Decoding revolution of content ecosystem on YouTube Ft. Aman Malhotra

In conversation with Social Samosa, Aman Malhotra delves into the evolving content ecosystem on YouTube and the ways to leverage the medium for achieving optimum results.

As platforms continue to evolve in the social media spectrum, Aman Malhotra, Head of Brand Solutions, Google India, decodes the YouTube content ecosystem for brands and creators while highlighting the prominent audience buckets present on the platform.

Evolution of Content Ecosystem on YouTube

With several content opportunities and subjects, YouTube has evolved manifold since the time of its launch in India back in 2010, shares Malhotra. Initially, people came on to the platform to consume entertainment content that changed to Entertainment + Information + Education, over time. Consumers started leveraging the platform for various utilitarian activities.

From the beginning, the platform witnessed more users from the metro cities to view content around music and comedy. Over the years, YouTube saw more diverse genres like beauty, kids, tech, travel, and food gaining prominence. Malhotra highlights, "The platform further experienced a boom between 2018-19 as it penetrated Tier 2 and 3 cities with offerings that included content in various native languages."

The Audience Deconstruct

Cut to 2020, YouTube saw a massive influx of audience with 37% of users from Rural India. 

Malhotra highlights, “YouTube is no more a platform for niche audiences as 51% of its viewers fall under NCCS C/D/E, but provides content for all.”

With more content diversity, the viewers of YouTube mirrored the TV viewers across age groups and towns, he says. The current TG on the platform consumes learning content 2.5 times more than any other form of content on the platform.

Popular Content Genres

The Always-on segment or traditional content includes the most or evergreen content categories - family, learning, comedy, movies, music, regional content, food, women’s lifestyle, and so much more.

Another type of content is Trending Content as per moments or context. Malhotra shares, the lockdown saw a 5x spike in the education channels, and gaming also witnessed a significant increment, amongst others. Since 2020, we have started creating solutions for brands to target the right audience, he added.

Speaking further about various kinds of content genres, Malhotra puts forth that the third type of content, gaining popularity is custom content. With a plethora of options, brands can now choose to bring custom content for the consumers. For example, Avengers campaign across channels.

Further, he points that music garners significant reach and engagement on YouTube. This can be capitalized by the brands for campaigns basis their objectives.

Brands & YouTube: The Way Forward

With custom content, YouTube paved the path for UGC content for creators and audiences. Malhotra highlights that while UGC content contributes to more than half of the music content on the platforms, brands have witnessed success stories in branding and engagement leveraging influencers, and performance through YouTube marketing campaigns in the past. For example, Maggi Masala's e-magic made an attempt to build referrals leveraging the platform with home chefs, Asian Paints Ultima aimed to gather efficient reach through regional content on the platform.

Further, Malhotra summarized how brands can leverage YouTube for campaigns and more:

• Google Lineups and Moments on right channels
• Creator Integrations for brands
• Owned Content

Lastly, for brand safety and solutions, YouTube brings YouTube select to connect with their audience through a suite of brand and content solutions

Aman Malhotra shared the virtual stage on Day 2 of Social Samosa’s marque property SM Live.

You can watch the complete event here: