May 2013
GTChannel Partners
Welcome to the first GTChannel partner newsletter. Our goal
has always been to establish a direct and interactive communication with our
community. We will be producing the newsletter on a regular basis to
provide valuable info and opportunities to our partners, but what is also
important is an acknowledgement of all our partners’ hard work. Like you, we
began as automotive content creators. We fought all the battles that you
are fighting through, and it was because of this that we understood the need to
build a community like the GTChannel Network. It is really cool to watch
this evolve. We've had extensive interaction with many channels out
there, and heard all the stories: the ups and downs, the successes and failures.
It is great to see the network working—and the momentum is gaining.
Our endeavor won't happen overnight, and all of you will have to
work your tails off alongside us, but it is working. We will build up
audience, views, and revenue. And that is the name of the game. We
are growing fast in all aspects to better manage the opportunity we have before
us. We are working on numerous sponsorship deals for our partners.
We are developing a powerful content management platform that will make
your life easier, and provide a slew of new revenue-generating opportunities.
We'll have capabilities to deliver your content outside of the YouTube
ecosphere to find new dollars, a forum for all our partners, and even our own
classifieds to offer production services, equipment rental, and even license
footage to other partners. Brick by brick, we are building more and more
initiatives to blow the minds of every other content creator on YouTube.
We'll even have the non-automotive guys wishing they had such an
opportunity, and every other network trying to follow our lead. Heck, we
even have YouTube asking how we are doing things!
This newsletter serves as our community's voice, so please suggest
any features or information that you'd like to see published in the newsletter.
The power and success of our community as a whole will come from
cooperation and dialog of our members. This is an evolving newsletter,
and we are in the earliest of stages of it, so speak up and share any ideas you
may have.
As a companion to this, we will be republishing all of the
newsletters and info on our blog > http://gtchannelpartner.blogspot.com/ (Please
make sure to go to the blog and subscribe.)
GTChannel Team
Quick Notes
A couple of reminders:
* Please turn in your Welcome Kits when
you have time. You can direct these to partner@gtchannel.com, or feel
free to send them to me directly > Scott@gtchannel.com.
* Within the Welcome Kit, we provided some "Starting
Line" tasks. These are little adjustments you can do right away
as you upload new content to you channels. We've found a lot of success
with these simple tasks. You can find these in the Welcome
Kit Page 6. But to refresh...
1. Turn in Logos.
This is a big one. We are utilizing the logos for press,
promotions, in-video mentions, etc. For some of you we've heard that
you need a cheaper software than Photoshop, I found two that might be
useful.
Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/
Pixelmator - http://www.pixelmator.com/
* Longer read, but worth the time.
Please let your Crew Chief know if you have any problems.
Community Action
This section of the newsletter is all about activating each of our
channels.
This will include tips & tricks, as well as (like this one)
requests of each partner to assist us in moving your channel ahead.
This Month's Action: PROMO videos.
All of us at here at GTChannel are excited to be part of the
network with you. It’s time we let the world know the quality and
diversity of our content. Starting in June, we will be featuring promos
and trailers of your great work on our own channels and in turn, we also
encourage cross-promotion across your channels.
Some of you have already started working on these, with many
already in-house. These promos will be invaluable for several reasons.
The first is a calling card for your channel. Each promo should be a
video "Trailer" that tells the audience what your channel is all
about. This is your chance to sell your channel and convince the viewer
to click SUBSCRIBE. You've all seen movie trailers; what makes you want
to see the movie? You all watch 100s of promos each week on television; what
makes you want to tune-in. That is the same message these promos should
provide. Is it "the only place to see...", "The best channel for
..." You know the identity of your channel and why people should
watch, now use the promo to tell them.
The second is the many uses of the promo. GTChannel is
programming featured partner pieces on our owned/operated channels, which is a
nice way to get discovered by a new audience. We are also working on a
co-op of channels where you are featured on their channel and vice-versa.
The promo is also a requirement for ONE CHANNEL. We'll have more on
this soon, but when we ask all to convert to ONE CHANNEL, each new viewer will
see your promo first. YouTube has lots of documentation on how this
increases subscribers and we agree it is the way to go.
