I’m writing this post with the expectation that everyone else was doing things the right way already, but maybe not because they’d never thought about doing what I was trying to do. Yeah, clear as mud, but don’t worry because you know I’m about to explain things.
 |
When I loaded my first video back in January, I came into things with some rules for what I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to see any negative comments on my YouTube channel. I didn’t want a lot of nonsense in any fashion. I didn’t see myself putting any advertising into the video unless I was going to do a review. And I wanted control over who would see my videos.
So, when I uploaded my videos to YouTube, I changed the setting to “unpublished”, which meant people could only find the videos if I basically sent them the link, or if I embedded the video somewhere. In my mind, that was the best way to go and still have control over everything.
And it worked; kind of. I had control, but not total control. What was lacking?
It seems that even though one has an account, if you select unpublished you can only find one video at a time. And I don’t only mean visitors, I mean the account holder as well. I’d been wondering why I could only see one video even though I’d uploaded 5 videos; actually, I wondered after the 3rd video but I kept questioning myself on it. Finally with this one I just had to solve the issue.
The issue was with “unpublished”. It seems that if you select that one you’re also saying you don’t want visitors that see that particular video, whether they see it elsewhere or decide to pop over to YouTube, to see anything else you might have produced. It doesn’t even tell people you’ve got another video up.
Well, that wasn’t quite control, was it? So I went in and took a look at all the settings. I found two things. One, publishing so any visitor can see all the videos available was the main option, and thus it’s probably what everyone else already knew. Two, there’s a secondary option which allows you to denote how you want to handle comments. I decided that I would moderate comments; therefore, no comments will show up on YouTube on any videos without being approved.
Yeah, I know, I talk about moderation on blogs all the time so what gives? The difference is that if a comment is over the line on the blog I’ll know about it almost immediately and can go in and remove it if I have to; luckily, I haven’t had to so far. On my YouTube page, nasty stuff could be there for a long time before I saw it; I decided I just wasn’t having that.
I won’t over-censor there though. Since I don’t expect very many people to find anything I’ve got there unless they know me I shouldn’t have many visitors; I can’t figure out what someone would put into a search engine to find it, since it’s not under “Mitch Mitchell”, which is also odd since, if you remember back in January, I said I never even knew I had a YouTube account to begin with. But it eliminates any confusion with the more famous Mitch Mitchell, so that’s good.
Anyway, if you happen to be someone that did what I did and went through what I went through, now you know why you can’t find your other videos. If not, well, you can laugh at me for trying to control everything, but now I am controlling everything; Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha! 🙂
Oh, while I’m talking about YouTube, I shared this video on Facebook about a month ago, and my wife is still laughing about it. And if I got her laughing, then you’ll enjoy it as well; poor dog:
Mitch,
I found this post very helpful. As someone who has never posted in youtube at all, I need to know how to it all. Considering it seems like everyone and everything is going video this is something I better do soon. As always thank you for sharing 🙂
No problem Lynda. You know, if I mess it up first then figure it out, I’m going to share it here. lol
Most people have a YouTube channel so their videos can be seen. Therefore, I’ve never even considered marking my videos as unpublished. Ah, another lesson learned my friend.
As far as the comments go, you can receive an email notification every time someone does comment so you can handle that accordingly at that time. I don’t approve comment on my videos but have had to remove some spammy ones. Luckily, there haven’t been many.
Loved that video, I have also shared that one as well. Just too darn funny so I can see why your wife would enjoy that one.
Thanks Mitch… You Video King you!
Adrienne
Thanks Adrienne. I just see so many videos with the vilest comments and I don’t want any of that associated with my site or my name. If it keeps me from reaching hundreds of thousands of people (yeah, right!), then so be it. But I do want them to be seen, and found by me.
Thanks Dennis. My wife laughs at that clip every time she sees it, and I have to admit that I do as well.
Yeah, this is the right way, I had to figure it one, for a video about a year ago which was visible, but my customer didn’t pay to me. My video was pretty good, so I wanted to keep it for my portfolio, but just show it to customers.
Carl, I probably should have known better than to start messing with things, but I obviously had my reasons so I’m glad I figured things out.
Sometimes websites are overcomplicated and I think many people will not gonna try this and also will not gonna look or will not be able to find the help file.
Hey Mitch, I have about 6 videos online and I plan to do a lot more. I never thought to use the unpublished mode as the whole reason for putting them there was for people to see them. 😉
I don’t get all that many comments, heck, it’s hard enough to get people to see them, although I do have one with over 14000 views. Wish they were all like that.
Sire, maybe at some point I’ll want something like that to happen. Right now it’s more about controlling the message, which I felt was really important for what I’m trying to do overall.
Curious as I created my very first youtube account last night! I’ve not uploaded anything yet as at the moment all my recent vids are in quicktime format (.mov I think) and I need to find something that’ll edit them (if I can’t find something free that will, I’ll probably get the quicktime pro, though it’s very basic).
Apropos finding things – don’t you have to put tags on them? Isn’t that the way people find things on youtube? I know when I’ve searched on youtube that’s how I’ve found things. (By the way, if you use Firefox, there’s a good extension or plug in or whatever it is, for adding a YouTube search bar, searches go directly to the videos and cut out all the unecessary pages there).
So anyway, thanks for this info. I didn’t know about ‘unpublished’ as I’ve not even got to that stage yet, I’m still looking around my channel and settings to see how things work. As you’ll expect, I’ve set it to moderate comments, but just because I loathe some of the rubbish that gets posted on that site – mostly kids, I’m sure – but talk about bad mouths…
I love the video – I’ll send a link to it to my sister as she’s crazy about dogs and loves these humorous things. 🙂
Thanks Mitch.
Hi Val. During the process of your video uploading there’s this menu thing that’s popped up where you can name the video, add tags you hope to be found for, and tell what your video is about. My thing was how I wanted to deliver the video to people, since I wasn’t necessarily putting it there for anyone to find without me sending people to the video, since I’ve posted each video on this blog. And I’m glad you like the dog video; I think I’m going to watch it again myself. 😉
I was about to make a youtube video but I am not sure how to have a good outcome…This can be very helpful to newbies who are inspiring to upload videos…
I hope it helps some people Evan, thanks.
I haven’t completely navigated my youtube account and I haven’t seen the unpublished option. I really want to make my videos private. I will check this later and if I got nothing there I will ask you.
Good luck with it, Tina; make sure you’re not creating videos that only you can view.
Proven as one of the most effective online marketing methods, video marketing should be on your skills list if you want to become successful in your online business. And youtube is the best video sharing site to start your campaign. Thanks Mitch, these are excellent tips. Very useful 🙂
Thanks Jill. I’m late to the game but always share what I learn.
LOL. The control freak in you just showed in there MITCH haha. I remember your post about trying to control things that sometimes are uncontrollable.
You’re right Ron; guess I really can’t control everything, but at least I learned I can still moderate some of it. lol
Awwwwww… that’s just not right! I’m hestitant to post my first video on utube, but now I know a little more on how to go about it.
Rebekah, I was hesitant also, but once you do it the first time it’s not so bad.
Hi Mitch,
Thanks for the tips and… for the amazingly funny video. Nice way to start a busy morning. We have started using YT recently so any tips are helpful tips for us. Thanks again.
Ryan
No problem Ryan, and I’m glad you also enjoyed the video.