Creators

A Complete Guide to YouTube Studio

Tara Parachuk | April 6, 2022

Monitor of YouTube metrics

YouTube is a treasure trove of information for all interests, topics, industries, and vocations.

Whether you’re teaching, entertaining, informing, or just having fun producing videos, you want your videos to look their best and sound impressive and perform well, too! 

In this article

  1. Parts of YouTube Studio
  2. YouTube Dashboard
  3. News
  4. Known Issues
  5. What’s New in Studio
  6. Latest Video Performance
  7. Latest Comments
  8. Latest Post
  9. Channel Analytics
  10. Recent Subscribers
  11. Creator Insider
  12. Ideas For You
  13. Important Notifications
  14. Monetization
  15. Copyright
  16. Channel Violations
  17. Content
  18. Playlists
  19. Analytics
  20. Comments
  21. Mentions
  22. Subtitles
  23. YouTube Video Manager
  24. Monetization
  25. Ads
  26. Super Chat/Super Stickers/Super Thanks
  27. Memberships
  28. Customization
  29. Audio Library
  30. Conclusion

Let’s familiarize you with YouTube’s built-in video production suite and control hub: YouTube Studio. This is where you manage your videos, analytics, community—your, well, everything.

Here, we’ll give you a detailed rundown of all the parts of YouTube Studio to make sure that you’re well equipped to start your YouTube career strong!

Parts of YouTube Studio

So, you’ve created your YouTube creator account and are ready to start sharing your content with the world. There are countless ways to take advantage of YouTube Studio’s many features. Let’s review all the details to ensure you’re well equipped on your journey to YouTube success.

YouTube Dashboard

First, let’s look at your YouTube Dashboard. Your YouTube dashboard is the central hub of your creator space on YouTube. It’s also where you’ll find a breakdown of all your data, including notifications, subscribers, what’s new, and many other features.

News

The news tab is where you’ll find general YouTube updates. Keep an eye on this tab to ensure you’re up to date with any new guidelines, trends, features, or topics that could help your YouTube career. 

Known Issues

The Known Issues tab is a hub for large-scale issues, like glitches or bugs, affecting many YouTube creators. Here, you can keep updated on what’s being done about these problems and what to look out for should you start experiencing the same issues.

What’s New in Studio

This tab lists all the new tools and features made for creators to use in YouTube Studio. These features can help you create better content more easily, so it’s always a good idea to pay attention to this tab. If you’re confused or just curious about a new feature, here’s where you’ll find a breakdown on how to use it. 

Latest Video Performance

Keeping track of your channel’s performance is vital to a successful YouTube career. This analytic preview gives you insights into how your most recent video is doing at a glance.

Latest Comments

Community engagement is also significant for any content creator. Under this tab, you’ll find the latest comments on your videos, ready for you to reply to.

Latest Post

The Latest Post tab is only viewable if you’re approved for the Community tab and make Community posts. Here, you can see how well your latest post is doing. 

Channel Analytics

Your channel analytics gives you a simple breakdown of your recent activity, including views, subscribers, and watch time for the last 28 days. Top videos and current subscribers are also displayed on this tab. We’ll go over this in further detail in just a moment.

Recent Subscribers

While it’s labeled “recent” subscribers, this tab shows you all your subscribers. However, you can choose various timeframes to see how many subscribers you gained in a week, a month, etc. This can help you narrow down what times are best for you to post and what kinds of videos seem to be pulling in the most new subscribers. 

Creator Insider

Creator Insider is a YouTube channel run by the YouTube Creator Technical Team to share information with YouTube creators. 

The videos on this channel help YouTube creators by explaining various changes that YouTube is making, how to work with it, and what products work well with YouTube to make your videos even better. 

Keep in mind that while this is run by the YouTube Creator Technical Team and featured by YouTube on your Channel Dashboard, it is an experimental channel and not officially affiliated with YouTube.

Ideas For You

The Ideas For You tab is a curated collection of information that can help you run your channel. Ideas and suggestions tailored to you and your channel will pop up here.

Important Notifications

The Important Notifications tabs are notifications regarding monetization and copyright monitoring. Currently, notifications regarding your AdSense account and “advertiser friendliness manual review results” do not appear in this tab. YouTube is actively working on adding these notifications to the Important Notifications tab.

Monetization

Monetization notifications let you know if your channel is or is not eligible for monetization. This notification tab will also alert you if your monetization status changes.

Here, you’ll find notifications regarding any copyright strikes or claims that have popped up on your videos.

Channel Violations

Hopefully, you won’t have to visit this tab too often, but here is where you’ll find any warnings that pop up in response to your content. This includes community guidelines, violations, and appeals. 

The content you get through freelance voice actors, audio producers, and others on Voices is original to you and tailored to your needs rather than using audio content already out there. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what is and isn’t in the public domain. Bringing voice over artists, translation services, and other audio production services to the table can help you get around possible copyright flags. 

Sometimes content can also get accidentally flagged, so it’s always a good idea to keep an eye on this tab even if you know you comply with all of YouTube’s rules and guidelines. 

