Upload Your Videos to YouTube – Part Two
Sign Up with YouTube
If you don't already have an account with YouTube, you'll need to sign up to become a member. Click "Sign Up" at the top of YouTube's main page. There's no cost or obligation, though the site does request some personal information, such as your e-mail address, zip code, gender, and date of birth. You'll have an opportunity to read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which cover ownership rights to the video, restrictions on the content you can upload, and how your personal information might be used by YouTube and third-party companies. Once you've selected a username and password, a verification e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address you've provided. Click on the link in that message, and you'll be ready to start uploading.
Upload Your Video
Choose words for your video's title, description, and tags that will help it stand out from the other videos.
Log into your account from YouTube's opening page, and click the yellow Upload button in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. You'll need to add a title, description and category along with tags for your video. The title and description will be displayed alongside your video, so try to have them zero in on what makes your video worth watching. If it's an event in a park, you might mention both the event and park by name in the title. If your video is highly unusual, explain why in the description. You select the category from a menu list, so choose the category that seems to be the best fit. The tags are keywords that help people find your video, so think about all the different word associations that might lead users to your content.
You'll have additional options, such as whether to make your video public or private, whether to allow comments, and whether to have your video available for viewing on cell phones and televisions. Once you're done, click the "Upload a video..." button, and you'll progress to another page that will help you browse your hard drive for the file you want to upload. Even with a broadband connection, it could take anywhere from a few minutes to over an hour to upload the file, depending on the file size and connection speed. Once the upload is complete, you'll be provided with some HTML code you can embed into your Web site, so visitors can go directly to the video's Web page on YouTube.
Test Your Video
After the upload is complete, your video will have its own Web page. Now you're ready to be discovered.
To try out your video, select Account from the YouTube menu options positioned across the top of the screen. Then choose My Videos from the pull-down menu. From there, you can click on the video title to go to the page where YouTube visitors can access your clip. Run the video to see if it plays as expected. The address in your browser's location bar is your video's URL, which you can copy and paste it into an e-mail for friends and family. If you've chosen interesting tags for the video, you should see an increase in the views count within an hour or two. You can return to My Videos at any time and edit the video's title, description, category, and tags. You'll also find an Insight button, which shows you a breakdown, by country, of where your video has been viewed since you uploaded it.
The My Videos page also lets you delete the video, which is useful if you decide to resubmit it in a re-edited form, or if you want to experiment with different compression rates or file formats. Once your video has been online for a while, don't be surprised if you receive requests for additional footage or background information. Think of your video as a work in progress, as well as a learning experience that may attract people with similar interests. As you add videos under your YouTube username, you may even develop an audience that eagerly awaits your next masterpiece.