When people talk about today’s most prevalent social sharing sites, YouTube usually gets left out of the conversation in favor of websites like Fb and Twitter. However, do not be fooled: YouTube has a lot of Youtube tips and features for it. Though Fb may be the biggest social networking website, YouTube has the second greatest reach after Fb when it comes to general usage. It’s also the second biggest search engine behind its parent firm, Google.
And there are a lot of cool issues you could do with YouTube. You may not know about, whether you utilize YouTube to watch videos, post them, or each. For instance, did you know YouTube has its own virtual reality (VR) setting to view any video in 360 degrees? Or that you could create a YouTube time link that brings viewers to a particular moment in the video?
Mind-blowing stuff, people. To help you make the most out of the still very prevalent platform, we have put together a list of 20 of the lesser-known Youtube tips and features YouTube has to offer.
20 YouTube Tips and Features You Will Want to Know About
1. You could turn any YouTube video into a GIF using the URL.
Everybody loves GIFs that is one of great Youtube tips and features. However, understanding the way to make them is not common knowledge. Well, it needs to be, because all it takes is a little bit YouTube URL trick.
To create a GIF from a YouTube video: Choose a video to watch on YouTube and find the URL at the top of your browser. Include the word “gif” right before the domain name so it reads, “www.gifyoutube.com/[your-video-tag].”
It will bring you to gifs.com, along with your video already uploaded and ready for editing. Right here, you will find a menu of options to the left-hand side with a timeline bar along the bottom of your video. You could set the GIF duration, crop its frame, add captions, and more.
Click on “Create GIF” on the upper right and that will prompt you for a GIF title and set of tags. Then click on “Next,” and you have a helpful landing page from which to share your newly minted GIF. Remember you could only download this GIF to an offline file by signing up with gifs.com.
2. You could create a link that begins a YouTube video at a certain time.
Ever wanted to send somebody a YouTube video, however, point them to a particular moment? For instance, you are trying to recruit your friends to learn the dance in Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” music video with you.
Instead of giving your friends the common YouTube link and instructing them to fast-forward to the 0:50 minute mark. You could truly send them a particular YouTube time link that begins the video at whichever time you select. Click here to see what I mean.
Alright, this is the way to do it:
To create a link that begins a YouTube video at a certain time: Open up the video and click on “Share” to the far right of the video title. Then, in the window of choices that appears, check the box next to “Begin at:” and kind in the time (in hours:minutes:seconds) you need. Alternatively, you could pause the video at the time you want it to begin and that field will autofill.
After a few moments, you will see a tag add itself to the end of the generic YouTube link (in this case, ?t=50s). Simply copy that link and paste it wherever you would like.
It is worth noting that you could not embed a video so it begins at a certain time; you could not only link to it.
3. You could easily see the written transcripts of people’s videos.
Did you know YouTube automatically generates a written transcript for every single video uploaded to its site? That is right — and anybody has access to that transcript unless the user manually hides it from viewers.
I could think of a number of different situations where video transcripts can come in handy. For instance, maybe you want to write down a quote from a video. However, the tedium of pausing-and-typing, pausing-and-typing would drive you up a wall. Or maybe you should find a particular section of a video. However, do not want to rewatch the whole thing to find it. With a transcript in hand, you could find info like this without doing it all by hand.
To view a video’s transcript: Open the video in YouTube and click the “More” tab underneath the video title. Select “Transcript” from the drop-down menu.
(When you are not seeing this option, it is because the user selected to hide the transcript.)
This transcript will come out as a new module in the same window. In many instances, the user who uploaded the video won’t have gone back and manually polished the transcript. So it will not be excellent. However, it’ll certainly save you some time and pain.
4. You could help your video get found in search by editing or posting a transcript.
Both YouTube and its parent firm Google take a look at a number of factors when ranking videos in search to find out what your video is about, and your transcript is one of them. (An even huger ranking factor is your video’s description that is why Digital Marketing Consultant Ryan Stewart suggests that you paste your transcript right into the description box, too.)
