QUICK! What’s your favourite YouTube video ever? Write it down and chuck the piece of paper at us! Tough question, right?
Well that’s the first question Jehan Shah – Omnicom agency head across Google asked us in a conversation about data and views. With 60% year-on-year growth of videos being watched across YouTube, Shah explained how the platform is being used by influencers as well as traditional broadcasters to reach a new audience.
There are three trends he mentioned when it comes to content authenticity and using data to make informed decisions:
- Audience is Commissioner – people are going to watch what they want when they want with a plethora of choice with regards to content as well as the variety of engagement metrics, users are in control of what becomes popular. For creators and brands, it’s all about discoverability – so discovering what works based on audience signals on content created.
- Prime Time to All Time – YouTube is now allowing traditional broadcasters to reach a whole new audience by using the platform to promote snippets of their broadcast shows. He used James Corden’s Late Late Show to portray this but you also see this with the likes of Ellen and Jimmy Fallon who amass a massive amount of views by sharing elements of their broadcast shows.
- Small screen revolution – this comes as no surprise as he stated a 200% growth in time spent on mobile. Users (especially users who are subscribers) are watching twice as much content on their mobile phones in relation to desktop.
We also welcomed SORTEDfood who discussed how they are using YouTube to reach a new audience as well as working with brands. My main take out here was a question I asked about how they used YouTube Analytics to inform their decision on what content to make based on a particular commission from a particular continent, country or region. They explained that a massive 70% of their decisions come from data, however there is an element of following your gut instinct when it comes to making content as in their quote “We are talking to humans and not robots. If we listened to data we would make rainbow coloured cupcakes all the time”.
Speaking of rainbows, my favourite video that came to mind was in fact the Double Rainbow. It’s a classic.
