5 Takeaways from YouTube's Trends & Culture Report

HERE’S WHAT WE LEARNED FROM YOUTUBE’S REPORT ON CULTURE & TRENDS

YouTube is an absolute beast when it comes to popular culture and people’s preferences. If you were to ask anyone under the age of 25 who their favourite “celebrities” are, the list would almost certainly contain several names that can only be found on YouTube, so when they put together a Culture & Trends report, you know it’s going to be good.

Team YouTube conducted a major survey and worked with a team of creators to come up with what they believe are the most interesting insights so far this year, and presented them in the form of a video tour (of course) and 14-page report. We dug through it to bring you the most relevant and interesting parts. Here we go:

The Evolution of Online Communities

• “47% of Gen Z have watched videos made by fans of specific content, artists, or public figures over the past 12 months.”
• “82% of people (online 18-44-year-olds) say they’ve posted video content online (e.g., to Instagram Stories, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat) over the past 12 months.”

Online content is now an audience-participation event. Whether the topic is fishing, anime, gaming, or fashion, people are actively creating content to contribute, remix, or offer their own take on the thing they’re into. The result is that each micro-community of fans creates an opportunity to join in, engage and learn about what they’re into because it’s all out in the open.

The Water Cooler is Online

“54% of people surveyed say they would prefer to watch creators breaking down a major event rather than the event itself (e.g.,Oscars, Grammys).”

People love to talk about big events at least as much as they like to actually watch them. Every industry has these big moments: Fashion shows, Apple launch events, major tournaments, conferences, and awards shows, and the traditional model has always been to find ways to interrupt those moments with brand messaging. These data suggest that the best place for brands to show up may not be on the main stage, but in the after-show, or by sponsoring a vlogger who’s talking about what they just saw.

There is No One Right Content Format

“87% of people surveyed say, across any streaming services, they watched at least 4 content formats YouTube offers over the past 12 months.”

It’s tempting to search for the latest and greatest format that will get us in front of more people — is it Shorts, or long-form video, or Stories, or Reels? YouTube’s findings indicate that not only is there not just one right format, but that the best strategy is a mix of formats that allows people to consume our content when and where they want.

Clipping is the New Retweeting

“14M+ videos have been created each month in 2023 using the YouTube clipping feature.”

For example: Burger King released a video with a catchy “Whopper Whopper” song in it. The internet decided they liked the song so much that they used YouTube’s clipping tool to make videos featuring parts of Burger King’s video, along with their own original content.

The result: Burger King’s own Whopper Whopper video has over 10 million views, and the clipped videos have over 100 million.

AI-Generated Content is Here

“52% of people surveyed say they watched a VTuber (virtual YouTuber or influencer) over the past 12 months.”

These virtual creators are largely AI-generated characters that are more creative, their formats are more flexible, and audiences clearly love them.

People are using AI tools to create cartoons of themselves, put different faces on in order to become someone new online, or just to make the types of content they’ve always wanted, but didn’t previously have the tools to create.

What’s the Big Idea?

That’s a lot to digest, and there’s a ton more good stuff in the report that’s worth reading. At the end, YouTube tried to bottom-line their findings and came up with this:

“Monoculture has fragmented… but that’s a good thing”

What we’re taking away from it all is a reinforcement of the idea of online niches. They’re everywhere, and they’re more active than ever. The internet has graduated from chat rooms to Facebook Pages, subreddits, and Patreon, but what has always been consistent is the way that people gather around the things they love. The biggest change we’re seeing is how the tools of today are making those communities so much more creative and able to participate in the content themselves.

Check out the full report here

THE BIG TOURISM MARKETING RUNDOWN

WATCH US BREAK DOWN THIS QUARTER’S BIGGEST TOPICS

Each quarter, we produce something that we call The Big Tourism Marketing Rundown, and it’s that time of year again.

The Rundown appears on our tourism learning platform, eLearningU, and it’s our opportunity to look back at the past three months to identify the biggest stories, trends, and changes in the industry.

We always make these available for free, so if you or anyone you know could benefit from 20 minutes packed with insights and ideas about tourism and hospitality marketing, you should check this one out.

This quarter’s hottest topics:

• The launch of Threads, its battle vs Twitter, and whether you should bother paying any attention
• The transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, including how we can all use it to learn about websites’ conversions
• Shoppable travel, and how it’s going to change tourism marketing
• How AI got useful, including tools that you can use right now

WATCH THE RUNDOWN

AI IS GOING TO (TRY TO) FIX YOUR WEBSITE

SHOPIFY AND WIX EACH DROPPED AN AI WEBSITE TOOL

If we shared all of the developments in the land of AI, there wouldn’t be space to talk about anything else in The Brief, but this is a big one.

Let’s start with Shopify

Shopify’s new tool is called Sidekick, so named because, as CEO Tobi Lutke says, “Entrepreneurs are heroes, and every hero needs a Sidekick.”

The tool is like a super-charged chatbot that lives beside the Shopify website builder interface. It’s filled with all of the information about using Shopify that they have access to, of course, but it also has all of your website’s historical data, so you can ask it for things like sales trends and ideas about improving your checkout process. The tool can’t make all of the changes for you, but it can take you through the process step-by-step and even recommend creative ideas to add in.

This is the type of application where AI really shines and can potentially be most helpful: Rather than replacing human creativity, it acts as a superpower, enhancing and multiplying what we’re capable of. Whether Sidekick will live up to that promise remains to be seen, but the idea is certainly exciting.

Wix Wants to Build You a New Website

Where Shopify is trying to be your Sidekick, Wix wants to take website building entirely off your hands. Its new tool, called AI Site Generator, will design, code, and even fill any webpage that you can imagine with original content, based off of a few simple prompts.

This tool is especially exciting for people who need ideas and inspiration, or who just need to get something simple up quickly.

As with most technology, the most advanced and expert-driven jobs seem to be safe for now, but soon you won’t need to be calling your web designer to change the picture on your About page, and that feels like a win for everyone.

NEW DATA ON THE BEST TIME TO ASK FOR A REVIEW

COULD LATER BE BETTER?

A new study suggests that the worst time to ask for a review might be right away. It seems counter-intuitive, but according to the findings, too-early reminders will put off some people who were already planning to leave you a review, while others need more time before they have enough experience with their product to give their honest feedback.

Of course, there is no magic time frame to cover all purchase types, but the study did break the findings down by travel vs fashion:

• For a request to leave a review after returning from a trip:
  • 1 day reduced the number of reviews by 48%
  • 5 days reduced reviews 43%
  • 9 days increased reviews 6%
  • 13 days increased reviews by 68%
• For clothing products:
  • Asking within the first 40 hours had no impact on the number of reviews
  • 7 days increased reviews 12%
  • 14 days increased reviews 39%

Interestingly, while the timing does appear to have a pretty significant impact on the number of reviews written, the content, rating, and length of reviews were all about the same across the board.

You’ll want to run some tests for your own review requests, but if there is a magic number, it appears to be somewhere in the range of 10 days post-purchase.

A FEW FOR THE ROAD

MORE NEWS TO KEEP YOU ON THE CUTTING EDGE

• Linkedin updated its algorithm to focus more on opinions, advice, and 1st degree connections
• US Ecommerce volume is up 10% year-over-year, crossing $1.1 Trillion for the first time ever
• Meta published its small business Holiday Planning Guide
• So did Reddit, and it’s called Holiday Insights

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting