How to create a successful YouTube channel for photographers?

Nowadays the professional who does not use their social networks to attract more customers will be closing many doors, this is so and if you also like to make videos to explain your work or to offer quality content to your followers, a YouTube channel for photographers is what you need right now.

Currently a YouTube channel is a tool with many possibilities that will allow you to expose and publicise your work as a photographer. That’s why we at Arcadina want to give you a series of essential tips to help you succeed with your YouTube channel if you are a photographer or photography enthusiast. And by the way, don’t miss the last of the tips to create a YouTube channel for photographers, it is undoubtedly the best of all.

“Learn how to create a YouTube channel for photographers with a hook.”

Steps to create a YouTube channel for photographers

If you know how to plan your YouTube channel for photographers well, you can make it very beneficial, not only for you but also for the users who follow you on social media. Therefore, when organising the content you have to take into account that it should be different from the type of information that users can find on your blog or on the rest of your social networks.

But first of all, before you can start posting videos, you first need to create your channel by following these simple steps:

1. Create a YouTube account.

2.  Go to “My account”.

3.  Click on “Create channel”.

4.  Enter the name you want to give your new channel. Think of a name or phrase that is easy for your subscribers to remember and aligns with your own brand identity.

5.  Add a short description of the contents you are going to deal with in it.

6.  Upload a profile picture and a header.

7. Go to the “Customise channel” option. Here you will be able to customise 3 tabs: “Design”, where you can create several highlighted sections. In “Branding” you will be able to upload a watermark that will appear in the bottom right corner of your videos. “Basic information”, here you will be able to edit the description you wrote when you created the channel and add links to your website and networks.

8.  Click on the camera icon with the “+” symbol to upload your first video.

Once you have your YouTube channel for photographers up and running, it is important that you plan a strategy to get more and more subscribers to your channel.

Here we are going to share with you 5 steps that will help you to create your first contents for this social network.

1# Establish your personal brand also on YouTube

When publishing in different media such as the website, blog or other social networks, it is important that you always use a series of elements that help you to create your corporate image and help your followers to identify you more easily.

When uploading information to YouTube you will be able to customise a series of elements that will form part of your personal brand, some of which we mentioned in the previous section:

• Name of the channel.
• Description of what the channel will be about.
• Profile picture.
• Cover image of the channel.
• Links to your website and social networks.
• Playlists and sections.
• Featured video.
• Thumbnails of the videos.
• Privacy settings and comments.
• Contact information.
• Notification settings.
• Monetisation.
• Analytics settings. It will help you better understand your audience.

Taking the time to set up all these sections of YouTube will help you to ensure that your personal brand is also present on this channel.

2# Think about what your channel is going to be about

When creating content on YouTube you will be able to use various playlists or sections that will help you classify your videos by theme. But before you start thinking about the content you are going to record, it is important that you think about the purpose of the channel and have a clear idea of what you want to achieve on this social network. From there, you can start shaping the different content. Here are some ideas that may inspire you:

• Explain how you have taken a particular series of photographs. This type of content may be of interest to photographers who are just starting out, and if you teach courses to amateurs it is a way of capturing their attention.
• Create small training videos focused on other photographers.
• Give advice to clients to help them to come to your shoots. For example, if you do fashion photography and you want to offer a series of recommendations to the models.
• Tips for clients, e.g. “5 tips if you are getting married in winter”.
• If you do group sessions for landscape photography or to show other colleagues, you can show part of the outing in a video.
• Invite other colleagues or experts who are related to your sector to participate in your channel.
• Etc.

As you can see, depending on the type of service you offer, you will be able to create one type of content or another.

Another great advantage of having the content already thought out is that you will spend much less time creating videos for your channel.

3# Create a publication calendar

As well as being clear about what kind of videos you will be recording to upload to your YouTube channel, it is also important to establish which days you will be posting and how often.

To have everything well organised and to avoid the extra work that publishing these videos will mean for your business, it is essential that you draw up a calendar or publication schedule where every month or every quarter, you dedicate a morning to plan the content of your next videos.

In this calendar, you can keep track of all the little tasks that you will have to prepare until the video is finally uploaded to your YouTube channel.

• Date of creation of the video.
• Date of publication of the video.
• Subject of the video.
• Title of the video.
• Simple outline in which you will write down what topics you are going to cover in the video.
• Summary to be added to the description of the video once it is uploaded to your channel.

This will make it much easier and quicker for you to record a video on the day you plan to shoot it.

