← Social Media Marketing Talk Show
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Are you thinking of attending Social Media Marketing World but you're concerned that you're not going to learn anything new? Listen to what fellow marketers have to say. Regina Kowitz says, I've been wanting to attend this conference for years and finally got to go. It was phenomenal and packs a punch with incredibly valuable and actionable information. Katie Brinkley says, just four years ago I made a decision that would pivot my entire entrepreneurial journey. I attended Social Media Marketing World. The rewards promised to be nothing short of extraordinary. Rebecca Good says, I absolutely loved every single presentation and wish I could turn back the clock like Hermione from Harry Potter and get to experience every single session. I learned so much and would absolutely love the opportunity to go back again. Come see what you're missing. Visit social media marketing world.info and grab your tickets to Today.
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Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Talk show, your guide to the ever changing world of social media. Wow. YouTube wow. On today's show we're going to explore YouTube updates, a bunch of important ones and how to apply them, including 3 minute shorts. Now what if I have a 2 to 3 minute video idea? Should it be a short or a long video? Some new tools that could substantially lower our marketing costs, which is exciting and YouTube viewing in living rooms on TVs is shooting up. I want to talk about some ways to start adapting and taking advantage of that. All right, My name is Jerry Potter, host of the Social Media Marketing Talk Show, a Social Media examiner production where we break down all the latest social media news and what it means for marketers like you. So starting with YouTube shorts, bunch of updates. First, shorts templates. This is something we've seen on reels and TikTok for a long time. A new feature allowing creators to use existing videos as templates for their shorts so you can reuse elements like audio, timing and text. This is a huge time saver if you have sort of a series of content that you put out regularly. Obviously it's going to continue to be important to make sure that the viewer doesn't assume it's the video that they've already seen, you know your most loyal subscribers and then just swipe away. But that being said, could be a massive, massive time saver. And one thing we're seeing right now a lot with shorts and especially shorts focused channels is these sort of series where it's the same type of video every time but slightly, slightly different. So fewer shorts in home feed. This is going to become an option for people who do not want to See shorts in the home feed. So all they have to do is click the three dot menu next to any shorts grid where they're kind of suggesting different shorts and say, yeah, I don't want to see as many of those. So just something for us to be aware of. This is a big one if you are somebody who goes through and likes to make lots of shorts and you're doing it on the mobile phone. YouTube has improved the shorts drafts feature. So now you can manage multiple drafts simultaneously, thank goodness. And this is available on both item iOS and Android. And another thing YouTube is testing is a new save button in the Shorts player. Now, it's not so much interesting that there's a save button as it is what they took away to make room for this save button. So they're testing a save button in the Shorts player to make it easier to bookmark shorts for later viewing. I don't use it so much on Shorts, but I do save on some of the other platforms. I use the save feature quite a bit on YouTube. I've only used it primarily for videos on demand, the widescreen videos for now, but the save button is replacing the dislike. Okay, so basically to make it fit on the screen, they're like, well, where are we going to put it? We want to keep this nice full frame video experience. So the dislike button has been moved inside of the three dot menu in the shorts player. So for now, for somebody to dislike a short, they have to go through and click the three dot menu and then select dislike once this all rolls out to everybody and assuming that they stick with it. So if you rely on like dislike data to kind of know, I don't know, you know, if you have a brand that's maybe a little more controversial or something like that, it might be skewed a little bit for a while as this rolls out before you figure out what the new normal is going to be. This is limited. It's just an experiment and it's being rolled out to a small number of mobile users. So you may still see the dislike button as of right now. In fact, most of us should. Now, in just a minute, I want to tell you about some new AI features on YouTube that could substantially lower our marketing costs, make it easier for us to create content for brands faster, among other things. But I just want to ask really quick, did you see the big news a few days ago? If you want to know how experienced marketers are using AI to grow, we just finished this hu huge, groundbreaking generative AI marketing industry report and it is ready to download right now. We asked over 1,250 marketing pros about their AI strategies, concerns and future plans. It's really nice to have this kind of stuff to know. Like, all right, am I on track or am I falling behind? Just a little sneak peek of what's in there. You can find out why generative AI adoption is exploding in marketing. Because remember, when it first came out, people were like, oh, is this going to take our jobs? No. Learn why 74% of marketers are doubling down on AI and how you can do the same and