Have you ever wondered why certain YouTube videos just work? Why some channels have great content and others don’t? Well, so have we…

YouTube is an exciting and continually evolving landscape. Charlotte and I were able to attend the latest workshop held at the YouTube Creator Space in London. The event was aimed at content creators and agencies who are trying to understand more about what makes great video content, and why certain videos work and why others don’t.

Here are the key takeaways from the event. Essentially Google have tried to condense it into ten essentials that content creators need to consider. Some are more obvious than others, but all are equally important to understand if you are to be the next YouTube star.

  1. Shareabilty
  2. Conversation
  3. Interactivity
  4. Consistency
  5. Targeting
  6. Sustainability
  7. Discoverability
  8. Accessibility
  9. Collaboration
  10. Inspiration

YouTube presentation
So, let me try and summarise how each of these work and how you can build these into your content planning and strategy.

1 Shareability

Essentially, is your content interesting enough that other people would share it with their friends? One question that a YouTuber may ask when they post content is “what ten words would people use to explain the content to their friends?”

Thinking about it like this will help you refine your message into something that is consumable. Shareable content normally falls into one of three categories.

Is it:

  • Reputable? Do you add credibility to a specific area?
  • Topical? Can you piggy back on recent events and grab some coverage?
  • Value adding? Often “how to” videos that solve people’s problems. (This is my personal favourite use of YouTube, so I can fix random things around the house…)

2 Conversation

Is there an element of speaking directly to the audience? Try and think about supplemental content that can be created based on users’ feed back.

If they ask a question in the comments, why not answer it with another video?

3 Interactivity

Do people often ask you questions about your business or service? Do you often get asked the same or similar questions over and over? Well… why not acknowledge the people that ask these questions directly? E.g. “John Smith asked me the other day…”

If you do this, you are showing your audience that you are listening and that you will answer their questions. This encourages people to interact with you directly.

4 Consistency

People subscribe to a channel due to a consistent delivery of a relevant theme. So you need to consider a schedule for when you are posting content, and ensure your personality, format and tone of voice remain consistent.

People will subscribe if they feel they will see more of what drew them to the channel in the first place.

5 Targeting

Is there a clearly defined audience?
YouTube Creator Space movie star mural along corridor
Quite simple this one, but often over looked. Have you determined who you are trying to reach with your content? It is likely to be more successful if you are aiming it at a particular group that consumes your type of content.

6 Sustainability

This is probably the most difficult for most companies to get their heads round. They see video as a one off thing and certainly most video production companies are structured in that way, i.e. charge a lot for one high quality production.

Building a channel and subscribers requires constant content to be added on a regular basis. You need to ask yourself “is it sustainable to continue doing it?” Sustainable not just from a budget perspective, but also from a content perspective and a time perspective.

If it’s not, then you will find it hard to capture and retain your audience as they realise your video was just a one off.

7 Discoverability

Will the content get found through search or related videos? This comes down to naming it well and tagging it correctly. Not something I will go into in a lot of detail here because it is a blog topic in itself!

Just remember to think about what people will search for and try and align your names and tags accordingly.

8 Accessibility

Can every episode be appreciated by a brand new viewer? Try to make it so that if someone watched one of your videos, they would get a feel for the other ones too.

Consider non-linear video content so viewers can be up to speed straight away.

9 Collaboration

A great way to build an audience, and grow it, is to connect with other vloggers who have existing audiences. If you can feature them on your channel it may help you connect with their user base and vice versa.
YouTube Creator Space London
Don’t force the collaboration though as not all products work together! (I don’t expect a cheese channel to speak to a chalk channel if you get my meaning!)

10 Inspiration

Is this idea coming from a genuine place of passion?

Video is a very expressive medium, it is really hard to make something engaging if you look bored out of your mind when talking about it. Passion is essential if you want to show users that you actually care about what you are talking about!

Right, that is about it from me… remember check out our YouTube channel for our latest videos!

Happy vlogging!