How To Create A Private YouTube Channel For Testing Purposes
Channel: Daniel Rosehill
Date: 2021-08-18

Something I've found particularly helpful over the past few months (as I've begun my YouTube journey) is setting up a separate YouTube channel, and brand account, for the purpose of uploading test videos for my own reference.

I use this channel to upload videos that I don't want to make public: things like microphone tests, camera tests, and even practice runs with OBS Studio live streaming. Uploading these videos to YouTube (rather than keeping them offline) allows me to sound how microphones are going to sound after the video track has been through YouTube's compression. 

You can also set up a channel for staging - whether it's this channel or one more. I plan on using this channel to upload pre final cut versions of work that I'm editing in order to show it to collaborators. Again, this is the kind of activity that I'd prefer to keep separate from my main channel, including those who manage it with me (currently just me!)

In this video I take a quick look at the YouTube terms of service (ToS). To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a problem with creating an account for testing purposes. In fact, each Google / Google Workspaces account (a user account, not an alias) can create up to 50 separate brand accounts.

Another major plus is that if you're producing videos for your channel as part of a collaborative team (for instance, you're working with a brand manager, PR agency, or other marketing professionals) you'll be able to add different brand managers than the ones you have configured on your actual account (let's call this the 'primary')!

In this video, I go over a couple of things you'll probably want to do in order to get the test account up and running:

- Configure the default upload privacy setting to either private or unlisted
- Add a note explaining that the channel's contents are private. Make sure your creative partners are aware that the videos posted there aren't for sharing (especially useful if you're using unlisted privacy).

By: Daniel Rosehill (danielrosehill.co.il)

== Production notes ==*

Camera:
Audio:
Stabilization:
Lighting:
Postproduction:
Other notes:

(I write these for myself to help keep track of what equipment I'm using as I try to make better YouTube videos!)