Influencer Marketing Revolution in the Age of YouTube Shorts
Taking a cue from the rapid rise of Tik Tok and Instagram Reels, the world over and especially in India, in September 2020, YouTube Vice President of Product Management Chris Jaffe announced YouTube’s own take on short form, vertical video social media: YouTube Shorts. It was first launched in India to such success that YouTube was encouraged to launch it everywhere else next year in May 2021. Influencer marketing agencies have been studying this new player in the short form video space for its influencer marketing potential from its early days.
YouTube Shorts for Influencer Marketing
YouTube, as it is, is one of the most popular social media platforms. It distinguishes itself from other platforms by being primarily about video sharing. It is also a more personal social media equivalent of TV where audiences come to feel a human personal connection with the content creators, who are called YouTubers. These YouTubers influence their audiences as potential buyers for their sponsors and brand partners already anyway. But Shorts demands YouTubers to adapt to this new form, and gives birth to a new kind of YouTuber, who mainly makes Shorts. So these Shorts YouTubers are a new variety of marketing influencers that influencer marketing agencies are studying.
Advantages of YouTube Shorts Influencer Marketing
Because Shorts is YouTube’s newest venture that it wants to succeed against the extremely successful Tik Tok and Instagram Reels, YouTube is promoting Shorts enthusiastically and powerfully. Shorts have special, emphasised visibility on the YouTube site, and they are becoming popular rapidly. They are responding to changing audience demands (for shorter, easier videos) and perhaps to a new audience altogether. It is more convenient to maintain publishing consistency with Shorts (as compared to conventional, longer YouTube videos), so more and newer kinds of people are being able to become creators and influencers. This is crucial knowledge for influencer marketing agencies and their client brands.
Types of Shorts and Influencer Marketing
YouTube Shorts can be used by influencer marketing clients in a number of ways. Influencer marketing agencies recommend that, for example, brands use Shorts to entertainingly answer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about their products or services. Alternatively, influencer marketing agencies suggest that the brands use Shorts to reach out with interactive content in general, getting the audiences involved. Moreover, influencer marketing agencies say that the brand may use Shorts for giving mini-tours of their products or services, demonstrating their features, and testing them, all done as part entertainment and part advertisement. Depending on the short form, vertical video in question, it may be recycled across platforms to Tik Tok and Instagram Reels.