The Video Generation: Why YouTube is Gen Z’s Most Used Platform

Originally published at https://www.nealsivadas.com on May 28, 2020.

Here’s a Gen Z secret (or maybe not). You’ll probably catch us on Instagram or Snapchat throughout the day, but when it comes to that time before going to bed, we are binging YouTube. Sometimes for hours.

I do that. Pretty much everyone I know does too. And I have a feeling that the rest of Gen Z does as well, especially when 72% of those aged 13–17 prefer to binge-watch multiple YouTube videos at once. A good portion of Millennials probably do it too.

There’s something very soothing about getting lost down the rabbit hole of YouTube before falling asleep. It’s a way for us to destress without having to think hard. I imagine it being a similar feeling that Bill Gates gets when he reads books before bed.

And this late-night YouTube culture has propelled YouTube, not Instagram, Snapchat or even TikTok (for now), to become the platform Gen Z spends the most time on. In this article, I’m going to expand on why YouTube is still king, how it has changed “content” itself, and why influencer partnerships with YouTubers are a powerful way to reach Gen Z.

Gen Z Powerhouse

As a generation that does not remember a life before YouTube (pre-2005) or Google, Gen Z has grown up with immediate access to billions of videos.

What this means is that, unlike other generations, they have never had to wait to find good content. Whereas 20 years ago, you had to see if any of the ten major network or cable shows being broadcasted at that moment were any good before deciding to flip to a different channel, you now have access to a content search engine with millions of different channels that could fill that same void.

As a result, Gen Z has extremely high expectations and low patience for good content. They know good content is out there and can easily find it. Subsequently, they have the shortest attention span of any generation in history (8 seconds), not implying that they only can focus on something for more than 8 seconds, but rather that you only have 8 seconds to make an impression on them. And most of all, they no longer have the patience for slow developing plots synonymous to traditional storytelling.

A New Story Arc

In grade school, we were taught that every story has a beginning, middle, and end. You start with an introduction, add some character development and a main conflict, and eventually hit a climax before the story ends. From scripture to books to TV to movies, this has been the structure for thousands of years.

Until YouTube came along.

If you look at the most successful videos on YouTube, whether beauty tutorials, prank/comedy videos, educational content, music videos, compilations, or “vlogs” (more on that later), they all digress from a traditional story arc. Instead of beginning with formal introduction and development and reaching a climax, they are more action-packed, provide constant gratification or excitement (i.e. through knowledge gain touchpoints or humor moments), and don’t necessarily have a clear beginning, middle, and end. The story arc looks a little more like this:

Like a heartbeat monitor — — constant up and downs with several spikes or climaxes randomly throughout.

Because this “heartbeat” content is so different from the traditional story arc of television or books, some people don’t consider it storytelling. After all, the average YouTube video length is 4 minutes and 20 seconds. This is much shorter than the traditional 20-minute or 45-minute TV episode or the 2-hour movie.

But, at the end of the day, they’re really not that different. They serve the same purposes — to entertain or educate. And I believe more and more people will realize it really is just a different way of content storytelling.

And it’s not as if you can’t tell a short story in less than 10 minutes; Short films and 5-minute SNL skits have thrived for the past 40 years. The biggest change that YouTube has brought is not short videos — it’s a whole new story arc.

Vlogging is the Future of Entertainment

The greatest testament is the growth of “Vlogs” of YouTube. Vlogs, which is short for video blogs, have been popular on YouTube for the past decade. It’s exactly what it sounds like — instead of blogging about a topic or your daily life, you use video. There are two main types:

1. “Talking head” vlogs where you talk into the camera about a subject (i.e. podcasts)

2. “follow me around” vlogs where the person will film clips as they go about their day or week.

Vlogs often have several cuts and additional text or graphics on the videos. You’ve probably heard or seen them. But I’m not here to tell you about the what. I want to explain the why and the implications of vlogs and this new model of storytelling.

Vlogging is YouTube’s version of television. And in my opinion, “vlogs” will soon begin to have an influence on what we consider “traditional” TV itself.

And there’s no better example than 23-year-old YouTuber David Dobrik.

David Dobrik — Gen Z’s Jimmy Fallon

David Dobrik grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in a middle-class family. He’s not a model, did not come from wealth, did not go to college, and does not have insane high-quality video editing skills.

And yet, he’s a multi-millionaire, nicknamed Gen Z’s Jimmy Fallon, and has won Nickelodeon’s Kid Choice Award for Favorite Social Star multiple times, all while his peers are just graduating college.

In other words, he is the quintessential example of a social media influencer — someone who has made a career out of creating social media content.

His foray into social media fame began on Vine, but he quickly utilized that following to create a YouTube account. He then started vlogging in 2016 and has grown his account to 18 million subscribers, with nearly every video garnering a minimum of 10 million views. He follows the “follow me around” vlogging format and takes clips from his daily life. Every video is 4 minute 20 seconds long. It usually consists of him and his friends hanging out, doing crazy things, and surprising people with gifts or money. There’s nothing extraordinary about the content itself — he just films his daily life and it’s not carefully scripted or shot with perfect cinematography or high-quality editing (he still uses iMovie) — but people love it. Here’s a typical example of one of his vlogs (highly encourage you to take the time to watch).

