How to Hire a YouTube Channel Manager - And What They Can Do For You

Sooner or later, most successful YouTubers run into the same question: How do you hire a YouTube channel manager to take care of video admin?

Anyone who runs a successful channel knows that content production is just a fraction of the work. Tasks like uploading and scheduling videos, writing descriptions, and doing all the YouTube SEO research to get your content to rank take up loads of time.

Once your channel grows beyond a certain limit, you just about have to start outsourcing parts of your video creation process. Channel management and SEO are high on the list of tasks that you can easily delegate to take back your time.

Here’s your guide to hiring a YouTube channel manager.

What Does a YouTube Channel Manager Do?

Ultimately, the purpose of hiring a YouTube channel manager is to improve your rankings, grow your subscriber counts, and increase engagement. To reach this goal, they help you take care of all the administrative tasks that come with running a successful channel.

On the most basic level, this means uploading your videos and adding optimized metadata to improve their visibility. These include tags, hashtags, video descriptions, key moments, chapters, as well as captions and subtitles.

In addition, they might take care of designing and adding graphical elements such as thumbnails and end screens. Most professional channel managers will do some level of A/B testing – trying out different versions of them to see what resonates most with your audience:

Another part of a channel managers’ job is to schedule releases for just the right day and time, and to create and manage playlists on your channel.

Going further, they also take care of comment moderation. This involves replying to viewers and deleting offensive comments left by trolls.

This isn’t just good for audience engagement – it also means that you don’t have to deal with that negativity. If you’re already stressed, these attacks certainly won’t help your motivation, and may well contribute to feelings of creator burnout.

On a higher level, a channel manager will keep an eye on your video analytics. They’ll tell you where your content does well, and where it needs improvement.

If you’re just getting started out with a professional channel – or want to launch a new one – a channel manager can also take care of the entire set-up process.

Finally, channel managers can handle some aspects of YouTube SEO, that is, Search Engine Optimization. After Google, YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine, and the algorithm for the top search results and recommendations changes constantly.

A channel manager with SEO knowledge can help you navigate the platform’s algorithm and increase the visibility of your content. They can help you target the right keywords and incorporate them into your content.

Some of these YouTube tasks can be automated – but somebody also has to manage that.

How to Find a YouTube Manager for Your Channel

First, determine exactly which channel management tasks you want to outsource. What skills and how much experience does your ideal channel manager need?

The larger your channel is, the more likely it is that you’ll have separate specialists for each task – different people to focus exclusively on channel administration, YouTube SEO strategy, and content research.

When you’re just starting to outsource, though, the ideal scenario is to find someone with solid all-round expertise.

For the most part, these people are freelancers. You can easily find them on freelancing platforms like Upwork, PeoplePerHour, or Fiverr. Just write up a comprehensive job description, post it on a platform, and wait for applicants to come to you.

Companies, too, offer YouTube channel management services. The key advantage is greater reliability – if your usual manager falls sick, they’ll have someone to cover for them.

You should know that people we’ve called “channel managers” here actually comes under a lot of job titles. Some call themselves channel managers, others account managers, virtual assistants, social media managers, or YouTube SEO experts. They might also simply be (SEO) writers with the requisite skills.

Once you have a few candidates on your list, vet them thoroughly. Check their websites, and take a good look at their portfolio, reviews, and client testimonials. Do all of these show that the candidate is good at what you’ll be asking them to do?

When you’ve narrowed down the field, interview people personally. This will help you make sure they have the right skills, and that you get along with them on a personal level. In addition, you can ask your top contenders to do a (paid) trial job to have a first-hand sample of their work.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Channel Manager?

Generally, you’ll see two different models out there: per-video pricing and hourly pricing. Either way, rates for trustworthy channel managers start at $20 per video, though many offer volume discounts. Hourly rates typically start at $25/h.

However, prices vary considerably depending on the tasks you expect your channel manager to handle. For example, if you want someone to handle extensive SEO research, along with graphic design and ads, then rates can quickly rise to $40-75 per hour.

How to Add a Manager to My YouTube Channel

Once you’ve settled on a candidate for the job, you can add them as a channel manager in YouTube Studio.

Under Settings, click on Permissions and then Invite (see the picture below). Then, you can enter the email address of your new team member, and select the type of access you want to grant them.

Depending on the tasks they’ll be assigned, you’ll want to make them either a manager, an editor, or an editor with limited permissions.

Did you create a new YouTube channel from your existing account? Then you’re likely using what Google calls a brand account. If you try to set channel permissions in Studio, you’ll see the following screen instead:

Brand accounts only have owner and manager roles, unlike the more fine-grained permissions that Studio makes available. That’s very useful if you want a trusted manager to have broad control over the channel, and it also gets around some of the limitations of Studio permissions.

Still, you can choose to move permissions to YouTube Studio to limit a manager’s access. If you only need somebody to work on your metadata, they don’t need the ability to permanently delete your videos.

Of course, you can also move everything back to the brand account later, if necessary.

The Bottom Line

Adding a channel manager to your YouTube team can help you save massive amounts of time when it comes to uploading and handling your videos, especially if you run multiple channels.

Finding the right person for the job can take some time and effort, but it’s ultimately worth it. They will help you be more productive and efficient, which lets you take your channel to the next level!