I’ve had a YouTube channel for the better part of 6-7 months now and whilst I wasn’t posting content to it seriously, I decided to to do so. There was one problem, I had no idea where to start and apart from reading a few articles on the interwebs most of the stuff has been learn as you go.
I then recalled that YouTube has a Creator Academy offering free online courses to help serious users create better videos and improve channel performance. I’m yet to watch the courses but I think for anyone looking to understand how to grow their channel, this is probably one of the best places to start considering that it’s made by YouTube and its free.
So what kind of content is available?
So, I’ll be taking the course and sharing in-depth thoughts later on but from glossing over the Creator Academy you’ll learn the following;
- A quickstart guide to YouTube – You’ll learnhow to quickly set up your channel, upload videos and align your branding. Oh and some important guidelines for being part of the YouTube community.
- Getting noticed – Enhance your channel’s search and discovery potential on YouTube using metadata, collaborations, captions and promotions.
- Earning money on YouTube – You’ll learn about being part of YouTube Partner Program (YPP) and what you need to actually qualify for Monetization
- Policies & Guidelines – You’ll learn more about the general policies of YouTube along with navigation of Copyright and how to manage copyright permission
- and more…
The majority of the courses I came across have an expected completion time of 15-90 minutes which means you’ll be able to breeze through most of the content.
The courses don’t come with any certifications but that’s not really the point. The point is for creators to put what they’re learning in to practice so the lack of certificates makes perfect sense from where I’m seated.
Beyond the video lectures there are also Learning Toolkits which are sets of resources designed to help you optimise your channels.
Overall, YouTube Creator Academy looks like a pretty compelling place for those looking to get started out or at least take their existing channels more seriously.
