YouTube. Unless you’re living under a rock, in a cave, or in another galaxy, it’s probably a part of your life. Of your day. Below are the five simple hacks that can really make your YouTube viewing easier.
First up, five YouTube facts before we dive into five tips for your YouTube viewing pleasure. Did you know:
- One billion hours of video are watched every day on YouTube.
- Every minute more than 500 hours are uploaded.
- YouTube has more than 2 billion users, which is almost one-third of all people on the internet!
- It was founded by three former employees of PayPal
- The first video uploaded featured co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego zoo. (Source: YouTube facts)
YouTube is everywhere. Everyone watches it. But you might be missing out on five simple tips to use it in ways that fit you and your needs.
Here goes. They’re all easy tips, but they start with super easy (tips 1 -3), to a little harder (tips 4 and 5).
1. Fast-forward or rewind at your own pace
You’re watching a fabulous video, but your cat or your kid (or both) just distracted you and you missed a bit. It’s a hassle to use the slider at the bottom as it’s tough to back or forward without precision.
If you tap the screen while a YouTube video is playing (this only works on your phone or tablet), you’ll get rewind or fast-forward options. Those are great if you want to go ALL the way forward or back to the beginning.
But what if you want to skip just a small part?
I gotcha. Here’s your solution.
If you want to go forward, simply tap the screen anywhere to the right, while the video is playing and it will fast-forward ten seconds. For each tap, it’ll go forward 10 seconds.
Same with rewinding. Just tap on the screen to the left. One tap for each ten seconds.
2. Play slower or faster
Imagine you’re watching an interesting how-to video, but the instructor is t…a…l…k…..i…..n…….g w….a…y toooooo s….l….o…..w….l…..y. Or way too fast.
You are in control my friend. Just click the gear wheel/settings icon and your choice of playback speeds will pop up. (See the example above.) You can easily click on the speed you want – either faster or slower.
Enter ease and efficiency at your pace.
3. Start playing a video at a certain, specific time
Want to share a video but need your friend or colleague to start watching it at a certain time? Easy peasy.
Simply stop the video at the point you want it to start playing. Then click share.
On the screen that pops up (example above) click the little box on the bottom right. It will automatically add a little piece of code to the ‘copy url’ box that makes that magic happen.
Copy the url and try it. Voila! It will automatically start at the point you set it to. Impressed? I hope so.
4. Easily make YouTube playlists
Curating your videos just got a whole lot easier. Just click the ‘save’ button at the bottom of the YouTube video and mark which playlist you want it saved to.
The first time you do this, you’ll need to create your own playlist names.
The picture above is from my Learning and Development Roundtable playlist. I have a ton of other playlists too, like a playlist of videos to make you laugh.
Then it’s blast off for organizing your videos – super fast, super simple.
5. Help folks find things in your videos fast and easy using timestamps
This one only sounds hard. I promise it’s so easy you’ll fall off your chair. So make sure you’re sitting over a soft rug while reading this.
Let’s say you’ve recorded a video and uploaded it to YouTube. Now let’s say that video has some really cool content of yours in it (naturally) that you want folks to find fast, on their own terms, on their own time.
All you do is make a list of timestamps. There’s an example above.
Just list the specific times that correlate to the times you want people to be able to access.
Note the format is really important. You have to use the time format, e.g. use colons.
0:12 format DOES work
;12 format does NOT work (without a zero or a colon)
Then just copy and paste your timestamps into your video description.
Here’s where the magic happens. That’s all you have to do.
YouTube automatically makes those timestamps into links. Click on any of them and you (and your viewers) will automatically be taken to that specific time. Cool huh!
Next time you’re watching a YouTube video and you want to fast-forward or rewind, play it faster or slower, play it from a certain timestamp, make your own timestamps or make a playlist, you now know what to do.
Now go on and learn, laugh and lead
Learn
- Celebrating you, yes you, with a special gift! where I incorporate a bunch of YouTube videos and then make a customized playlist. Or skip directly to the playlist here: Check out the playlist I made for you of all the italicized words.
Laugh
- Viewing YouTube with ease doesn’t have to feel like a battle, like these blue and red men ‘fighting’ with electricity
Lead
- Try the five tips yourself and share them with others.
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