Making the Most of Your YouTube Account

About This Document

This document provides suggestions for sides which have a YouTube account on how to make the most of their YouTube account.

Do I Need a YouTube Account for my Side?

Is having a YouTube channel for your morris or traditional dance side needed? This is something only you can answer. However here are some reasons why you should consider setting up a YouTube channel.

• Dance is a visual and audible experience. People can read about morris dancing, but to get a feel for the experience you need to watch it, and listen to the music (and the shrieks of the dancers). Ideally this will be done live but that’s not always possible (and reliving the experience by watching video recordings may be welcomed).
• Prevalence of high quality video recording devices. Many people watching your dance will have mobile devices capable of high quality video recordings, 
• Popularity of video-sharing services. The audiences who recorded videos of your dances will probably want to share the recordings with others. The popularity of video sharing services such as YouTube (and Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) can mean they are supporting your side’s publicity activities!
• Visibility raising.  Marketing is important, both for recruiting new members and for receiving invitations to events, 
• Teaching aid. New members, who may have recently joined your side, may find watching videos of your side dancing useful in learning new dances. 
• YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine!  When people are looking for information, most will use Google; But it seems that YouTube is the second largest search engine, popular for searches such as “How do I assemble this IKEA furniture?” It seems you can also find YouTube videos for queries such as “How do I learn a clog step?“
• The numbers!  The survey of use of YouTube by Morris Federation sides carried out in January 2023 showed that, for the 17 sides whose YouTube channels had over 1,000 views, there had been a total of over 290,000 views and 570 subscribers to the channels. In 2022 the top accounts hosted 570 videos, but this year there were too many to count!
• For future generations. We know there is interest in the history of morris dancing from the popularity of the Morris Federation Zoom workshops. So remember that your dance performance of today (and perhaps especially innovative performance during the Covid lockdown) may be of interest to social historians in the future.

If you decide to set up a YouTube channel for your side, you will be well-positioned to make use of the following suggestions from the start!  And if you have a well-established YouTube account it will be worth reading this document to see if your account can be improved.

Tips For Maximising Benefits of Your YouTube Account

Checking Popularity of your Videos

If you have a YouTube account for your side you can login and view the viewing statistics.  You can also search for videos featuring your side (and this is best done by searching for your side’s hashtag).

An example of the number of views (sorted by popularity for a search for #HaymarketRapper) is shown in Figure 1. Note false results have been disregarded.

Do you feel the number of views indicates that YouTube is working as a marketing and promotional vehicle? If not, some of the following suggestions may be of interest.

Branding Your YouTube Account

In the Survey: Use of YouTube (2023) (based on YouTube accounts listed in Morris Federation’s TeamFinder profiles) we found a total of 30 sides had provided details of their official YouTube channel on the Teamfinder service. Of these 18 have  removed superfluous numbers from their handle so they have a shorter and more memorable address. Details of how to rename your channel is given in the Create a Personalised Name (Handle) for your YouTube Account document.

Include Your Side’s Hashtag

We encourage side’s to identify a hashtag which can help people find your digital resources and to include this in your Teamfinder profile.

The hashtag is also useful if included on your side’s Tube account, in your About page as well as with key videos.

Figure 2 illustrates how a YouTube search for ‘#wyldmorris’ quickly find all videos published on the side’s YouTube channel.

In addition you will also be able to find videos published by others which use this hashtag. 

Encourage Others to Post Videos Using Your Side’s Hashtag

Wouldn’t it be great if you could easily find videos, photographs and comments made by those who watched you dance!

Rather than saying “You can follow us on Facebook at @sidename” (they may have enjoyed your dances, but probably not enough to follow your social media account!) you could say “If you enjoyed our dances, and you took a photo or video, tag us with @sidename“

Note this happened for Haymarket Rapper with The Slip Inn, York posting a video of the side dancing in the pub to the pub’s (in this case) Facebook account – and the video was noticed by the side two hours after the performance.

Create Chapters Using Timestamps

If you search Google for “#morrisfedvideo” you should see recordings of Morris Federation Zoom workshops.

A small number of the videos will include “key moments” which enable you to jump directly to the portion of the video of particular interest.

This can be achieved by adding timestamps to your video, as shown below.

Note when creating the timestamps:

• The timestamp must begin at the start: 0:00
• The timings are for minutes and seconds (and hours if needed)
• The “:” must be used to separate minutes and seconds.
• There must be at least 10 seconds between timestamps.

Further details are given in the “How to Add Chapters to Your Videos Using Timestamps” YouTube video.

Add Links to Websites (if possible)

You can add links to your side’s website, social media accounts, Teamfinder profile (especially useful if you don’t have a website) and other relevant links (such as a folk festival if the video was taken at a festival).

However, to minimise the number of links to inappropriate websites, you need to verify your personal identity with Google (owners of YouTube) before you can do this. This involves scanning a driving licence, passport or similar, normally on your phone and posting it to Google.  Understandably people may be reluctant to do this, but this is mentioned so you are aware of how links can be provided from YouTube descriptions.

If you do have your identity verified, you must include the full URL (including http://) when adding links. Examples of such links are shown in Figure 5.

Other Suggestions

If you have further suggestions on making effective use of YouTube please get in touch. 

We welcome feedback on this document. In addition we would like to hear from morris, sword and other traditional dance sides who use IT and would be willing to share their experiences. Would you like to contribute a case study?

Status of this Document

Document published: 8 June 2023

Licence for this Document

This document is available with a Creative Commons Sharealike (CC-BY) licence. In brief, this means you can copy and make changes to this document provided you give acknowledgements to the author/publisher. A suggested wording for acknowledgements is:

This document is based on the "Making the Most of Your YouTube Account" document by Brian Kelly, Comms and IT volunteer with the Morris Federation.