How do you come up with a YouTube channel name? Does it make a difference? The answer is yes,
it really does make a difference. So, in this episode, I'm going to talk to you about
the pros and cons of different names you might choose so you can make the best choice for your
channel.
-So, I have to admit, Nate. This sounds like a really straightforward question. So, what are
we going to be talking about for the next while? -Well, good question. It's it's an important topic
to cover because everyone wants to know "What should I name my YouTube channel?" And often
they're tempted to name it after their company especially if they want to use YouTube like I do
to generate leads for their business. But in my opinion and in my experience, you don't want a
company name as your channel name. You don't want something that sounds corporate or as a brand. So,
generally, I recommend, "You know what? Name the channel after yourself." Like it would be the
Devin Cash channel or the Nate Woodbury channel. When you when you name a channel like that, people
don't get turned off by this corporate feeling or a company like they're going to be sold to.
They think, "Ah, this is a person." And on YouTube, people like to follow a person. And so,
when you have a channel that's named after a person, it becomes easier to follow. -Does
the channel name... I mean, it matters I'm sure. But isn't the content the more important thing?
-Yeah. So, everything that we're talking about now is is kind of how that content is packaged,
how it's presented. So, when people see this thumbnail... I mean, the thumbnail is part of
that package, the title is part of that package. When they go to your channel and they see your
icon down there like is it a picture of your face or does it say IBM, you know? Or does it
say some company logo. It's like, "Oh, this is just produced by them." Like for me when I'm
watching a channel, I want to know, "Is this a person or is this the company? And this is just
an employee of that company that's made this video that's reading a script?" -Yeah, yeah. Every once
in a while on Facebook, I'll see like one of my friends it'll show me an ad from Ford. And
it's like it'll say like so-and-so likes Ford. And I'm like, "Who's clicking on that?" Like,
"Yeah. Like Ford, those are my go... Those are my people. I'm going to follow them." So, it makes
sense to me that you should do that you should use your own name. But what happens... Like,
what if there's already a YouTube channel name with my name already? -You will actually find that
quite a lot because there's plenty of people out there that have your same name or your same name.
But it's not like domain names. Like when you go and you try and create a channel, you can create
whatever you want. So, YouTube is different than website domains, right? Only one person can buy
the ".com" of a domain, right? Well, on YouTube, as many people as want to create a channel with
the name Devin Cash or as many people want to create the Nate Woodbury channel, you really can.
Now, that's a good thing and a bad thing, right? It's a good thing in that I don't have to
race and create all these YouTube channel names to make sure nobody else steals them. But people can
spoof, okay? And unfortunately, I won't mention it because I don't want any more of it. But on one of
my clients channels, it's a pretty big channel. People have gone in and created another channel
with her same name. They've taken her photo and uploaded it as their photo, their icon.
And then they go into her comments and respond to people as if they were that channel. So, we've
had to battle a little bit setting up the right filters to filter out spam. And we're winning.
We're winning that battle. If you do want to see more of that story, I'll link to that episode up
there. All you really want to be concerned about if somebody had a YouTube channel name
that you wanted or that was your name is how many subscribers do they have. Is it going to really
be competition? Because chances are they have zero subscribers or they have 10 subscribers
and you just follow my strategy for a couple of weeks and your channel is going to be bigger.
-Got it. So, what happens though? Like, what if I'm not going to be the face of my channel? Like,
what are some best practices in naming a channel? -Yeah. So, I'd say that there's there's kind of 2
ends of the spectrum. There's the company, right? The company brand that we want to avoid. And then
there's your own name. But there is a middle ground. And that the middle ground would be
like a topic or a cause or a movement. So, those are types of you know... Maybe I could
name my channel like YouTube mastery or something like that that doesn't sound too corporate. The
advantages of that is it is something that people might want to follow. The disadvantages I can't
really deviate. If I talk about other things that are different than that topic or that movement,
then it's not a fit with the channel. Whereas on a channel with the name Nate Woodbury,
I can really talk about whatever I want. -So, does this recommendation, does it apply to like
every single YouTube channel or is it just like like specific channels?
-There are probably plenty of exceptions to what I'm sharing. The type of clients that I work with
are influencers who they are the face of their company, they are the business. It's their
expertise that people are buying whether it's through keynote speeches, whether it's through
coaching or courses that they sell or retreats. They're the ones putting on the events. And so,
usually it's not a question like their name is the name of the channel. It works really, really
well. But otherwise, we'll just go into like the movement or the topic that they talk about. -So,
you brought up a channel where you had some people impersonating this client. So, is it channel
name trademarkable? I don't know if that's a word --trademarkable. Is it possible to trademark that
channel name or some way to kind of get around to that? -Well, it's definitely a question for like a
patent attorney or intellectual property attorney. And I've gone through one of those. And from my
understanding, it's not related to your YouTube channel. It's you can create a trademark. And if
that trademark is then approved and you have that trademark and that's what you're using on your
channel, then you do have a legal standing to say, "Hey, you can't name your channel that because
this is trademarked." But just going and saying, "Can you trademark a YouTube channel?" I don't
really think there's a process for that. It's more of a brand or a brand mark or a name or something
that you're getting a trademark on. -And you are able to you see people with the blue check,
right? Like the verified account. Like, you can do that on YouTube, right? -Yeah, that's pretty cool.
I personally haven't done that. But some of my clients have. When their channel gets to a certain
point, you can contact YouTube and get that set up because it will happen when you get big enough.
If you watch this episode all the way to the end, then I love you and you need to be a subscriber on
this channel. But I'm going to link to a better episode right up here. It's an episode on "How
you can get 1,000 subscribers on YouTube in a single day". Go watch that one next for sure.