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The Importance of Compliance for Your YouTube Channel Growth

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YouTube is now the second most popular search engine, behind Google. YouTube is also the most popular video-sharing website in the world. In addition, YouTube is the number three social media site after Facebook and Twitter.

Since YouTube is so popular, it only makes sense that business owners would want to invest in YouTube marketing. YouTube marketing can be a great way to reach a large number of people, but YouTube marketing only works if you are in compliance with YouTube’s policies and guidelines.

YouTube’s Policies and Guidelines

YouTube has a lot of different guidelines and policies, some of which are common sense, and some of which are not. This is why it is important to learn about YouTube’s policies before you start creating videos for YouTube.

  • General Guidelines – YouTube has specific guidelines for all videos. These guidelines include rules about profanity, violence, nudity, and copyright infringement. These guidelines are common sense, but it is important to learn about these guidelines before you upload a video to YouTube.
  • Rules for Creators – In addition to YouTube’s general guidelines, YouTube has specific guidelines for creators. YouTube’s rules for creators include rules about hate speech, harassment, and spam.
  • Rules for Advertisers – YouTube also has its own guidelines for advertisers. These guidelines include rules about advertising on YouTube and advertising on videos.
  • Rules for the Community – YouTube also has rules for the community. The rules for the community include rules about comments, spam, and bullying.
  • Rules for Copyright Artists – YouTube also has rules about copyright artists. These rules include rules about music, content, and videos.
  • Privacy Policies – In addition to YouTube’s guidelines, YouTube also has privacy policies. YouTube’s privacy policies include rules about information, videos, and users.

Complying with federal laws and regulations

On top of YouTube’s own policies and guidelines, you might also be subjected to federal laws and regulations. Here are some of them:

  • Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – The FTC has rules about endorsements and testimonials. This means that if you are endorsing a product, you cannot make false claims. 
  • Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) – The HIPAA has rules about health information. This means that if you are producing a video that contains health information, you cannot contain health information that is not appropriate for minors. 
  • Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) – COPPA protects information belonging to children under the age of 13. If your business is operating in the childcare industry, you must comply with COPPA.
  • Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – The FDA regulates food, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices. Any claims and endorsements related to your products must comply with FDA guidelines. 

How to stay compliant: 5 best practices

Now that you know what YouTube’s policies and guidelines are, how can you stay compliant? Fortunately, there are some best practices that will help you to stay compliant.

1. Keep records

As a business owner, you probably already have a lot of records. However, you should also keep records of your YouTube content as well as comments. You might be tempted to delete negative and offensive comments, however, you might also be breaking a law.

Depending on your industry, YouTube comments might be considered public records. This means that negative comments and videos might be protected under the FOIA laws and the First Amendment.

Therefore, you should keep your records, especially your YouTube comments, for a prescribed period of time. With a cloud-based social media archiving solution, you can store all of your comments and videos in one secure location.

2. Create disclaimers

Another thing that you should consider doing is creating disclaimers. This means that if your video or comment contains content that is not appropriate for children or for minors, you should include a disclaimer in the video or comment.

You should also include disclaimers for videos or content that contains health or financial advice. Any unsupported claims, endorsements, or recommendations could result in a violation of federal laws.

3. Regularly review guidelines and policies

You should regularly review YouTube’s policies and guidelines. YouTube’s rules and policies change all the time.

In addition to YouTube’s rules and policies, you should also review federal laws and regulations. New laws might be created that could affect your industry. If new laws are created, you should adjust your YouTube videos to meet the requirements.

4. Educate your employees

You should also train your employees about YouTube’s rules and policies. Employees should know about you YouTube’s rules and policies before they create videos. Otherwise, they might accidentally break a rule.

5. Hire a lawyer

There is no reason to try and figure out YouTube’s policies and guidelines on your own. Instead, you should hire a lawyer. An attorney can help you to ensure that you are in compliance with both YouTube’s rules and policies and federal regulations and laws.

Conclusion

YouTube can be a great marketing tool for your business. YouTube can help your business to get the word out about your products or services. However, YouTube can put your business at risk of being in violation of federal regulations and laws. Therefore, it is important for your business to stay in compliance with YouTube’s policies and guidelines.