Having an online presence is important for any sports organization. In more recent years, it’s primarily how parents and athletes find out what opportunities are available to them. Having online tools such as a website and social media channels increase your organization’s visibility.
YouTube is the primary video sharing platform and can be used to help shape the brand of your organization. It can be more complex than other social media platforms due to video editing capabilities - but it’s impactful if done right!
But where should you start? No worries, we’ve got this part covered! We’ve created a comprehensive guide to starting a YouTube channel from creating your profile to optimizing your content.
How to Create a YouTube Channel
Creating a YouTube channel is easy, free and one of the first steps to take when establishing your sports organization brand. A YouTube channel enables you to have a public presence where you can share videos and anyone can watch your content.
Before you can create a channel, you’ll first need to create a profile. This first step allows you to watch, like and subscribe to other channels.
- Go to Youtube and click the Sign-in button on the top right
- Choose Create Account and select to manage my business as the reason
- Fill out your personal information and create a username/password combination that you will use to login moving forward
Once you’re logged in you can now create a channel by clicking on your profile in the top right-hand corner and choosing Create a Channel. Your next step will be to add an image and update your channel’s name.
Need Help? Follow YouTube's basic guide to creating your channel.
Once your channel is created, you’ll have the ability to customize your channel to include a banner image, an About section and other helpful links. When you reach 100 subscribers, you can change your channel’s URL to something more custom and memorable.
How Often to Upload Videos
If you’re someone whose career is on YouTube, you may upload videos daily in order to provide a continual stream of content to your audience. In most cases, a sports organization should aim to upload videos at a minimum of once a month. Ideally, YouTube’s algorithm will reward channels that upload on a weekly basis but your posting schedule will depend on the amount of effort you can put into your channel.
The most important attribute that YouTube looks for is momentum and consistency. YouTube rewards channels that have a high subscriber amount, longer average view duration and a consistent upload schedule. If uploading once per month allows you to be consistent, then that is the strategy you should take.
Once you create your YouTube channel you'll want to focus in increasing subscribers.
KPIs, or key performance indicators, are used to measure video content performance. You can click this link to learn more about the different metrics that YouTube values and uses to rank channels and videos.
What Type of Content to Add
While there have been studies to determine the best type of content to have on your channel, our recommendation is to produce content that is valuable to your audience. When you begin to create content that your viewers want to watch, you’ll see the most organic growth.
Organic growth is when your channel grows without paid advertising. Content creators will see this from posting regularly, engaging with your audience by responding to comments, having attention-grabbing video titles and resharing your videos to other social media platforms.
YouTube allows you to create Playlists within your channel to help organize the different types of content that you post. An example of categories that a youth sports team may have are:
- Parent testimonials - short videos to use to help promote your organization
- Action videos - highlights or recordings of games, meets or practices
- Staff introductions - used to highlight coaches, board members or volunteers
- Live streams - used to live stream games for those who can’t attend in-person
- Educational content - information on drills, equipment or other helpful information
- AI Video - You can use an AI video generator to turn text or image content into videos fast
How to Embed Videos on Your Youth Sports Website
Once you have content on your channel, you’ll want to share it with your organization. The best way to do this is to add it to your website. All public YouTube videos have a "Share button" which will allow you to share the video in a variety of ways. In this instance, the best way to share videos is to embed them directly into the website.
To do this, you will need to click the "Share" button under the video and select the embed option. Once there, you can copy the code and then paste it into your website’s code editor.
Our sports website builder allows you to embed videos quickly through our custom page templates.
How to See Success with YouTube
Most organizations have more than one social media channel such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok. While it’s great to reach your audience in different ways, it’s more important to make sure that you have a consistent brand voice and online presence. You’ll begin to see success when you prioritize your digital channels and take steps to make sure that they work together.
You can post a YouTube video and garner views but taking it to the next level is sharing it on your website, reposting it to Facebook and sending out an email or text message letting your contacts know that there is a new video out. Posting videos alone won’t be a game changer to your organization but knowing how to utilize your other online tools will be the spark that you’ll need to get started!
