YouTube is powering up to attract content creators and advertisers - Will the attention follow?

In November, YouTube announced new features for creators and advertisers. The updates are focused on YouTube shorts as it vies for supremacy of the short form video with TikTok. Something that we started discussing last month.

Announced in a flurry, updates include:

• Co-streaming with TikTok and Twitch
• Shopping ads in YouTube shorts
• Greater frequency control of YouTube ads
• Shorts availability optimised for Android and Apple TV and much more.

And in 2023, YouTube will start sharing 45% of its revenue with YouTube shorts creators. On top of what they already pay long-form content creators.

It's a series of moves to ensure that creators and advertisers will stay on YouTube for the longer term.

Why is this important? Short-form video content is the current epicentre of attention online. And YouTube is already underpriced in NZ for the eyeballs it delivers. However, the cost and time of producing video have often stopped us from easily using this medium.

As the product improves, we're likely to see more advertisers try out more video and shopping ads and take advantage of the lower costs.

Kim's thoughts: This is not my opinion, but I was chatting with someone that works closely in the TikTok space, and they believed that YouTube would win eventually. This is because of their business model and the ability to pay content creators.

So while the creators might jump on TikTok for fast personal brand building and organic reach, they will come back to YouTube in the end to pay the bills.

That is a fairly convincing argument, and based on what we're seeing in the updates, they are certainly banking on winning with the investment we're seeing.

Short-form videos across platforms are where attention is heading currently. TikTok is at the top right now, but I predict a lot of back and forth as advertising dollars are pushed into this space.