To add a transcript to your video: Open the video on YouTube, and you will see a row of icons just below the play button. Choose the item on the far right hand for “Subtitles/CC.” (CC stands for “Closed Captions.)
Set your language if you have not already. Then, you will then be prompted to select among three different ways to add subtitles or closed captions to your video …
- Add a pre-written text transcript or a timed subtitles file. (Learn more about the file types you could add and more here.)
- Paste in a full transcript of the video, wherein subtitle timings shall be set automatically.
- Type them in as you watch the video.
The folks at YouTube have completed some great issues to make that third option (typing as you watch) as painless as possible. For instance, when you check a box next to “Pause video while typing,” it will make the whole process a lot quicker. Here is a GIF showing that in action:
5. You could use YouTube to easily get free transcriptions of your videos and audio files.
That is the last one about transcripts, I promise — however, I will bet you never thought about them this way. As you understand from #3, YouTube automatically adds a transcript to every video. However, when you are looking for a one-off transcription of an audio or video file and do not want to pay for a service, YouTube’s built-in captioning system is not a bad place to begin. You could always clean it up later.
To get an automated transcription for a video: Simply post your video to YouTube, open it on YouTube’s site, press the “More” tab underneath the video title, and select “Transcript” from the drop-down menu. The transcript will come up as a new module in the same window. When you need to clean it up, follow the steps outlined in #3 for a user-friendly experience.
To get an automated transcription for an audio file: You will need to add your audio recording to YouTube utilizing a service like TunesToTube. It will take anywhere between 2–30 minutes for YouTube to add it. Then, follow the guides for getting an automated transcription for a video, outlined above.
6. You could create, share, and collaborate on video playlists.
Similar to on your other favorite media sharing websites like Spotify and iTunes. You could make a “playlist” that is one of the Youtube tips and features. Which is really just a place to shop and organize the videos (your own and others’). You could keep playlists private, make them public, or even share them directly with others.
Playlists are helpful for many different kinds of users, from an individual collecting cooking videos for their upcoming dinner party to a brand. That is segmenting its YouTube video content by topic. For instance, Tasty’s YouTube playlists break up recipes by meal kind, making it simpler for people to browse and find what they are looking for:
To make a playlist on desktop: Go to your Playlists page by clicking here or clicking your account icon in the upper right, selecting “Creator Studio,” clicking “Video Manager” on the left, and selecting “Playlists.” Then, click on “New Playlist” on the highest right and select whether you would like to keep it private or make it public.
To create a playlist on mobile: Click here for instructions explaining the way to make new playlists utilizing your iOS or Android mobile devices.
To include a video to a playlist: When you are including a video to a playlist while you are watching it, click on the “Add to” icon below the video title. Then check the box next to the playlist to which you would like to add it.
If you want to add a video to a playlist right from your Playlists page, simply click on “Add Video” and either paste in a video URL, select a video from your posts, or find a video on YouTube. Once you discover the video you want to add, click the “Add to” menu and add it to the playlist.
Your friends could contribute to your playlists, too. All you must do is turn on the ability to collaborate on playlists. When you turn it on, anybody you share a playlist link with could add videos to that playlist. (They could also remove any videos they have added, too.)
To add friends to a playlist: Go to your Playlists page again and open the playlist you need to collaborate on. Choose “Playlist Settings” and select the “Collaborate” tag. Toggle on the setting that permits collaborators to add videos to the playlist. From there, you could send them a link where they could add videos to the playlist.
Once your friend’s been invited to a playlist, they will be capable of adding new videos to it and remove videos they have added in the past. They just must follow some on-screen instructions first to confirm. They wish to be a contributor and to save the playlist to their own account.
Once you upload a video to a playlist you are collaborating on, your name will appear next to the video in the playlist. And everybody who’s been invited to collaborate on that playlist will get a notification new video has been added.
(To learn extra about methods to handle contributors, stop accepting contributions to a playlist, and so on, read this YouTube Support page.)