Orama Update #4: To YouTube or not to YouTube in 2024
Can YOU🫵 find success on the platform without channeling your inner Mr. Beast
Welcome to the third Orama Newsletter. I’m George, Founder/Producer at Orama, and this is a short monthly newsletter mainly for clients and partners, with two goals:
Share thoughts & insights about the world of brand video and podcasting
Keep you in the loop with the latest developments. This replaces the occasional end-of-month email but you can also contact me directly anytime: george@orama.tv, Tel: +44(0)7900033552
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I may be affected by the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, also called the frequency illusion. It is a cognitive bias that affects how we perceive information. It's a phenomenon where something you recently discovered seems to appear everywhere, making it seem more common than it actually is.
Ever since I’ve relaunched my podcast and transformed it into a “Show” that’s available in audio and video format. I spend much more time on YouTube and keep seeing it. Here’s the latest from a newsletter.
It could be just another trend. Hey everyone! You need to be on Instagram (2014), Snap (2016), and TikTok (2019). By the way, what happened to Facebook Threads?
Here, I’d like to properly assess the YouTube opportunity and what it takes to get meaningful results there in 2024.
The YouTube question (for B2B brands)
It’s not just about the content. Every month, I also spend a few hours on the YouTube stats of clients’ channels and my own, and patterns emerge. Most brands have a YouTube channel. But while they have established a strong presence on platforms like LinkedIn and some on Twitter, YouTube is a distant third. That’s because our clients are mainly in the B2B space, and many are in finance/fintech. Consumer brands will likely naturally emphasize Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. I guess.
Furthermore, many of our clients are in Fintech / Finance, which is probably the most challenging industry in creating moving images. If you’re reading this and you’re anywhere but in B2B Fintech, your content life should be easier!
I don’t think any CMO in that space will easily sway the board by offering to refocus the content away from the traditional platforms and into YouTube.
The question is instead:
Instead of an afterthought - can YouTube be a growth engine?
Or:
Should we channel just enough energy and resources into leveraging the potential of YouTube to feed both the top and bottom of their sales funnel?
What’s the potential of YouTube?
YouTube is still the place for video (alongside TikTok, but we’ll leave that for later). All enable and encourage native video, but it’s unclear if it’s a medium that performs better than another post.
Because it’s a search engine, the appeal of the content can last forever
Because it’s a search engine, it impacts every stage of the buyer’s journey
It serves multiple purposes: sell, recruit, educate…
People don’t just watch. It’s a social platform where they can interact. But they also click!
Returning to my example of B2B Fintech: If you’re a B2B brand, Creator or Media in that space, YouTube can help with brand awareness, appreciation, and action. But you knew that already, and it’s all ‘potential’.
It’s for everyone. But not everyone should try hard
There’s no downside to having a channel. If you are a podcaster, you can just post your audio files in there with a cover image and see what happens.
But it’s hyper-duper competitive. Around 3.7m new videos are uploaded to YouTube daily– around 271,330 hours.
You need quality AND quantity!
As a small channel, if you wonder whether you will have something to post monthly, you’re probably better off minimizing your efforts.
It’s perfectly fine just to post videos there, with a nice description and thumbnail and hope for the best.
What does it take to bring a YouTube channel to the next level?
This is a question that deserves a long answer and one that’s tailored to you. I think I will explore it in 2024, but here are some pointers.
Keyword and data-driven content - there are ways to find what your audience is looking for before you create content.
Create shows, not just interviews and monologues
Patience and experimentation - not always easy to balance
Quantity, quality, consistency - although I think it’s a bit overhyped. Don’t panic if you miss a monthly post!
Tactics: collaborations, influencers, paid and more
You don’t need to channel your inner Mr Beast. He’s reportedly spent thousands of hours studying YouTube, and he’s working hard at it. How hard? He’s currently buried alive!
Your growth also doesn’t need to be measured in views or subscribers. But can you create a deep connection with a few people that matter? Can you be their favourite?
Who’s doing it right in B2B?
Obviously, you can look at Big Tech, for example, AWS or Google Cloud, but I’ve decided to stop using them as references because life is different when you’re in the trillion-dollar market cap club.
I’d like to point out three brands from different B2B industries + a VC. I might do a deep dive on each of them later. But I promised to keep this short, so there’s just a one-liner.
Ahrefs: Marketing - because they’re doing a great job at pushing their product while creating content helpful for general queries.
Rolls Royce plc: Manufacturing (the engines, not the cars) - because they manage to make heavy manufacturing appealing
Paddle: Fintech - because they have a thought content strategy overall, and they’re into a niche of a niche of a niche: payment infrastructure for SaaS
A16z: Investing - because they manage to transform serious (boring?) conversations into a hype machine
It’s the last newsletter of 2023, and it’s my birthday tomorrow. I’m not crying. It’s just something in my eye. Thank you for a great 2023. Have a blast this year's end!
George