YouTube – Why do brands give a DAM and how does it work out for them?

In the modern world, every brand uses one or the other platform to connect with their audiences, spot trends and create work that is click-worthy. Brands run their own channels on YouTube and what actually plays a very vital role in content generation and growing organic reach is the phenomenon of actually giving a DAM, which implies that the content is Discoverable, Actionable and Measurable.

Episode 4 of the BuzzInContent Conversations Season 2 delved deep into the nitty-gritties of creating successful YouTube content strategies for brands with Prateek Malpani of Wakefit.co, Rumi Ambastha from The Man Company, Dhruv Sachdeva from Humour Me and Ranjeet Kumar from Scaler.

While the four panellists emphasised on catching the pulse of the audience, creation of engaging content and what ticks as good content, they also described how their respective brands focus on the growth of organic reach.

“Start-ups and brands in India are investing a lot on YouTube, not just as a lever but more as a distribution mechanism that they want to keep for future, despite the risk of failing, it is not predominant, but it is being used,” said Ranjeet Kumar, Head of Brand and Content, Scaler.

With hotshot brands like Coca-Cola and Redbull realising the need to connect with their consumers and identifying what matters to their consumers and the moments that matter to them and then tapping on the opportunity of becoming people-first, start-ups and brands have forayed into the content creation space in the recent past, as per Kumar.

Commenting on why brands exist on social media, Kumar said, “The main reason behind the creation of social media platforms was for people to connect with each other. If you are only there to talk about yourself and post ads on YouTube, then why exist on social media. Look at what the content creators have done, brands were there much earlier but they haven’t participated enough.”

Adding on to Kumar’s response, Dhruv Sachdeva, Founder, Humour Me, said, “The internet user base stands at roughly 840 million and the user base of YouTube is 467 million, which is approximately half of the total user base. As brands and advertisers, you need to exist where the audience exists and all your potential customers exist on YouTube in some or the other form, so you cannot ignore it.”

“YouTube is fundamentally not designed to be push-oriented as humans hate advertising and commercials. When brands come to us saying we want to create communities, what I'm actually hearing is that I want these many customers, which is fundamentally flawed since it is a two-way communication space,” as per Sachdeva.

Furthermore, Sachdeva also elaborated on how creators understand the pulse of the audience and how marketers spot work that is praise-worthy. When it comes to creating content for brands on social media or YouTube, knowing what is making the audience stick for that particular cohort definitely puts one in a better position to create content that is going to get people to care about and engage with it more and thus become an extension of the customers' personality, he added.

“People don’t go to YouTube to just watch fun content but good content, that may range from documentaries to understanding what is happening around the world or even understanding the review of a movie or a match. There is a learning factor attached to it,” said Rumi Ambastha, Director of Brand Marketing, The Man Company.

dding on to how The Man Company started on YouTube, Ambastha added, “Initially when we started looking at YouTube, we started looking at it as a platform where we planned to become that one-stop-shop for everything that is related to men’s grooming and if somebody thinks of it they think of us.”

“While it is difficult and challenging to build a subscriber base on YouTube, brands need to put out good and original content that ticks with the audience and consistently keep posting on the channel,” said Ambastha. “Also, if one looks at a brand as a person and not as a company, one can understand that it is ought to have a personality and needs to know what is that one unique thing that they are offering that nobody else is and then what is it that will tick the audience and that is why a myopic plan doesn’t work well as the audience won’t go out richer in terms of knowledge if one just sticks to one type of content.”

Apart from posting videos one can also post content on YouTube Shorts and schedule a YouTube Premiere. While many brands fail to do so, The Man Company has utilised it well.

Ambastha highlighted this by telling that they regularly post bits and parts of videos on YouTube Shorts which has resulted in the audience going back to their videos from Shorts to find out what was the bigger story.

Premiere has also enabled brands to schedule the airing of their content and brands do find it useful because it allows them to reach a comparatively larger engagement as everybody wants to take the pride in being there and watching it or even comment on it as the first user, according to Ambastha.

Even though brands might not use YouTube’s offerings very well, content creators make it a point to use all of the available options in the most viable way. Apart from YouTube Shorts and Premiere, content creators make use of the YouTube Community Tab to post an image, video, gif or even conduct a poll as it helps them reach their entire subscriber base.

“Most of the learnings come from content creators because they are the ones who are not only living but breathing YouTube and they are the first ones to know what all features are coming to the platform. It is one of the only platforms which provides the audience with a very fair mix of intellectual discussion and entertainment,” Ambastha added.

Commenting on how one can grow organic reach on YouTube, Prateek Malpani, Head of Brand, Wakefit.co, said, “Before starting a YouTube channel, one should know the answer as to why people should subscribe to their channel in the first place. One should stop thinking like a brand and think as a content creator to have a good run on the platform as people like to interact with people and it should not just be a one-sided communication.”

Starting a channel is easy but maintaining it is very difficult, as per Malpani, because one needs to pay attention to hygiene. “The key mantra to emerging successful on YouTube lies in giving a DAM- Discoverable, Actionable and Measurable. One can make their video discoverable by optimising the metadata, headlines and descriptions. A video can be made actionable by adding annotations, playlists and a regular upload schedule. Any content can be made measurable by engaging with communities via comments, using analytics and understanding where your organic growth levers lie,” he commented.

Even the YouTube guidelines suggest that one should design, curate and stick to one type of content. This generally tends to be a better option as it is only then that the audience knows what kind of content creator you are and if they like your videos, they will not only follow but will always end up circling back to the content on one’s channel.

“The most important thing is to realise what is the channel for, who is the channel’s audience and then upload content consistently because at the end of the day it is the algorithm that will understand and push the content for feeding the audiences,” said Sachdeva of Humour Me.

Adding on to this, he also elaborated on the relevance of YouTube Shorts when he said, “YouTube Shorts is designed for creators to show their hustle in a 15-30-60 seconds time frame, so it doesn’t get that automatic push. It might not do well in the first 24 hours, but the followership might come a bit later, after 48 hours or so. Also, one should also try and introduce many cuts and edits, for every three seconds, since it is designed for a short attention span. It is not to be mistaken that one should have an agenda for making Shorts because that won’t work. In fact, it’ll find the right audience for your content cohort and only then will your video be served in the recommendations section.”

The Man Company’s Ambastha also shared a few tips that every brand should keep in mind while using YouTube.

“Keep your content very raw and real and if you have a brand book, you’ll get all your answers as to why you are starting a YouTube channel and what is your audience, and will also be able to set your tone. Also, keep a plan in place for posting your content for a period of 6-12 months and try to post at least one good content video per day at the bare minimum. Stay true to your purpose and keep posting around the same cohort rather than expanding to many cohorts as that’ll automatically drive away subscribers. Also, make sure to use other platforms to create awareness about your YouTube channel to amass audiences. Do not forget hygiene at all and keep it right from the start,” she suggested.

Wakefit.co’s Malpani further added, “Today YouTube runs on three types of platforms- Connected TV, Mobile and Shorts and the time frame for each platform varies according to their viewers. However, the ideal length for a YouTube video is 10 minutes as videos in the timeframe of 7-15 minutes tend to do better organically. But essentially any content should fall under the 3Es, which is Education, Entertainment and Engagement.”