3 YouTube Enhancements and What It Means for Brands

You have to hand it to Google. They are stealth like in every way. Tiny little updates here and there and then a whammy one. This is a tiny one, but significant nonetheless as Google makes its move to rule the world with three significant changes to YouTube.

YouTube is the second leading search engine in the world and it’s owned by Google. Google has already integrated YouTube with their social network platform Google+ and in December they unveiled a few enhancements to YouTube that I think you’ll like.

Tip: And if you don’t already have your own YouTube branded channel for your business and you have video content – go get one now! Even if you are not ready, claiming that YouTube channel name is imperative so that someone else doesn’t do it first.

New Features:

1. New Channel Feed – any content you share, including uploads, comments, faves, likes, etc will be posted and seen now by your subscribers on their homepage in their Feed. Same for you, anyone you are subscribed to, you will now see their updates, likes, etc in your channel feed. Sounds like Twitter or Facebook’s subscription service doesn’t it?
2. New Name & Description – previously you could only give a description about the user (200 characters), but now you can give a description (1,000 characters) about the channel which will allow you to describe your brand and what you offer a bit better.
3. Add Links and Accounts – here you can add other accounts that might be sharing videos about your business or industry and you can add custom links to your social media outlets, websites, + more.
   Tip: Instead of saying “Follow us on x” say something different like, “Learn more on X” or Get Industry News on X” and link to your accounts. See Social Strand’s Video page as an example. http://www.youtube.com/socialstrandmedia