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How do you name your YouTube channel? It’s one of the most important things when starting one, because this is how people are going to remember you. In today’s episode, Nate discusses this with Karen Farfan, who he’s helping to launch her own YouTube channel. Check it out!
Okay, we are a few episodes into launching your YouTube channel. We’re deciding the name. And so the topic of this episode is how to name your YouTube channel. Definitely got some biases because different channel names can have a big impact on the result your channel gets. So have you thought about channel name? Do you… Have you thought about what you like want to name your channel before I give you any advice? Your best friend is your own name – I’ll agree with that. I’ll say when you want to build a following, you want to build a tribe that of people that you can influence. You mentioned the word impact in an earlier episode. Having a channel built around your name, really, really helps. You know I currently produce a dozen different channels and we’ve used different strategies. My biggest channel in fact, we’ve gone through some name changes. Which yes once you pick a name you can change it down the road. But you’ve just got to let your audience know and kind of make that a gradual change. So with with Kris Krohn that we’ve talked about before, his channel used to be called RE investor tv.com. RE for real estate and then he branded around the name of limitless and so we changed the name to Limitless TV and at that… With that name, the channel grew really, really big. And then we just started recognizing people want to connect with Kris and Kris Krohn’s, his name and so, we we didn’t just change his channel name from Limitless TV to Kris Krohn but we put in Kris Krohn – Limitless TV and we started incorporating a new logo and slowly phasing. Over a six month period, it was just within the last few weeks that we took out the name Limitless TV and now Limitless TV isn’t on there anymore. Now it’s all brand. It’s all the past episodes. Still say limitless but we made that gradual transition. So you mentioned that you you’ve heard that and that’s kind of been why you’ve leaned towards it. What do you see is some of the benefits of having the channel be Karen Farfan. It’s not specific to just one topic then it can go ahead and touch every subject that defines Karen Farfan – yeah, that’s exactly right. People will learn who you are. There’s value in you and your name, you’re unique. So there’s there’s a disadvantage if you ever wanted to sell your YouTube channel or sell your business or brand, it’s so connected to you but at the same time, when people follow you and it’s based on your name, I’ll give you an example. So there’s there’s a channel that I follow up called Veritasium. It’s Veritas. I guess in Latin means truth and it’s an element of truth. He’s a science guy. Does science and physics videos. I’ve learned his name, Derek Muller but I bet a lot of people don’t know him by his name. You know they don’t know who Derek Muller is. They just know his channel and I’ve I wonder if he’s had some difficulties in kind of building the brand around. Well yeah, I do want to have Derek Muller come in as a speaker because he speaks he likes to speak in this one of the ways he monetizes his channel. Versus you know Casey Neistat. Very popular YouTuber. You’re familiar with Casey Neistat? It’s branded around his name. There’s a lot of vlogs that that are like that but you know, there’s a lot of strength and influence come when you brand around your name . So that is actually my recommendation for you – is to use your name. Well, talk to me about that. What do you mean? For a lot of time I was bringing storming. I need a name that came in Spanish speakers. Can think about the best and so I was struggling with that. If you pick a Spanish name a Spanglish name and kind of combine them. So I just think it makes it more simple – yeah, where is the name Parfran from? As far as I know, Colombia – because this you know as an American hearing that name, I can pronounce it easier. There’s no challenge with it and if it’s a Colombian name, it sounds like they’ll hear it and not be confused by it. It doesn’t sound foreign to people in Colombia is what I’m asking – okay. We can name your channel like Karen Jones. May be … Sometimes if people have a real complex name like Gary Vaynerchuk. He changed his brand to Gary Vee and now he regrets spelling Vee just because it’s… I guess it’s still a little bit more complicated. He wished you would have just branded it Gary and then the letter V. So sometimes it makes sense to the simple fighter just go by like Ellen. I guess it… Okay, I do know her last name DeGeneres but most people know where is the Ellen right or Oprah Winfrey okay’s those examples don’t work as I do you know their last name. If Karen were as unique a name as Oprah maybe you could just name your channel Karen. What do you think about maybe having a tagline so your name and then tagline that you absolutely love. Having a tagline and having wording and knowing what your branding is really helpful. What I recommend is to not put it in every episode because if an episode starts out – “Hey everybody, this is Karen the Parfan, the expert of this, this, this and this. Where you’re going to find this and get… It sounds to scripted words. People just want to connect with you. It’s like, “Hey it’s a new day and today, you know we’re going to make the smoothie. So that’s sounds cool. I’m just going with Karen. We’re making a smoothie in her kitchen. So it’s more personal and and they can relate. There’s… It’s not corporate. They’re not… They don’t feel like they’re getting a sales pitch or that it’s some company that’s promoting you know a high speed blender or you know something like that. So that’s my recommendation. But then on your banner, you know you just put what you stand for and you can definitely have your tag lines. When people then want to know more, they want to buy something from you or they want to know what services you offer, they’ll leave you to they’ll go to your website. Your website has all your branding. It will have your tagline. Any promo videos will be all fully scripted and will have sales psychology in there. But the episodes you put on YouTube, people are finding you for the first time. You’re building that relationship. You’re giving things away. Your secrets for free. You’re not pitching them and at the end you’re giving them an invitation to come and check you out over here and then this is where you can be as corporate and professional and polished as you want. I’m definitely biased on naming your YouTube channel your name. You know my channel is now Nate Woodbury. I want people to know me by Nate. My previous company name was Wallaby web design. People got to know me as they would even call me Nate Wallaby. I’m like, “Nate Wallaby?” So I quickly learned. I’m very glad that people now know me as Nate Woodbury and you know, they’ll put me in different categories as the YouTube guy or the video guy or whatnot. So for you as a viewer, I’m curious what you’re gonna name your YouTube channel. So go ahead comment below. I disallowed links. So you can’t put a link to your channel, it won’t show up. But if you type the name of your channel then I’ll be able to find it. In the next episode, we’re actually going to be talking about how to make your videos look professional while at the same time not looking corporate. So that’s we’re going to cover next. We’ll see that.