It’s no exaggeration to say the world is watching YouTube. The platform has nearly three billion users worldwide, and is fast becoming the go-to platform for watching video content, ahead of linear TV.
In the UK, over 80% of three to 17 year olds use YouTube – miles ahead of any other platform’s numbers. On average, 16 to 24 year olds watch over an hour and a half of content on video sharing platforms like YouTube every day, and just 20 minutes of linear TV.
Most of this streamed content is being viewed on phones, a trend YouTube is playing into with YouTube Shorts, which have become a popular alternative to Instagram Reels.
Traditional broadcasters are taking note, and taking action, to adapt to the new media environment. The BBC are uploading some of their shows to YouTube in full, and Channel 4 is even premiering some of its shows on YouTube before broadcasting them on streaming or linear TV. The future of video content is streaming and YouTube.
What does this mean for business?
While appearances on traditional broadcast remain valuable, firms should be looking for ways to future proof by diversifying their video content.
YouTube is by far the best way to do this. Coverage on streaming services like Netflix is difficult to obtain, especially as they do very little news and current affairs coverage, while YouTube hosts a wide variety of content.
As you self-upload to YouTube, it’s a much more meritocratic place to share your content. If you secure an interview for a documentary on a streamer, while it’s a great result, you won’t have any control over what makes the final edit and it’s unlikely to be more than a few minutes long. With YouTube, all that’s important is that your content is interesting and engaging – there’s few restrictions on what you can broadcast and the success of your content is determined by its quality.
What content should I be producing?
The best thing about YouTube is that you can upload almost any type of content. But this can also lead to a lack of focus and the delivery of video which nobody wants to watch. Therefore, it’s important to understand what your audience wants and deliver it with laser focus. Here’s a few examples of popular video types for business:
Advice and Explainers – A great way to showcase your expertise, advice and explainer videos provide practical tips for your viewers, adding value and building their respect for your expertise. You can get creative with these – shortform videos and Q and As work particularly well.
Brand stories – Video can be a very powerful way to curate a narrative around your brand and tell its story. Helping viewers to understand your brand’s ‘why’ as well as its ‘what’ will increase their emotional resonance with your business and build loyalty.
Behind the scenes – If brand stories talk about the ‘why’, these videos are focussed on the ‘how’. Everybody loves a peek behind the curtain, so giving an insider’s view of what you do is really engaging for viewers.
Live content – While they can be intimidating, live videos can be big set piece events. Having a fixed broadcast time helps to draw an audience and makes it easier to market ahead of time. Discussion and debate formats can work especially well live, as it gives them an extra injection of energy.
Ultimately, there is no one size fits all approach to YouTube. The best way to secure success it to work out who your audience are, take the time to research and understand them, then create the best content you can for them. If you’re creating quality content for the right audience, you will see results.
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