Module 4 - Making your channel stand apart from the competition

Why does being different matter so much on YouTube?

The golden rule is do not copy your competition. Hey everyone, Shane again, and welcome to the next part of your YouTube ads course. I've got some slides in front of me here that I'm going to share, and the first thing I want to talk about is being different, because I love championing the rule of being different.

When it comes to your YouTube channel, you really have to make sure you are as unique as possible, otherwise you've got nothing to offer a viewer as a reason to watch your channel instead of your competitors. Really think about what your unique selling proposition is. What makes you, your company, your brand or your service very different from anyone else out there? Because that is what is going to make you stand out and make people come back to your content.

If you can offer unique content, then always do that. The more unique you can be, the better, because YouTube is filled with lots of great content and hours upon hours are uploaded every day. If you can make your content very unique, you have a stronger chance of cultivating an audience who want to keep coming back and listening to you.

When you do create this content, make sure you are always authentic to you and your brand. People want to hear from real brands, real people and real stories. YouTube is such an authentic platform, so make sure you remain as authentic as possible in all that you do and share on there.

How do you become the expert in your field?

You become the expert by answering people's questions, because in any marketing, if you can become the expert then you can soon become a leader within your field.

One of the ways to do this is to go to Google, ask a question that you think your audience are going to ask, and then structure content around that. When you ask the question in Google, you can also see other similar questions that people are typing in. You could literally become the expert by answering all of these questions with multiple pieces of content on your YouTube channel.

If you can offer solutions to their problems within your videos, that may be that you are offering help, but then including a call to action to get them to contact you, to buy a product, to enquire about your service or to read more. By offering the solutions to those problems, not only are you positioning yourself as an expert, but within a call to action you can then offer that solution to help them through a service, a product or a further call, whatever that might be. That will then further increase your credibility as a brand, a business or an individual.

Curate the content with other guest experts too. If you are working within a field and there are other people who are influential in it, get them to join your channel. One of the things about this is that people want exposure in other places, so by inviting them onto your channel, that collaboration can really help both parties and you build your credibility as experts together.

How do you keep the channel true to your brand?

Say what you mean, mean what you say, and say what you do. In your channel, make sure that you are true to your branding in all content, because this will really help you build trust with your audience.

Don't include any content for the sake of it. It really is not worthwhile. You might as well just delete any old content that you don't think is true to your brand and true to what you are all about. When you're setting out on developing your content strategy for your YouTube channel, and for any advertisements you're putting together, make sure that it is always true to your key brand pillars.

What does consistency look like in practice?

Consistency runs on two tracks, how the channel looks and how often you post.

Visually it's very important to be consistent so that a viewer easily recognises your videos and your brand. If a viewer was to squint their eyes, would they be able to take a guess that it was your channel? That's how you really need to think about it. Think about how a big brand would approach their marketing and be very consistent across the campaign, then do the same with your own channel. That consistency helps add to the quality of the channel and what people see, because people are very visual by nature, and the more consistent you can be visually the better.

When it comes to consistency, also think about it from a frequency point of view. Make sure you are consistently posting new content onto your channel to keep subscribers coming back. This will help with increased watch time and repeat visitors, and it's further going to help complement any other SEO activity you're doing.

Take our own YouTube channel as an example. What you can see here is that it's very strong visually, it includes all of our colour palette, and there's a continuing theme going on whereby people from the team are included in the video and still. As a channel it's very colourful, it's on brand, and we're talking about YouTube all the time, so we are therefore seen as experts within YouTube and as specialists around that topic.

What should your channel header say?

Your header image should carry the one thing you want a visitor to take away. On our own channel we have a header image, and you can see straight away that we are a specialist YouTube media agency that delivers measurable results. It stands out, it's very clear and it's very impactful.

Think about what is the one thing that you want a visitor coming onto your channel to take away. What's the one thing you want to tell them? Then make sure you include that in your header image.

What is the activity for this session?

Go and visit at least four of your competitors' YouTube channels and take a look at them. Watch a few videos on there and see what they are talking about. Are they consistent? What kind of content are they posting? Which content is getting good views, and which ones aren't getting so many?

Then start to map out ideas on how your channel can be different based on your USP, and list ideas on what people need help answering and where they need your expertise. That can then help pad out what you think the channel content should be for your strategy.

Visually, think about how your channel will look. If you're filming videos yourselves, what will be in the background? If you're able to use a creative team and edit with creative, is it that you bookend the creative content with some sharp branding? Are graphics used throughout? Are you using subtitles on screen, how do they look, and are you going to consistently use the same subtitling service for each video? Make sure that you're visually strong, and this will then help you stand out from the crowd.

So enjoy your activity, and let me know how you get on.