ReelSEO ► Videos ► Does it Make Sense to Create Multiple YouTube Channels? [Creator's Tip #37]

Does it Make Sense to Create Multiple YouTube Channels? [Creator's Tip #37]

Tim Schmoyer | 1 year ago |

On today’s Creator’s Tip video, we address the question of whether it makes sense to create multiple YouTube channels or house all videos under a single YouTube channel. We recently received an email from a ReelSEO subscriber with the following question around if :

“...I have a potential corporate client looking to optimize their YouTube channel. They have several business divisions that vary greatly from each other. From an SEO perspective would it make more sense to put all the content under one corporate channel?”

My Opinion: Multiple YouTube Channels and When it Makes Sense

I think it is best to leave splitting up content among multiple channels as a last resort. There are more popular YouTubers than can do this because of their high level of engagement makes it easy for them to spread their audience among multiple channels and ensure that 80% of their subscriber base will follow them there. For the vast majority of YouTubers this is a bad idea.

A better idea would be to set up playlists for videos that fall into different segments. Besides keeping your audience on your channel, there will also be times you may have a video that you want to share with two different segments of your audience base and this way you don’t need to upload it twice and split the number of views and comments.

You may consider a new channel is if the content is just so different and unique that the audiences you are trying to attract are from two completely different groups. However, even though the better bet would be to try to find a way to create commonality among your viewers to keep them together on a single channel.

Question: When do you think is a good time to start a new YouTube channel?

About the Author - Tim Schmoyer

Tim Schmoyer is the host of ReelSEO's Creator's Tip. He's also the Creative Strategist at Epipheo Studios (http://www.epipheo.com/). You can see some of his personal videos on his Family Vlog Channel and his Video Creators Channel. View All Posts By - Tim Schmoyer

Follow @http://www.twitter.com/timschmoyer

What do you think? ▼

Brian Cox
Can you change the name of a channel? Because that is why I started a second channel. Thanks as always for the super helpful info!
KatieRaebel
Thanks for the tips Tim! In regarding to organizing content through playlists, is there a limit to how many playlists you can create? From a user browsing perspective, how many playlists is too many?
- timschmoyer
  @KatieRaebel I forget how many playlists you can create. 20 is the number that comes to mind, but I really don't know. I'm pretty sure you can only fit 100 or 200 videos in a playlist, though, because I bumped up against that limit with some playlists on my personal vlog channel.
nlongtin
This is great advice and I would agree with the idea that playlists can handle almost all of your organization needs. With the options YouTube gives you for your channel design you can do some pretty cool things too. I have created lots of playlists on my channel to help viewers browse my content (http://www.youtube.com/njlongtin), which ranges drastically from cute kitten videos to corporate videos to short films.

Brian I believe you can change the "name" of your channel anytime by editing the settings (YouTube also just allowed longer names) but you can't change the URL because that is based on your user name.
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov CDFAWebmaster
As a state government agency with multiple divisions, we had our web designer develop a front end web page that divides and showcases the offerings of each division and links them to our single YouTube channel. That way, visitors can select and view videos by topic on our website, all of which are running on YouTube. http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/egov/video/
http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse
Tim, this is interesting. I have a new client and I am getting ready to ramp up their campaign. They have multiple locations. I was considering setting up a YouTube channel for each physical location of the business but you are saying to keep them under one account. What about when each location has their own physical address, website and name? Still keep them under the same channel?
- timschmoyer
  @Kyle Clouse In that case, yes, most definitely. I would focus on using the videos to promote the company as a whole and be intentional about pointing to different locations rather than making the videos feature individual locations.
  - http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse
    @timschmoyer Thanks for the response. Let me ask you opinion on this....what about setting up individual channels for each location and then tying them all together using the Other Channels feature in YouTube where you can feature other channels on your channel.
    - timschmoyer
      @Kyle Clouse I wouldn't. The likelihood of someone subscribing to all of them is very low (and personally, feels like you'll be cluttering my subscription box). Plus, most people won't find your videos nor subscribe through the channel page -- they'll find you through an individual video and never see the other channel options anyway.
    - http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse
      @timschmoyer Thanks for the input Tim!
Brian Cox
Can you change the name of a channel? Because that is why I started a second channel. Thanks as always for the super helpful info!
KatieRaebel
Thanks for the tips Tim! In regarding to organizing content through playlists, is there a limit to how many playlists you can create? From a user browsing perspective, how many playlists is too many?
- timschmoyer
  @KatieRaebel I forget how many playlists you can create. 20 is the number that comes to mind, but I really don't know. I'm pretty sure you can only fit 100 or 200 videos in a playlist, though, because I bumped up against that limit with some playlists on my personal vlog channel.
nlongtin
This is great advice and I would agree with the idea that playlists can handle almost all of your organization needs. With the options YouTube gives you for your channel design you can do some pretty cool things too. I have created lots of playlists on my channel to help viewers browse my content (http://www.youtube.com/njlongtin), which ranges drastically from cute kitten videos to corporate videos to short films.

Brian I believe you can change the "name" of your channel anytime by editing the settings (YouTube also just allowed longer names) but you can't change the URL because that is based on your user name.
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov CDFAWebmaster
As a state government agency with multiple divisions, we had our web designer develop a front end web page that divides and showcases the offerings of each division and links them to our single YouTube channel. That way, visitors can select and view videos by topic on our website, all of which are running on YouTube. http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/egov/video/
http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse
Tim, this is interesting. I have a new client and I am getting ready to ramp up their campaign. They have multiple locations. I was considering setting up a YouTube channel for each physical location of the business but you are saying to keep them under one account. What about when each location has their own physical address, website and name? Still keep them under the same channel?
- timschmoyer
  @Kyle Clouse In that case, yes, most definitely. I would focus on using the videos to promote the company as a whole and be intentional about pointing to different locations rather than making the videos feature individual locations.
  - http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse
    @timschmoyer Thanks for the response. Let me ask you opinion on this....what about setting up individual channels for each location and then tying them all together using the Other Channels feature in YouTube where you can feature other channels on your channel.
    - timschmoyer
      @Kyle Clouse I wouldn't. The likelihood of someone subscribing to all of them is very low (and personally, feels like you'll be cluttering my subscription box). Plus, most people won't find your videos nor subscribe through the channel page -- they'll find you through an individual video and never see the other channel options anyway.
    - http://www.kyleclouse.com/ Kyle Clouse
      @timschmoyer Thanks for the input Tim!
baldjake
Timely info for us Tim, and thanks for the advice. Recent recommendations I've seen online suggest that using channels for different capabilities can actually be really advantageous from an SEO perspective on YT. What is your thought on how a central channel vs multiple channels might affect traffic?
We want to be practical and user friendly to the seracher, but also want to get the most bang for the buck on traffic.
Bo
Do you know of a way to play multiple playlists in a row? Can you think of a way to combine multiple playlists into one playlist?
Yonna Kairupan
Tx for the sharing this Tim. One question I want to ask. I'm using 2 languages: Indonesian and English. And for my youtube videos, sometimes I used English, and some other times Indonesian. Question is...should I make another youtube channel for videos in Indonesian language? Or just put them in the playlist, under one youtube account?