What do we need?
1. 30-60 second promo video file. See promo guidelines below
2. Promo Submission Sheet (text file, word doc, excel)
- Your Name:
- e-Mail:
- Channel Name:
- Channel URL:
- Description of Channel:
- Tags:
Deadline for participation in June’s program is May 31st.
We’ll need the Info form filled out and your 30-60 second promo delivered
via Google Drive no later than May 31st.
Video Guidelines
Length: 30-60 seconds
Music: Please use only
cleared music
Size: 1920x1080 or 1280x720
(please do not provide a standard definition file)
Frame Rate: 29.97(59.94),
30, 25, 23.98, 24
Scanning: Progressive frame
only. Interlaced will not be accepted. If your promo is 1080i
please de-interlace before submitting.
Audio: Stereo (we can't
support 5.1)
Video Codec: Apple
Intermediate, ProRes (all variants), Avid (all formats), 8 or 10bit
uncompressed, H.264 (I frame only and with a high enough data rate that no
compression artifacts are visible)
File Types: QuickTime MOV,
mp4, m4v
Delivery Method: Upload to Google Drive and share with partner@gtchannel.com
GTChannel Update
Our goal with GTChannel Update is to provide some news and info
related to our community's growth, success, and accomplishments.
Our team was shepherded out to YouTube's big BrandCast event in
NYC earlier this month. This is a gathering of content owners, networks,
and most importantly, advertisers. The event's message duplicated our own
thinking that our market and potential is growing fast. It has also
confirmed all our efforts in targeting the audience that we are all seeking
out. We are doing things right. A great event with lots of
connections to automotive related sponsors and advertising agencies. We
look forward to converting these discussions into real world projects for all
our partners.
GTChannel was one of the first and few partners that applied and was
accepted into the YouTube Space program. You can read about it on the
link above, but in short, it is a Los Angeles production facility that was
created to encourage content owners and networks to utilize for producing in
studios shows. We recently got a tour at the opening and it is a very
nice facility. We are looking at the opportunity to produce our
"Partner's Round Table" show at the space, and we are working with
YouTube to identify how we can make this available to the GTChannel community. It
would be a long trip for most, but for those in the neighborhood, this could
provide a lot of valuable resources.
Our GTChannel team will be in Palm Beach, FL for the “Formula D –
Invasion” event next week (May 31-June 1). We hope that all those in the
area will come to the event and look for our black/pink GTChannel T-shirts or
hats. We'd love to meet you in person.
Hot Partners
Here is a section to throw accolades to your community partners. I
could provide fifty different mentions, such as offers from partners to push
GTPlanet's hot release of GT6 game play footage on their Facebook
(unprompted!). I thought, "This is how this community is going to
succeed." (250k views later!) This is where we give some props to the
partners that have gone above and beyond, shown amazing growth, or just have a
fantastic video
Please support your fellow partners, and Subscribe
-
it all comes around.
- it all comes around.
No particular video, but Theon (BkBootKrust) let us know that he'd like all his revenue and proceeds to go to the Relief for Japan charity. If anyone deserves some accolades it is our man Theon. Well done!
by GTPlanet
A shout out to Jordan
who literally spanned the globe to attend the release event for Sony's GT6
reveal. GTPlanet was one of the very first to show a morsel of the new
game. That is dedication. Well done Jordan!
by tyndago
This one is for me.
This is like a montage of all my previous cars—VW Bug, Plymouth Scamp (Dart), and my favorite (I
stand alone)—Chevy Vega. In this case, a station wagon Vega.
Amazing.
by FindingJDM
Since our “Action” this
newsletter is promos, what better use of the Hot Partners than presenting
Chad's amazing promo for FindingJDM. If you want a good sample of how to
cut your promo, this is it. We've had numerous great promos come in, but
not only was this great, we also saw a huge spike of subscribers when the promo
was featured. Well done.
As a companion to this, we
will be republishing all of the newsletters and info on our blog > http://gtchannelpartner.blogspot.com/ (Please make sure to go to the blog and subscribe.)