So why does Gen Z love this content? It reiterates what I talked about earlier.

1. It’s action-packed and raw: every moment is meaningful and engaging, yet different. Every person in the vlogs is like a character in a television show, but they play themselves.

2. It gives you constant gratification: whether providing humor, surprise, or emotion. You never really get bored by it.

3. There’s no slow story arc development needed: there was no beginning, middle, and end

It’s a perfect example of “heartbeat” content. And over the past four years, he has created 639 videos with this exact same format. 1 never-ending season, 639 episodes, and a regular cast of characters (his friends). Without any expensive production costs. Basically television, but a different way of telling the story.

That’s what David Dobrik and several other YouTubers have created. And he’s just one example of how “vlogs” and YouTube have changed storytelling forever.

Why Influencer Partnerships are Effective and What Good Ones Look Like

Most people, especially those in marketing circles, already know that influencer marketing is supposedly more effective among Gen Z and Millennials than using traditional stars in advertising because they find influencers more relatable. After all, David Dobrik is no Harvard-educated trust fund baby or an extremely talented actor. He’s just a kid from Chicago who makes funny videos with his friends. The majority of influencer marketing takes place on Instagram, but YouTube actually remains an underrated platform for influencer marketing. Jumpshot data found that in terms of ad performance of revenue, influencer marketing conversion rates (2.7%) are 5 times higher than traditional pre-roll and mid-roll ad conversion rates (0.5%).

The caveat of influencer partnerships is that they are not so simple. You can’t just pay someone to promote your product on YouTube like a traditional ad. YouTuber Casey Neistat, who makes vlogs and short films, received significant backlash after releasing a travel video that said “shot completely on a Samsung Galaxy Note” at the end of the video. His mainly Gen Z fans cited how much it felt like an ad and took away his credibility as a seemingly normal and relatable influencer.

Instead, the key is in the phrase: “partnership.” Brands and the influencers they partner with should act as “friends” who send each other stuff, surprise each other, and work together. This could be anything from sending influencers products to test and give public video feedback on their channels, helping influencers give back to the community, or running marketing campaigns where the influencers have strong creative control.

David Dobrik is on the extreme end. The brands he works with are almost part of his group of friends and family. If I asked any of David Dobrik’s 10–15 million teenage followers what David’s favorite brands are, they would all know the answer: SeatGeek and Chipotle.

SeatGeek’s involvement in David Dobrik’s YouTube seems somewhat questionable at first glance — they spend their money buying luxury cars for David’s friends, paying for college tuitio, or sponsoring trips for David or his fans. But in return, three things have happened for SeatGeek since they started sponsoring David.

1. Brand Awareness: Garnered 150 million views on 22 videos

2. Conversions: Dobrik offers a promo code ‘David’ that gives consumers a $20 discount off their first SeatGeek purchase and he always recites the same line in the video — — sales from Dobrik’s code grew 1500% since the company first started working with Dobrik in 2015.

3. Brand Positivity: Every time SeatGeek makes an appearance in his vlogs (as one of David’s “friends”), you know something amazing is going to happen. Who wouldn’t want to support a brand that brings absolutely joy by surprising “TV characters” you love or random people.

SeatGeek is so much part of David’s life that he famously recited his SeatGeek spiel after getting his wisdom teeth removed. And his fans absolutely loved that.

With Chipotle, Dobrik was already a huge consumer and he built on his fame and love for Chipotle by asking if he could represent them. He wears the same iconic all-black Chipotle uniform every day, flaunts an unlimited Chipotle card, has worked with them directly to ideate several TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram campaigns, and even had his Chipotle order named the “official” Chipotle burrito on National Burrito Day in 2019. Your best marketers are your best customers, and it never hurts to find and work with those best customers that happen to garner 200 million views every month.

Dobrik is a great example of an effective influencer partnership that will generate thousands more sales and brand positivity than pre-roll ads or paying someone to promote your product. However, it has to be a relationship. Gen Z looks to YouTube as a safe haven and ads as the enemy. It doesn’t mean they are opposed to brands. They just want brands to feel like another person, who sends them or their favorite influencers free stuff, helps the influencer be a better human being or achieve his or her goals, and make an impact as a friend and partner rather than a promoter. If you’re a brand that wants to work with a YouTube influencer, think about what a friend would do.

YouTube and Gen Z

To Gen Z, YouTube is a special place. It’s the ultimate database of accessible, customized content that serves their short attention span and lack of patience for slowly developing stories. That is why, according to Ad Week, Gen Z spends more time on YouTube than Netflix, which cannot be said about Millennials, despite YouTube being invented (2005) around the same time as Facebook and Twitter.

YouTube was seemingly built for everyone, but propelled by Gen Z.

This is part 8/12 of the “Find Gen Z Series”, a monthly blog where I detail one social or digital media platform and how to best reach Gen Z on the platform. I am no expert. All my knowledge and perspective is based on my own experience as a member of Gen Z and extensive research. My only goal is to help brands who really care about my generation and anyone else willing to listen by giving them the inside scoop on my generation. To learn about other platforms in the series, go to https://www.nealsivadas.com/findgenz and please reach out with any questions or feedback.