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Getting Started with YouTube

Since our office launched California's official YouTube channel, we have had many questions about how to get started. First off, here are some definitions:

  • Account: You can create a free YouTube account at http://youtube.com/signup.
  • Channel: A channel is a user's page. It contains a user's profile information, videos, favorites, etc.
  • Friends: You can invite other users to be your friends. This allows you to share private videos with each other.
  • Playlist: You can add videos to playlists http://youtube.com/my_playlists to play them in order or share the list of videos with your friends.

There are two ways to upload your videos to YouTube:

USE CALIFORNIA'S CHANNEL

Benefits: Ease of use, and California's channel can host videos of up to 1024MB.

  1. Send a link to your video file to info@eservices.ca.gov, including the video name, description, and keyword tags. We will let you know when it is posted (usually within hours). That's it.

CREATE YOUR OWN YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Benefits: Control over your own channel, department branding, video uploads, comments, subscriptions.

  1. Create a YouTube account at http://youtube.com/signup. Your username will be your channel name. For example, our user name is californiagovernment, and our channel is www.youtube.com/californiagovernment.
  2. Design your channel, upload a profile picture, and add a description.
  3. Upload videos that are less than 15 minutes in length. Supported YouTube File Formats.
  4. Organize your videos and create video playlists.
  5. There is more you can do, and YouTube has a help center that can answer most of your questions.
  6. Let the eServices Office know what your channel is. California's channel is the "portal" to all of the State YouTube channels, and we want to make sure we link to all of them.

BRANDING YOUR CHANNEL

After you create your account and begin posting videos, contact YouTube to apply for a branded channel. Becoming a branded channel means that you will be allowed to upload a branded banner to your channel (like the California channel). You will also be given the ability to upload longer videos to your site. To enter your application for a branded channel, please send an email to government@youtube.com with the following 5 pieces of information:

  1. The name of your government, government department, or agency.
  2. Your .gov website URL.
  3. The account name you've registered on YouTube (i.e., your YouTube username).
  4. The email address you are using to manage the account.
  5. Any other information about your plans to launch the channel, and what types of content you plan to post.

For more information and good practices, please visit http://www.webtools.ca.gov/Multimedia/Video_Services.asp.