How to succeed on YouTube: tips from Asda and TomSka
Collaboration – especially with a rival – might seem an alien concept to many marketers but it has been a key approach in the extraordinary rise of YouTube celebrities.
Stars such as Zoella and her boyfriend Alfie Deyes, of PointlessBlog fame, have grown their audiences to many millions with a very modern marketing mind set – one which brands can learn from.
‘How to Succeed on YouTube: Be Part of the Community’ is a short film in a series of four aiming to get under the skin of these YouTube creators and explore how brands can thrive in this space. The films are an extension of The Creators, a documentary premiered by The Drum.
The film offers three key pieces of advice from vloggers Zoella, with 7 million subscribers, TomSka (3 million plus) and the up-and-coming Niki and Sammy (110,000 in just 18 months): get to know your audience by studying the analytics; promote others, and collaborate with others.
As TomSka says: “There aren’t many better ways to grow as a creator than by collaborating with others. It’s kind of like eating them and stealing their powers.”
By appearing on each other’s channels these new celebs are cross-pollinating their brand and appeal to wider audiences.
Collaborations are an increasingly vital tool for marketers on YouTube too, as they attempt to tap in to the authenticity and the audiences these creators have grown.
Says Dom Burch, Senior director marketing innovation and new revenue, Walmart UK (Asda): “We spent five years ‘hiding’ video content on YouTube. We were posting on to channels and nobody was watching. We were trying to make videos that were ‘YouTubey’, shaky camera recipe videos – it was embarrassing.”
Burch believes that some brands can build a hero presence on YouTube but for a retailer such as Asda the right approach is partnering with existing YouTube stars. The Walmart-owned company works with talent agency Gleam Futures to access its roster of influencers.
Examples include a Pancake Day special with Deyes – whose only stipulations for the content were to include Nutella and eggs. “It’s not relevant that he talks about Asda but that the people who watch the video can click through to get those products. So many brands want to be front and centre – the main event – yet that’s not how people think of them.”
Giving over almost all editorial control to a creator can be daunting for brands more used to buying ad space, yet it needn’t be so scary, says Nick Cohen, vice president of content, strategy and brand partnerships at digital broadcaster and producer Little Dot Studios.
“For brands one of the most attractive things in this space is collaborating with people who already have a following,” he says. “They can gain access to difference audience through the creators because those creators have built their own audience.”
He cites stuntman Damien Walters’ Human Loop the Loop with Pepsi Max – viewed more than 11 million times – as an example of how brand and talent can align in a natural, believable and credible way.
Some brands will want to work with a creator within their channel to get direct access to their audience, whereas others will prefer to take the talent out of their own channel and into a different context – giving them more control of the message without losing the creator channel’s credibility.
“[But] building communities is about thinking more than just the content itself. It’s about distributing it, promoting it, collaborations, all the little tricks to making your video shareable and discoverable. Brands need to understand that it’s not about just sticking up a video, which won’t get any views,” says Cohen.
Both Burch and Cohen also warn advertisers not to think of this as a ‘youth’ medium. Though many of the successes cited in mainstream media are of teens and twentysomething creators, there are communities building around every demographic and every niche passion point. Indeed, gaining global attention and traction at present is Tricia Cusden, whose Look Fabulous Forever beauty channel is aimed at the older woman.