uncover cover which AI platforms the pros are mastering. It is definitely not just ChatGPT. Okay? And that's just scratching the surface. You can get your free copy right now. Go to socialmediaexaminer.com AiReport all one word at the end there. Socialmediaexaminer.com AiReport so here we've arrived. Shocking news to me. Three minute YouTube shorts. This was surprising because here on this show, not that long ago, definitely in the last year, there was a very adamant stance taken by YouTube where they said, no, we're not going to lengthen shorts to be 90 seconds or 3 minutes or 10 minutes, like TikTok. We already have a long form piece of, you know, content format. We do it very well. Why would we do that? These are just that they're shorts. So I was surprised when this announcement came out, although I think a lot of us celebrated. You know, if you're making an Instagram reel and you want to repurpose it as a YouTube short and it's 61 seconds, you're like, ah, got cut off. Well, now that won't happen, which is really, really great. But my guess is, I'll tell you the details here in a second. But my guess is, as somebody who geeks out about this, is they just realized as humans, we like to watch videos holding our phone in the most comfortable position, which is vertical. And sometimes we're willing to watch longer stuff. So here's how this works. Anything you upload going forward that is square or taller, like full portrait, will be considered a YouTube short. Okay? And videos uplo before October 15th that are three minutes or less will remain unchanged. So this is only going forward. Now here's the confusing part. I got excited. I had a minute 48 vertical video that I was like, oh, cool, I can put this up here now. And I went to upload it and still showed up as a regular video, even though it was after the 15th. This was a couple of days ago. So it's going to take a few weeks for this to fully roll out. And so if you upload a longer short right now, it may just show up in your regular videos tab, which doesn't look great. Right? Essentially what they're saying though is over the next few weeks everything will get moved to the Shorts tab and the Shorts feed. But if you upload it now and it's square or portrait or taller than square, basically it will end up a short going forward. So a few important things to consider as you are using these. First of all, when YouTube secures the rights to use music from popular artists like Taylor Swift and Drake and things like that, part of their agreement is it's only a certain length. So if you are making a longer one, if it's, you know, if it's under 60 seconds, you can do exactly what you've been doing. But if you're making something longer than 60 seconds, you can only use royalty free music like from the YouTube audio library to avoid copyright claims and potential blocking. So keep that in mind. Monetization. Three minute shorts are eligible for monetization, just like 60 second shorts, unless they're blocked for copyright issues, of course. And officially from YouTube, they said creators are encouraged to prioritize content length that best suits their audience and content, not just create shorts that are longer just because it's an option. Now we know, I would say less so on YouTube, but across the social media platforms, usually when something's new, the platforms give it a boost. They want to get it out there, they want to test it out. So I am definitely curious, I'm going to definitely make some longer shorts and I'm definitely curious if, you know, they might get a little extra nudge. I know for a long time TikTok has been emphasizing videos that are 61 seconds or longer to get people on that platform to make longer videos. Shorts discovery mechanisms are going to be the same. Longer shorts will appear just right next to the shorter ones and recommendations and of course in the feed. So I think the big question for us as marketers and content creators and things like that is so if I have this two to three minute video idea for YouTube, should I make it a short or a regular long or VOD a video on demand? And I think six months ago I would have said, oh, if it's search worthy, if it's something people are searching for, make it a video on demand. If it's not, then you know, it's more of a hook worthy type of thing that I would Say make it a short. But we're seeing shorts come up in search a lot. I have a few friends with channels where they have a short they uploaded a year ago that all of a sudden has taken off and is getting tens of thousands of views because people are searching for that thing. So I don't think we know fully whether a two to three minute video idea should be a short or a regular video right now. But one thing that I would consider is do you think it's the kind of thing that people are going to engage with when it's put in front of them? In other words, it is sort of that short form video format still where it's, oh, that's, this is interesting, you're going to get their attention. Or is it the kind of thing that someone should choose to watch, which again then I would go more toward landscape. And then one other thing to consider. If monetization is part of your channel and how you make money and that's important. Well, if you know anything about YouTube monetization, you can get thousands and thousands of views on a YouTube short and makes pennies versus thousands and thousands of views on a regular YouTube video. Widescreen video can easily, you know, make eight, ten bucks or something like that. Like it's unreal the difference between the two. So that's another thing to keep in mind. I think that's going to be my main thing going forward. And I'm primarily video on demand widescreen videos anyway. All