t a full time job or anything. This is just me helping her, um, do some keyword research and set up some SEO kind of stuff on her channel. It’s, it’s, it’s a small sort of service, right? But she needs to add me as a channel manager. So if you’re setting up a channel and you’re like, well, I don’t need a brand account. I’m not a brand. I’m not that big. Right? I’m not like a big business, a big brand. I’m not Coca-Cola or Disney or whatever the thing is. You are, you are a brand.

Speaker 1: (07:23)
So let’s just say at some point in the future when you’re like, huh, I would like to get some help with my channel. I would like somebody to come in and help me figure out what’s working and what’s not working. Or I want to have Meredith dive into my analytics and you know, hand me a YouTube strategy. That’s something that I do for people, but I can’t do that unless I can see your analytics. So if you haven’t set up a channel yet and you want to, I want you to keep this in mind before you hit any buttons. Okay. And you can walk through the video inside of the video pursuit. No, inside of the video for bloggers and content creators group, it’s a free group. It’s a free video. Um, walks through there with me in the video and set up your channel step-by-step so that you set it up as a brand account.

Speaker 1: (08:18)
And I explain a little bit about that in the video. And what have you already do? Have a YouTube channel. How do you know if you have a brand in house or a personal account? Well, this is where it gets a little bit confusing because Google and YouTube support documentation kind of give you an explanation, but it doesn’t actually make sense when I log into my account. So I know that I have a brand account. My brand account is essentially owned by my personal Gmail address, right in my YouTube channel. My vid pro YouTube channel is under that brand account. So I actually have multiple YouTube channels under that one brand account. And like years ago when I created whatever I created, I just thought it would make sense to just be able to be logged in under my, my Google email and be able to get to whatever of my channels I wanted to.

Speaker 1: (09:25)
It just that made sense to me. And that’s really, um, that’s sort of the whole point of having a brand account. Right? Um, and so to check and see if you have a brand account, you’re gonna want to go into your YouTube advanced account settings. And I’m going to link up the Google and YouTube support documentation for you here because as things change over time, as they do, I want you to be able to get to whatever the most current information is from YouTube and Google. So according to Google, to check if you have a brand account, you’re gonna log into your ed advanced account settings, youtube.com/account_ed advanced. And again, I’ll put these links in the show notes @ vidpromom.com you’re going to want to be signed in. If you see that you have the ability to add a channel manager to your channel, then you have a brand account and you’re logged in as that brand account.

Speaker 1: (10:31)
If you do not see the ability to add a channel manager or the ability to create a brand account or the ability to move your channel to another brand account, then you do not have a brand account. You have a personal account. And now what do you do? Okay, so if you have a brand account, you don’t need to do anything really. Um, you are set up. You should be good to go for the future. If you, if your channel explodes and you suddenly need help having somebody upload your videos for you or do the keyword research, SEO stuff for you or update your thumbnails or anything like that, you’re good to go. You can add a channel manager and it’s actually really easy. They just have to have a Gmail account and you just, you put in their email address and you add a a channel manager and it’s really simple.

Speaker 1: (11:34)
If you discover that you have a personal account and you want to switch to a brand account, I’m going to recommend that you do that as soon as possible. So if you’re thinking to yourself, well, you know, I only have 50 subscribers. If you feel like, ah, I’m a long ways away from hiring somebody to help me look at my analytics or hiring somebody to update my thumbnails, you’re going to want to switch now. And the reason is because when you switch from a personal account to a brand account currently, and I don’t know if this will ever change, it probably won’t because Google’s like a dinosaur this way. Um, when you switch from a personal account into a brand account, you lose your custom URL, which you can then get back, but for a time you lose it. And the second thing is you lose the comments on your channel that you have made as your channel.

Speaker 1: (12:40)
So this may or may not be a big deal to you. I think where it’s kind of concerning is when you have replied to people on your channel, you know, somebody leaves a comment, you reply and you have a conversation going, a thread going. If you remove your panel’s comments, then it looks like it could look like you, you publish your videos and then ignore all of the comments on your channel. Now it really would only look like that for a period of time until you do start commenting with the new account. Um, this sounds so, it sounds like such a silly thing. Sounds like, come on YouTube, get your act together. Why can’t you figure out how to just like move those comments over? Um, but they, they haven’t figured that out yet. So, um, like I said, if you only have like 50 subscribers or zero subscribers or you know, even 500 or even a thousand, the sooner you switch, the better you’ll be, the better off you’ll be.

Speaker 1: (13:45)
Once you do get to the point where you want some help with your channel and you want to add somebody as a channel manager. Now there are so many other settings inside of your YouTube channel that I could definitely put in the column of yes, this is set up correctly versus not correctly. Your channel tags. You want to look and see if you have some [inaudible]. Those are the tags that whether or not YouTube or Google looks at them, who knows, but it’s a good practice to put those channel tags in there, um, in your settings. And those would just be these are, these are the topics that I cover on this channel. Um, and also, you know, something people often overlook when they’re setting up their channel is their about section. Um, just like the about page on your blog or your website, you really do want to have something there that lets viewers know who you are, why people should listen to you and what you will cover on your channel.

Speaker 1: (14:53)
You can also link to some of your popular playlist or your popular videos and you may also want to have some of your contact information like where to find you on other social media platforms. Um, where to um, find your Facebook group or you know, whatever things like that. Your about section is also a place where, you know, artificial intelligence, I almost said insemination, artificial intelligence, AI. Um, we’ll be looking through there in also trying to decipher what your channel is about. So you do want to use that about section. And so those are some things you want to look at right now just to make sure, just to just double check, ask yourself, is my YouTube channel set up correctly? So first thing you’re going to do, just to recap is check. And see, do I have a personal account or a brand account?

Speaker 1: (15:53)
And if you have a personal YouTube account, you probably want to switch it to a brand account sooner than later. If you don’t have a YouTube channel yet, follow the instructions inside of the video for bloggers and content creators Facebook group, because they walk you through how to set it up correctly with a brand account. So that’s the first thing. Do you have a brand account? Yes. Then move on and make sure you have your channel tags in the settings area. These are the tags, the keywords, the search terms, that topics that cover your whole channel. This is what I talk about on my channel basically. And the third thing was to make sure you have information on your about section, who you are, why people should listen to you, what you cover on your channel, how to find you on other platforms or how to contact people.

Speaker 1: (16:51)
So that wraps up episode number 46 of the video pursuit podcast. I’m so glad to be back. I’m glad that I’m back in your ears and I have lots more to come. I’m not gonna make a promise that it will be weekly but that is my goal. So thanks for being here. And if your wondering about how you can grow your YouTube channel from scratch when you have like zero or very few subscribers, I put together a free masterclass for you called the fast way to one K YouTube subscribers is a 60 minute masterclass. It’s totally free and it’s based on the exact process that I walk my clients and students through from square one when they’re starting and launching and channels from scratch. So you can go watch that anytime it’s available for you at fast way to one K com and I will definitely put a link in the show notes to that. And if you enjoyed this episode, if you’re happy to see me back in your podcast listening app, take a screenshot of this right now posted on Instagram, tag me at vid, bro mom so that I can see that you’re listening and I can say hi to you and thanks for being here and we’ll talk soon.

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