4# Shoot and edit your first videos

Especially if you have not yet created a channel or have not yet uploaded your first content, it is ideal that you have recorded and edited a series of videos so that you can upload them periodically to the channel.

Before you start editing your videos, you can consider using b-rool or supplementary material to the main video that will make it even richer in content. For example, you can show yourself in the foreground talking about how to take a particular photograph and then show yourself taking a photo with the same characteristics.

When editing your videos it is important that you learn how to use a video editor according to the type of content you are going to create. Nowadays you will find several free programmes such as OBS Studio and also paid programmes such as Adobe Premiere Pro for example.

5# Upload videos to YouTube

Once you have a well-organised schedule and the first videos recorded and edited, it is time to gradually upload content to your channel.

To upload a video, just log in to your YouTube account, look for the drop-down “create” icon in the shape of a video camera and click on the “Upload video” option. On the next screen is where you will be able to choose the video file from your computer. At that moment the video will start to be uploaded on the platform while you fill in a series of data such as the title, description, thumbnail, etc.

In “More options / Tags” is where we recommend that you include a series of terms (keywords) by which you want users to find the content in question.

The YouTube panel will allow you to schedule the publication of videos or even leave them hidden and then publish them when you see fit.

Once you have uploaded it, remember to interact with your followers and respond as much as possible to their comments.

5 extra tips to improve your YouTube channel for photographers

If you want to gradually increase the number of subscribers to your YouTube channel and gradually increase the viewing time of your videos, you can put into practice some of the following tricks that we are going to give you.

1# Build anticipation from the outset

A very good way to get users to watch your videos, if they are not complete, at least a large part of the time they last, is to offer valuable information right at the start.

Although on YouTube users watch videos for longer, on most social networks the most common trend is impatience, so you have to start your videos by giving some very interesting information or even giving a small preview of the type of content that your followers will be able to see if they continue watching the video, even if you introduce yourself after giving it.

2# Be mindful of the day and time you post your videos

In the audience section within the statistics section of your channel, you will find a section called “hours of activity of your users on YouTube”. Here you will be able to see which days and times your users are most active on this channel.

Study this table and try to post your videos at times with high audience levels so that your views increase as well. It is true that until you have a volume of videos and views YouTube will not show you this kind of information.

Because although you may think that in a YouTube channel for photographers users will be able to consult the content at any time, it is true that YouTube takes into account during the first week the amount of views that the video has, this information will be used to finish positioning your video.

3# Research your target audience before filming

Even if you have a lot of ideas right now about what to create a YouTube video about, the truth is that you don’t know for sure if your subscribers will actually like that type of content. That’s why it’s important that before you do any planning you learn to research what kind of videos your users want to see.

You can do this by listening to podcasts or watching YouTube videos that relate to your niche or your followers, and you can also encourage them in the videos to leave their suggestions for future content in the comments. You should also keep an eye out for topics that are trending in your niche or have recently become fashionable. Also, when creating the outline or script of your video, make sure that you offer valuable information.

4# Measure the reach of your YouTube videos

If you go to the statistics section of your YouTube channel dashboard, on the right hand side of the screen you will see a series of information about the views your channel is getting. Here, the most curious data and the one you should look at to try to improve is the percentage of clicks.

A good figure for this parameter could be around 7%. You will be able to increase this percentage if you apply, little by little, each of the recommendations in this post.

5# Save the best advice for last

Yes, leaving the best advice until the end and also mentioning it at the beginning of the video (as we have done in this article) is a technique that works very well. This way you will get many more people to the end of the video.

Undoubtedly, this last recommendation, together with the recommendation to start the video with a valuable piece of information, will make your subscribers stay much longer watching your video.

Create your own YouTube channel for photographers today!

A YouTube channel for photographers can be a great way to showcase your work, organise interviews with leading professionals in your sector and create a community of followers to whom you can then sell your products and/or services much more easily.

As a last recommendation, remember to tell your followers to follow your channel and to activate the little bell so that YouTube notifies them of the next video.

If you would like to visit our Arcadina channel you will find interviews with great photographers, training video tutorials and much more content.

>> See Arcadina’s YouTube channel

Today we are going to share with you the interview with Manuel Boutureira.

>> ‘Arcadina is a good product and good service’, Manu Boutureira

And to finish with a question: How many followers does your YouTube channel for photographers have? We’d love to subscribe to it if you share it in the comments.

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