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YouTube Series: YouTube Resources… Valuable Insights or Lessons in Futility?

Posted: 21 Feb 2014 11:54 AM PST

We all know that there are many tools, tips, tricks, books, resources, widgets, and more, available to use with YouTube. There are community groups, Facebook groups, ebook, courses… so many resources available. You do not have to step too far out of your virtual front door to bump into something that has the title “YouTube” in it. But, did you know just how many resources are available from YouTube (Google) themselves? In this article, I’ll show you just a few of the resources that are available to help you create content for your YouTube channel. You can decide if these are valuable insights, or lessons in futility.

Video Education and Tools...free resources from YouTube

Let’s Start at the Beginning.. er, “Hub”

YouTube has what they call the “Creator Hub.” This hub is broken down into three areas:

Education
Programs and Tools
Working Together

Educate

It always helps to know what you are doing, before starting any sort of project, let alone YouTube videos, right? Well, Google/YouTube helps you out there by providing educational resources to get you going. Also, another advantage to these resources is that YouTube is not likely to be steering you wrong. In other words, while you may have to keep a wary eye on the YouTube rule book while reading a bestselling Amazon book on YouTube, you should be safe with a YouTube resource, that what you are learning is consistent with the terms of use from YouTube.

Within the Education module, you are presented with different options depending on your skill set and objective. If you are a newbie, YouTube presents a “start here” module to get you up and running. This includes the YouTube Basics.

Maybe you have been using YouTube for a while and you want to take it to the next level and learn how to grow your community or increase engagement. YouTube has answers for those needs, as well, with the topics like Build a Sustainable Community.

If you want to go through more of a virtual classroom type process and learn about YouTube, step-by-step, you can check out the Creator Academy, by YouTube.

Create

You could spend hours on the Programs and Tools page of YouTube. Here you will find links to content creation tools (a.k.a. making videos), as well as fan finder tool(s). And, looking at what YouTube offers also inspires you to “Google” more tools that are available on the internet. The sky is the limit as far as tools available, especially when considering the plethora of free tools, as well as adding in paid tools. The YouTube Programs and Tools page is a great place to start that journey. Also check out the “Next Creator” process for more creative juice inspiration.

Have an iPhone and want a free tool that can help you capture videos “on the go?” Check out “Capture.”

Recognition

When you feel like you have mastered, at the least, the basics in YouTube production (content creation) and promotion (subscriber engagement), you are ready to participate in fun activities and become a part of the “On the Rise” program. This is a great way to let your talents shine and have the opportunity to be featured to the rest of the world. It is also the opportunity to see what other people are doing and learn from their techniques and successes. This allows for a competitive, and yet fun, engaging way to work together as YouTube Content Creators in a collaborative manner that helps you to hone your skills.

Taking it to the next level

After all of the process of educating yourself, practicing your skills, learning (and utilizing) promotional and creation tools, and you find yourself… addicted… to this process and feeling like you may be the next Steven Spielberg.. Well, you have an option. It is called “YouTube Space” and is a great place to start your professional web series. There are some requirements, as far as subscribers, etc., but if video is in your future, this may be something that you want to consider, especially if you have the advantage of living close enough to one of the cities where YouTube Space is located. If that is the case, this may rank higher on your list of goals for this 2014. And, we will be watching..