YouTube and “Reinforcing” Psychologies

Sam Harrelson on June 8, 2019

“The new A.I., known as Reinforce, was a kind of long-term addiction machine. It was designed to maximize users’ engagement over time by predicting which recommendations would expand their tastes and get them to watch not just one more video but many more.

Reinforce was a huge success. In a talk at an A.I. conference in February, Minmin Chen, a Google Brain researcher, said it was YouTube’s most successful launch in two years. Sitewide views increased by nearly 1 percent, she said — a gain that, at YouTube’s scale, could amount to millions more hours of daily watch time and millions more dollars in advertising revenue per year. She added that the new algorithm was already starting to alter users’ behavior.

“We can really lead the users toward a different state, versus recommending content that is familiar,” Ms. Chen said.”

via “The Making of a YouTube Radical” by Kevin Roose in the New York Times

Video at every stage of the customer journey

Sam Harrelson on July 19, 2018

Holistic marketing campaigns that are based on customer journeys and utilize a mixture of text, video, and image based ads have always been the vehicle for real results if you had enough budget.

It’s great to see Google (YouTube) helping to make this reachable for nonprofits, community groups, and religious orgs with a limited budget as well…

Increasingly, video is also leading people to take action. In fact, globally, conversions generated by YouTube ads are up 150 percent year over year.1 Using TrueView for action, you can drive any action on your website that’s important to your business, like booking a trip, scheduling a test drive or requesting more information.

— Read on blog.google/products/ads/results-on-youtube/

Teens Have Officially Moved Beyond Facebook

Sam Harrelson on June 5, 2018

Wow, these stats are really quite something. Facebook dominates the social media landscape for older Americans, but teens have moved on to YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat over the last 3-4 years.

Astonishing changes in usage percentages and something Facebook, and marketers, should really be concerned about (yes, Instagram is owned by Facebook but the Newsfeed is still the bulk of $$ for Facebook).

It’s hard to earn back users once young people start leaving, as Friendster and MySpace found out.

The social media landscape in which teens reside looks markedly different than it did as recently as three years ago. In the Center’s 2014-2015 survey of teen social media use, 71% of teens reported being Facebook users. No other platform was used by a clear majority of teens at the time: Around half (52%) of teens said they used Instagram, while 41% reported using Snapchat.

In 2018, three online platforms other than Facebook – YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat – are used by sizable majorities of this age group. Meanwhile, 51% of teens now say they use Facebook. The shares of teens who use Twitter and Tumblr are largely comparable to the shares who did so in the 2014-2015 survey.

Source: Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018 | Pew Research Center

10 most downloaded iPhone apps in the world

Sam Harrelson on May 3, 2018

It might be surprising to Americans, but neither Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube is the most downloaded app on the iPhone anymore. As we continue to move into the 21st Century, we’re seeing the rise of Chinese apps and companies. This will only escalate in the coming years, especially as the US seems more preoccupied with tribalistic policies.

“Known as Douyin in China, Tik Tok is a music video and social media app. The app lets you shoot and edit short clips, then add music and special effects to them. Tik Tok is owned by the same parent company that bought social video app Musical.ly for $1 billion last year”

Facebook-owned apps dominated the App Store charts during the first three months of the year, but a Chinese-made music video app called Tik Tok took first place – Business Insider

The Way the Stems Meet the Curves

Sam Harrelson on August 30, 2017

youtube_2017_wordmark_before_after

Technically, this is an absolutely fantastic update. They have taken the blunt shapes of the old letters and improved on all of them to create a beautiful wordmark. At small sizes the change is almost imperceptible but at larger sizes the change is a feast. If the way the stems meet the curves on the bottom of each letter doesn’t give you heart palpitations then you might be in the wrong industry. That is really masterful. Dork-swooning aside, every letter is better — better designed and better suited for every size and screen possible. Play a little game of Spot the Difference and you’ll appreciate what I mean. The wider opening of the “Y”, the rounder sides of the “o” and “e”, the contrast in thicks and thins. So good. Also, the kerning couldn’t be better.

via Brand New: New Logo for YouTube done In-house

Details. And kerning.

Don’t be boring or cheap with your logo or wordmark.

Google Embraces Content Marketing on YouTube

Sam Harrelson on June 20, 2013

Using content that you create inside of your businesses marketing efforts is becoming so important for real success and reach on the social web. Whether it’s graphs on Facebook, pictures on Instagram, snippets on Vine or (especially crucial) videos on YouTube, your business should be creating engaging and creative content.

Google understands this and is throwing its weight behind a developing program aimed at helping advertisers make better YouTube videos that embrace content marketing:

Google Wants to Help Advertisers Make YouTube Videos | Digital – Advertising Age: “The move comes as more brands look to become custom publishers themselves and create content that consumers care about. As a result, agencies across disciplines have set up devoted content groups to advise clients and create, produce and distribute content featuring their clients’ brands.”

While this program is initially open to just a few select brands, it doesn’t mean your brand should wait things out. Now’s the time to start making the kinds of videos that shows off your company/services and what makes you different in a world of cookie cutters.