YouTube has launched an online educational tool for agencies to help them learn the tricks of YouTube’s biggest stars in order to create better branded content for the video platform.
Launching at Cannes Lions 2016, the YouTube Brand Partner Program Certification includes tips on publishing frameworks, campaign optimisation, and how to work with YouTube content creators.
The course includes advice direct from popular YouTube stars, including Hannah Hart, MysteryGuitarMan and My Cupcake Addiction.
The program is rolling out this week on an invitational basis, and is available in 22 languages.
The launch builds on YouTube’s existing Brand Partner Program, a week-long course for brands introduced three years ago, widening its reach by not requiring participants to commit time in-person.
At a launch event on YouTube’s private beach in Cannes, CMO Danielle Tiedt talked about the difficulty of standing out amongst the “explosion of content” on YouTube. The number of videos produced in 2015 by the top 100 brands alone was up 39 per cent year-on-year, to 853,000. (You can see more of these stats in the infographic at the bottom of this post.)
“As a marketer, it’s a really interesting time to think how you break through – just putting up a video is no longer good enough,” Tiedt said.
Tiedt outlined three areas she has identified with successful brands on YouTube. The first is building trust and an ‘authentic’ relationship with the audience, similar to the way YouTube stars do with their fans. The second is innovative storyytelling formats – Tiedt used the example of 360° videos, which YouTube is now the world’s biggest platform for.