Super Pawsitive
I Love YTtalk
I feel like I should give a disclaimer:
I am NOT an expert at this. This article should be taken with a grain of salt!
I am NOT an expert at this. This article should be taken with a grain of salt!
That being said. WELCOME. This is yet another article by yours truly! Today, we're going to be covering the topic of Branding and why the title might seem offensive at first. Though keep in mind this is PURELY so I can work towards writing more click-bait titles on YouTube. That's right. I'm practicing on you.
Branding. This is a word that whether you use it or not is very prominent everywhere. Everyone has seen examples of corporate branding whether they like it or not. Whether you've seen McDonald's and their golden arches, to Markiplier and his pink mustache. Like it or not Markimoo. That pink mustache is part of your brand now, and he's well aware of it.
So, you might be wondering how branding pertains to yourself as a YouTube - er. Well, that's actually simple enough. Think of it like this. Your channel and it's appearance is THEIR* first impressions of you. Whether you like it or not, a sleek looking channel is going to go much farther than someone without a nice banner/logo.
(*Their as in new viewers, other channels, etc.)
So, let's answer the first question and move on downwards from there. Deal? Cool.
What is branding, and why should I care/put forth the effort?
Well, branding is your image, your person, your being, the essence that is YOU. This is something a lot of people need to get down. Your banner should reflect who you are and what you do. Personally, I am a BIG fan of minimalist design. Where keeping things down makes what is there pop out more. While this might not be reflected in my current banner (Which trust me, I'm still working on it.) I do try and keep things relatively simple.
If you don't care for your branding, who will care for your channel? This SOUNDS mean, I know. Trust me I'm well aware of how mean it sounds. Though, the sad reality is that it's true. If your stuff does not look nice and professional as if you're promoting a BRAND, you're going to be treated poorly. I've seen many a channel have poor branding that looks like it was made in paint. They probably were now that I think about it. Think of your branding as a quick representation of your content. If your branding looks good. The average viewer is going to give you more of a chance to entice them than if it looks terrible.
After all, I feel like we're all here to entertain, inform and have fun with viewers or a potential audience. Right? You wanna make sure you give people a reason to care.
So, how about we talk about what should be in a banner? (My banner is included as an example.)
Right, I feel like I should state that I'm NEVER happy with how my banner looks.
This might just be my perfectionist personality, but I compulsively work on my branding because it's never at a point where I truly enjoy it. I'm not good at photoshop or making brand logos and such. Everything I've done for my channel has been self-taught at this point.
Anyways, I want you all to notice two things. How the branding is consistent across the icon and banner. And how I mention what I do within it.
I like having what I call "De-motivational Branding" which is basically branding that pokes fun at itself for not knowing quite what it is or what it is supposed to do. I really enjoy this kind of humor. So, it only makes sense that in my banner, under my branding name I say something that not only tells my viewers what I do, but it reflects a bit of my personality.
I might be getting off track. The point here is, you're supposed to brand yourself so that people can tell from a glance what you do. There's probably people that do it much better than I do, but that's part of the reason that most people are probably better than me at this. I definitely have that skill gap in between what I can make and what I want. I'LL BE THERE EVENTUALLY!
Alright, now that we got this out of the way. Let me explain my title.
This is probably what got a lot of you in here, mostly because the title can be taken as offensive without context. I understand that, but I needed to catch your attention quickly. Did it work?
I shall go ahead and quote my other article on SEO for a moment here.
This is the general idea. Your branding should be consistent across the board so that your image is recognizable. Ever notice, how in most commercials, it usually always ends with the brand logo on screen? This happens with most major companies and adverts.
The idea here is that they want you to remember them. This works for YouTube in about the same way. People are more likely to return/click on a video if your branding is consistent across the board. If you love a brand of chocolate, and you're in the aisle about to purchase your groceries when you decide to look at the snacks on the side. Chances are you're going to gravitate to your favorite brand.
Having consistent branding that's recognizable and appealing will mean you get a better return investment from your viewers. This means your titles, thumbnails, and banner should be consistent across the board.
Branding is VITAL to the success of a channel. This is a fact. I didn't launch my channel until I had a general guideline to how I wanted my branding to look.
There's probably so much more to this that I'm missing, but goodness knows I'm only human.
I hope this article was semi-informative to a good portion of you. I'll be sure to do more of these as I see fit. If there's any information you think I've glossed over feel free to let me know and I'll return to this article with edits.
I love you boo boo.