right, let's talk about AI tools. Unbelievable new AI tools that are finally rolling out. We've been hearing about these for a while. One of them has rolled out in the United States and that is YouTube's dream track. This is a tool that allows you to generate instrumental soundtracks for your videos. It can be used in both shorts and long form videos on the YouTube platform. And so imagine the ability to get exactly what you want without one, spending an hour or even 15 minutes searching for different words and trying to find the right thing. And two, without having to pay extra to use the music because again, this is included. So DreamTrack is their AI music instrumental generated thing. It is supposed to be available for all of us in the United States if you want to try it out, though, it's only available right now in the YouTube Create app on Android and iPhones. Okay, all right. Other new AI powered features. YouTube is integrating Google DeepMind's advanced video generation model. So this is generative video where you can like say, hey, make me a clip of this. It's called VEO V E O and it's now integrated into shorts, enabling creators to generate incredible video backgrounds, bringing whatever you can think of to life. There is a limit. You can't just say, make me a 60 second video or a three minute video of this. It's standalone six second video clips that you can use use in your shorts. Now, important to know, especially if you're a perfectionist, these AI generated elements are going to be watermarked and labeled for transparency. So I think that's just going to potentially become the new norm now. But I just want to make sure that you're aware of that so you're not like, wait, why is this thing on here? Why can't I get rid of it? There's no way to get rid of it by paying for YouTube premium or buying YouTube ads or, you know, anything like that. Now another AI update. The inspiration tab in YouTube Studio will be revamped with generative AI as well to offer video ideas, titles, thumbnails and outlines tailored to each creator's style or each channel's style. So personally, I think the best thing that AI can do is it can give us information or generate information based on something it already knows, right? Anybody could go in and say, write me an ebook on such and such and you get all that kind of stuff. But imagine how much more powerful it is if now YouTube is giving you ideas for titles and thumbnails and outlines and all of that based on the videos you've already made. That is massive. I can't wait to play with this. They say it'll also provide a brainstorming partner to help creators develop fresh content. So that is all going to be inside of YouTube Studio in the inspiration tab. YouTube is also expanding access to its conversational AI tool to all YouTube Premium members in the U.S. this is only on Android devices for now, but but it's really interesting and it may force us to change the way that we make our videos. The tool allows users to ask questions about a video, find related content and explore information without interrupting playback or leaving the app. Okay, so imagine you're watching a video, it's 28 minutes from the consumer side, and you're like, ah, I wonder if they're going to cover this? And they just type it in, hey, are they going to talk about such and such or is this what this video is about? You know, all of us get a little skeptical with the volume of content that's out there now. And so sometimes we look at a piece of content and we assume we know what it's about and so we won't bother to watch it. So this is going to be a powerful tool for consumers and it may just force us as marketers to make our content that much better, to make sure that it's something unique. There's a unique angle, a unique premise. It's not the same thing that somebody has seen or heard over and over again. So if you have access to this again on Android phones, you're going to see a little button that says ask right below the video player. YouTube is also making it easier to find relevant content through a new search feature in the comments section. So I haven't seen this yet, but this is on both long form videos and shorts, and popular search terms from comments will appear as clickable shortcuts. So perhaps in this podcast episode that we're doing right now on YouTube, maybe there would be something that said three minute YouTube shorts, if that grows and becomes a really popular search term. And the way it'll work, they'll show up and people will be able to click on them and it will take them to related content, but it does not take them away from the video that you're already watching. It keeps the original video playing in a mini player, but then goes to that other content. Now, if it's from a short, the results will be filtered to show other shorts they've said specifically. So in other words, if you're watching shorts, they're only going to recommend more shorts. But if it's on a long form video, I think it sounds like it could be to anywhere. All right, YouTube is coming into the living room. This is something that we've seen happening from me, talking to other people that focus on YouTube and what they're seeing on their channels. If you go into your analytics and you see, okay, where are people viewing this? Is it on smartphones, is it on desktop computers? For a lot of channels, the TV numbers, the living room numbers are going up and up and up. And so no surprise that YouTube is improving the viewing experience for that. Some of these are subtle and you may not see them all right away. But I want to talk in just a second about some things that you and I can start doing to take advantage of this living room experience without taking away from the mobile and desktop experience. Right. Because it's going to be a long time before, if ever, I think before the majority of content is watched in a living room, that's probably never going to happen. But we can start doing some things. So one, a more cinematic experience, as YouTube calls it, subtle visual changes to make videos feel more immersive on your tv. So this is where, where, if you have ever logged into Netflix, I feel like this started a year or two ago. Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV plus any of the streaming platforms, and that big hero image at the top where it promotes a certain program, a certain movie, a certain TV show, it actually starts playing automatically. Not good if you have a limited data plan, but it starts playing automatically. That's what's going to start happening. Starting again with YouTube on TV. Also improve shorts viewing on TV. So shorts have never been great for TV. Nobody's going to probably turn their TV vertically, at least not anytime soon. But the new user interface is making it easier to interact with shorts by having, again, the video in the middle where it was, but then also having comments on the side so that you can read the comments or shop or anything like that without interrupting playback. So what can we do to prepare for more living room viewing? Well, I think one is just to be aware of it, be aware that it's happening, right? So that we know that it's not always going to be the other way. You know, I don't think any of us, unless you're making TV shows or movies, needs to start making content specifically for the living room. But three, the main thing that I've started doing, and I'm just testing this myself, and I know a few other people are as well, is if I mention a link in a video, I tell them, of course, it's in the description. But I also have been putting a QR code on the screen. Not the greatest experience if somebody's on a mobile phone, because it's hard to take a photo of a QR code if you're on a mobile phone. But for somebody on the tv, they're sitting on the couch, they're not even next to the tv. Think how perfect that is. They whip out their phone, they hold it up, they scan the QR code and then go to that link and then opt in for your lead magnet or to sign up for your coupons or whatever else you might be offering. The hidden bonus benefit of this too is we all know YouTube does not like it when we take people off of YouTube. Right? Obviously, as marketers, we're going to do that. Sometimes we need them to go to our website. We need to click different links, things like that. But if somebody's watching YouTube on their TV and they scan the QR code and they go and do it on their phone, well, now I'm assuming we're not going to get punished by YouTube for taking people off of YouTube. So that's a little extra bonus there that hopefully is. I mean, logically it makes sense, right? I haven't had enough time to test it, but really, really cool opportunity. All right, playlist updates on YouTube coming to mobile web TVs and YouTube Music, they're working on making playlists more shareable. So now you're gonna have the ability to, when you create a playlist, to share it with friends and family through links or with QR codes, which specifically is coming to tv. So, like we talked about, also collaborative curation. So later this year, YouTube says you'll be able to vote on videos in a playlist to help decide the best lineup. This, I think, is an amazing opportunity for brands. For years on Facebook, when I worked at an agency, we would sort of game the system by having a post and then having people click, like to vote on their favorite photo or different things like that. Well, now this is an ability where you could create a playlist and then send people there to vote on them to decide the best lineup of whatever it is. So this could be a product lineup, this could be tutorials, this could be entertainment. All kinds of different things. So you can also use this for polls and, you know, ranking and all kinds of things like that. And then also people are going to be able to design their own personalized thumbnails for playlists. So previously, a playlist would generally show the thumbnail with the first video in the playlist. This is massive, I think. So you can use your photos or AI generated images to create an image to go with your playlist so that it shows up where the way you want it to. And then once you do this, you can further customize it with text, filters, stickers, different things like that. So I feel like this takes the concept or the type of content that is a playlist and makes it really much stronger and better as its own. All right, people have been complaining that YouTube is removing the skip button for ads, but YouTube has said no. Nope, that's not happening. But we are changing the presentation of ads a little bit. So this is good to know whether you're advertising on YouTube or you just want to know what consumers are going through. One, they're describing it as a cleaner experience for ads. YouTube says they're trying to reduce clutter around ads, potentially leading to less prominent skip buttons. The countdown timer that was there before, like, you can skip this ad in five seconds, is now being replaced with a progress bar instead. Some People have been reporting seeing black rectangles over the skip button before it's active, like, nope, you can't click here. And then some Android users have been reporting that they can't see a countdown timer on skippable ads as well. So YouTube is obviously always testing everything. This comes out as YouTube is pushing to show more ads, including on pause screens and take away some creator controls. So we'll see how that continues to roll