Chris Syme, former Montana State athletic communications professional, served as CoSIDA's New Media Committee chair for four years (2009-2013). She now heads a strategic communications agency in Bozeman, Montana. The CKSyme Media Group specializes in social media strategies and training with a crisis/reputation expertise. Her new book, Practice Safe Social: How to Use Social Media Responsibly to Protect Your Reputation and Build Loyalty, is available now at Amazon.com.
Follow Syme on Twitter.
See article online: Lessons from the Big Sky Conference YouTube channels
Sports are visual. And good visuals can tell a story, draw emotion, inform, entertain, and engage fans in a way text cannot. In February 2013, ComScore reported that 82 million Americans watch 1.6 billion videos daily. Over 90 percent of internet traffic is video. Video makes up 50 percent of mobile traffic. So what better way to engage your fans than with a top notch YouTube channel? Today, we’ll take a look at the best of the Big Sky conference YouTube channels.
Many college athletic departments use YouTube to embed videos on their websites, but not everybody is using their YouTube channel to its full potential. A well done YouTube Channel can be a portal to get your fans watching more video, and sharing more often, according to YouTube.
Aim to make your YouTube channel look as good as your website home page. YouTube has many options for making your channel a draw for fans:
- Subscription and sharing functions for fans-make sure you encourage fans to share videos.
- Highlight video features-choose one video to give your fans a professional welcome and pique their interest.
- Interactive channel art-make best use of that first impression.
- The ability to choose custom thumbnails for a better looking “Recent uploads” section.
To give you a better idea of what you can do, let’s have a look at the top YouTube channels in the Big Sky Conference. Here are the best performers in four categories: best visual first impression, best channel art branding, best use of the highlight video, and best thumbnail previews.
1. Best Visual First impression: Idaho State University
There were a few outstanding YouTube channels to choose from here, but Idaho State has the best “first impression” of all. The cover photo has a website/Facebook cover photo feel. Great branding here. Also, they showcase their branded hashtags and have live buttons that direct fans back to their website and three other main social channels: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Their highlight video (right below cover photo) is their fall football promotional video featuring the story of ISU football through the eyes of the players . Some schools use their weekly highlight shows or their latest press conference video as a highlight/welcome video, but I think fans are more drawn to an emotional connection up front. This is good stuff you can copy.
Honorable mention: Portland State University
2. Best Channel Art Branding: University of North Dakota
The University of North Dakota has a YouTube channel that works seamlessly with their distinctive website branding. I am also a big fan of using the cover photo as promotional space—this one also has a link back to the website in the right corner. My only concern: their welcome video is their weekly highlight show, but it was not the current one. The latest video is down in the recent upload sections. If you’re going to do a weekly highlight show as a welcome video, make it the most current. Details are important.
Honorable mention: Idaho State University (see above)
3. Best Use of the Highlight Video: Portland State University (link to video)
Portland State’s welcome video is actually a fire-up for their coming football game. Each one is unique, well done, and motivational. The use of a weekly video is a step up from the Idaho State seasonal video, but both involve the kind of story telling that makes video the number one media on the internet.
Honorable Mention: Southern Utah University is using their prime spot to promote their “team behind the teams”—their scholarship association. It’s a well produced video that features student-athletes and gives a good call-to-action. My only problem here is that the channel art is not optimized. No cover photo.
4. Best Thumbnail Previews: Tie: University of North Dakota and Portland State University
Thumbnails are an important piece of the appearance of your page. Action scenes where players look like ants and coaches or players being interviewed with eyes shut or awkward facial expressions are a turn-off. Both these schools has great video libraries on their YouTube channels and the diversity here shows a couple different ways you can approach your channel organization. UND’s channel has a variety of video content–everything from their weekly highlight shows to produced television commercials. Their thumbnails are well chosen. Just remember that thumbnails can be set for each specific video. If you have several regular series you run, you may want to consider using branded thumbnails, such as the ones seen here.
PSU’s video library is organized by sport. All the fall sports have a section and there is also a “popular uploads” section.
A Couple Overall Suggestions
Keep your content current. If you’re going to have a YouTube channel , your recent uploads should not be from the 2012-13 season. This is called droopy content—you have a channel, but it isn’t current. It’s a fan snoozer.
Second, strive for a variety of content. We all have video of postgame pressers or comments from student-athletes at practice. That’s good for your core fans, but what about the people you’re trying to engage as new fans? Video has an advantage: visual story telling. Use it well. Note: there’s nothing wrong with using your branded YouTube channel solely for weekly highlight shows or press conferences. Just keep in mind that you may only draw your core fans with that content. And if that’s your goal with YouTube, you have succeeded. There is, however, more potential there. Look around and see what others are doing and copy it.
Also, the order and content of YouTube’s “Recent uploads” preview section can be set manually. If you end up with a dozen press conference video snippets, you may want to keep at least one or two feature-type videos in your recent uploads to tease fans who are looking for some human stories.
Help Is On The Way
One of the biggest problems I saw across the board was unfinished (or lack of) branding with channel art. An avatar is not enough. Just look at the visual difference between the ISU or UND and those with no branding. Make the best possible first impressions on all your social media channels with good visual branding, especially if you have a link from your website to your YouTube channel. Need help? Here is a great piece from YouTube with the dimensions of all the pieces of channel art and how to upload them. At minimum, I would suggest getting a cover photo with website URL attached and a logo avatar. Speaking of cover photos, consider using your Facebook and YouTube cover photos to promote special events or teams. Treat that real estate as prime, and don’t be afraid to change them on a regular basis. Just make sure you keep the branding consistent with your other online channels.
As an overall help, here is a helpful piece from Mashable on how to put together a good YouTube channel design. Feel free to post a link to your YouTube channel in the comments. The more we see, the more we learn.