Content

The content tab in YouTube Studio simply lists your videos and live streams. This gives you a good view of your content and makes it easy to keep track of topics you’ve already covered.

Playlists

Playlists are a great way to organize your content. If you’re a gamer, you can add all the parts of your different play-throughs to their playlists. If you’re a musician, you can organize your music by genre, instrument, etc.

In this tab, you can create and manage your playlists, manage privacy settings, share your playlists, and even embed them on other web pages. 

YouTuber Amy Landino spoke at length about the many advantages that YouTube Playlists pose for your YouTube career. These advantages boil down to more views, channel organization, and easy navigation for your viewers if they’re only interested in one or two specific topics you cover. 

If international accessibility is essential to you, you could even upload different versions of your videos with a voice over translation to its designated playlist.

Analytics

Like all things, YouTube Studio has gone through a few reincarnations. The first beta of YouTube Studio was introduced in June of 2017 before being fully released in March of 2018

This revamped version of the original Creator Studio introduced many of the features mentioned above. One of the biggest features is analytics, including how and what information is displayed. 

Since the update, creators went from basic YouTube channel analytics to detailed information like impressions (every time someone sees one of your video thumbnails), unique views versus returning views, and your click-through rate (impressions that have become views).

Our in-house Content Producer, Randy Rector, has also weighed in on the changes.    

“The biggest updates—and the ones I found most helpful—are the new features in analytics like the comparison metrics. Some other features, like audience retention graphs, the “other videos your audience watched” tool, and the returning vs. unique viewers graph, are also useful.”     

Comments

Comments are also part of your analytics. In the comments tab, you can set standards for your community, such as blocking certain words, restricting comments, and holding comments for review before you approve them.

This is a great tool to use if you want to keep your channel kid-friendly or free of vulgar language or discourse if you’re using your channel for professional reasons. 

Mentions

Mentions on YouTube, once you’re eligible to use them, are a great networking tool and allow you to plug other YouTubers in the description of your videos. If you want to catch someone’s attention or credit another creator, mentioning them will ensure your video pops up in their notifications.

Subtitles

While YouTube has been offering automatically generated subtitles since 2009, creator-made subtitles have only been part of YouTube Studio since 2021. User-generated subtitles submitted by the community were a great boon until they were mixed in 2020. Since then, creators have been making their own subtitles and adding them into the caption editor of YouTube Studio.

Subtitles are a fundamental mode of accessibility to many people with ADHD, various audio-processing and learning disorders, and most obviously, those who are deaf and hard of hearing. 

YouTuber Ahmed Khalifa of Hear Me Out! posted a video back in 2018 detailing 15 reasons why subtitles are vital for YouTube creators and viewers alike: 

“One big benefit of captions is SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation. This is where you want to get your content found on Google, and people have access to that content just by searching on Google. Make sure you’re ranking high, and they get to visit your blog, your videos, whatever it is.”

YouTube Video Manager

If you’re still partial to the way the older version of YouTube Creator Studio worked, you’re not the only one. Because so many people still like some of the old version’s features, you can use Creator Studio Classic. This is where you’ll find the original YouTube Video Manager.

The YouTube Video Manager allows you to edit your videos and add subtitles through the old interface if that’s what you’re more comfortable with.

Monetization

If you’re using your YouTube channel to showcase your content and build a following, why not make a few bucks while doing it? As of August 2021, YouTube has added a plethora of ways for creators to make money with their content. 

To be eligible for the YouTube Partner Program, you must have 4,000 hours of public watch time and at least 1,000 subscribers. Let’s go over a few ways to monetize your channel!

Ads

Ads are probably the most well-known way to make money on YouTube. To make money like this, you must be eligible for the YouTube Partner Program, be based in a country where this feature is available, and link your AdSense account to your YouTube channel.

Super Chat/Super Stickers/Super Thanks

Super Chats, Super Stickers, and Super Thanks are great for creators who want to cultivate a community with their work. Viewers can buy Super Chats, Super Stickers, and Super Thanks to stand out in the chat during your live streams. If you like doing Q&A videos, this is a great way for viewers to ensure their questions stand out.

Memberships

Memberships work a little like Patreon in that you can offer different monthly membership tiers at different prices in exchange for exclusive content for those members. 

Customization

One of the most important things to do when setting up a YouTube channel is to ensure proper branding. The customization tools in YouTube Studio help make your channel unique. 

In the customizations tab, you can change everything from your channel trailer to your video watermark to make your channel stand out from the rest. 

Audio Library

The YouTube Audio Library is a lifesaver when you’re looking for some epic music to add to the background of your latest fantasy-themed video. The Audio Library is where you can find royalty-free music and sound effects to add to your videos. 

Conclusion

YouTube Studio is a fantastic tool for producing beautiful, accessible, quality videos for your YouTube channel.

These tools aren’t the only ones you’ll need, though. If you’re looking for high-quality translation services, voice over artists, or audio production services for your YouTube channel, sign up for an account on Voices today to see how freelance talent take content creators’ videos to the next level. 

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