out here in the near Future. All right, YouTube is testing a feature that allows creators to edit videos that have been age restricted or removed for certain community guidelines. This is a great opportunity. You can still appeal them like we've always been able to, but now if you're eligible, you'll see an option in YouTube studio to revise the content to maybe take something out or something. And then YouTube's policy team will review the updated video, which is really, really great. Now, we talked about YouTube and the living room and all of that, right? Well, now YouTube creators are going to be able to organize their videos into seasons and episodes, similar to how content is presented on Netflix, for example. So we'll see what that looks like. Exactly. And I'm certainly curious if it's going to apply to podcasts as well. This is an opportunity where they're, this is a thing where they're improving the navigation on YouTube to make it easier for viewers, especially those on TV, to navigate and binge watch content where now you have the seasons and things like that. Because obviously if you're on a channel and you love it, you want to watch all the videos and there's a hundred of them, that can be a lot, right? And then also a TV focused feature. So again, part of YouTube's pushing the living room, they are doing full screen descriptions on tv. So that way they get a better browsing experience. Cross platform availability, you know, it's designed with TV in mind, but the features expected to be available in some form across desktop and mobile platforms as well. Obviously, on most computer screens you've got about the same amount of real estate, even if it's not as big overall as you do on TV. Another AI update, YouTube's AI powered dubbing tool, formerly known as Allowed, is going to be available to hundreds of thousands more creators in the coming months. So it's going to be more languages. Originally it was just Spanish and Portuguese dubbing for English videos. Soon they're going to add French, Italian and more languages to follow. Eligible creators will have their videos automatically dubbed upon upload. So it sounds like YouTube is just going to start translating our videos into other languages. You can choose to opt out of the auto dubbing feature if you want to. Okay. So just kind of keep that in mind. YouTube is launching hype. This is a weird update, came out a couple weeks ago and if you haven't seen it yet, that it's good news for smaller channels. It's a new feature designed to help smaller YouTube creators, which they. It's funny, you might laugh when you hear this number smaller YouTube creators, like those with under 500,000 subscribers. I kind of think that's almost everybody. Right. Obviously there are channels with millions, but designed to help smaller YouTube creators gain visibility and grow their audience. So the way it works is viewers can quote, hype eligible videos, anything that's been uploaded in the last seven days to show extra support. Hyped videos climb a weekly leaderboard, increasing their chances of being discovered, being recommended, things like that. Now they've thought this through to try and make sure that people can't game it. You'll be able to game it a little bit, like if you want to get your staff to go in and hype things up and things like that. But they're going to be limited to three videos per week that you can hype up per user. Okay. So again, any opportunity that can start help a smaller channel get in front of new people, I think that's an incredible opportunity. So YouTube community. This is something we originally reported on two months ago, but it's expanding. Creators will have dedicated community spaces on their channels now. So this is beyond just that community feed that most channels have turned on to facilitate discussions, share things from fans. Basically have more inclusivity and connection because everyone is seeking that. Right. So this is currently available on a limited number of channels with broader testing planned for later this year and wider expansion in early 2025, but they definitely keep moving forward to it. Update on comments. In the YouTube Studio app, the comments tab will be transformed into a community hub. So AI enhanced reply suggestions will be offered to help creators manage and respond to comments more efficiently, which I love. If you have a channel that gets a lot of comments, anything you can do to save time and do a better job is great. And then additional features, Community Spotlight and audience metrics are going to be added soon. So not a whole lot about all of that right this moment, but it's all coming. And I think that in the world of AI, the more community and belonging we can have on YouTube channels, the more sticky our content is going to be, the more likely somebody's going to come back and watch another video and another video and another video. Quick reminder, we just did this massive generative AI Marketing Industry report. Grab your copy right now. Go to socialmediaexaminer.com Aireport Air Report all one word socialmediaexaminer.com aireport and if you want to add a podcast to your listening lineup, a couple for you to check out the AI Explored podcast as well as the Social Media Marketing Podcast available wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, may you be wise with your marketing decisions. Thanks everyone. Bye. The Social Media Marketing Talk show is a Social Media examiner production. For more social media insight, Visit Social.
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Media Examiner.com Make 2025 your best year ever. Grab your discount tickets to Social Media Marketing World right now by visiting Social Media Marketing world dot info.