Did you know that you can customize YouTube Channel to fit your brand? To capitalize on social media to the fullest it is important to integrate your identity/brand into these social platforms. Why? The most important reason is authenticity. With the ability for anyone to create an account, designing your Youtube channel to your brand will instantly inform your visitors that they have arrived at the right spot. It can also elevate the perception of your organization's professionalism. Right now non-profits are going in and customizing their designs to align with their branding and campaigns, for example:

Not In Our Town
The Girl Effect
Seventh Generation
Free The Children
The Orton Family Foundation
Time for Climate Justice

In YouTube you can browse channels by filtering the categories and "non-profit" is a top level option. In order to get listed you need to fit the requirements for a YouTube non-profit partnerand apply. If you are able to become a partner you have to option of adding a "Donate" button and also an extra space in the banner area that you can customize. It amazes me how few channels are in this category are customized! And also the complete lack of non-profits in this category! And even if you can't become a partner (perhaps your organization is politically or religiously aligned)- you should have a channel.

Just as television changed the advertising world in the 50's, the internet is changing the media landscape. In the first half of 2010 internet advertising broke records. Which is no surprise as we anticipate the internet to exceed 2 billion users this year. We are familiar with seeing video thumbnails in search results, but have you noticed lately the integration of social media aspects into search results? If you tweet it you may see an increase in traffic from search results. Since search results are the front door to all your places on the web, you need to make sure that in the first few seconds your users visit they recognize that they have made it to the right place.