For Brands, Smaller YouTube Channels Can Provide Big Returns

At Stream Con NYC, which takes place between October 30th and November 1st at New York City’s Javits Center, several of the world’s most popular online video stars are in attendance. At the same time, the convention is playing host to creators who run smaller operations on sites like YouTube, Vine, Instagram, and Snapchat. These creators may not have millions of subscribers or instantly recognizable faces, but they have plenty of other qualities going for them. For brands, partnering with these “emerging” channels can be good business, as we learned during a Friday afternoon panel at Stream Con.

The three creators who sat on the panel in question–beauty guru Camille Johnson, comedian Lauren Giraldo, and vlogger Jordan Doww–all run mid-sized operations on YouTube. They were joined by Adam Hendle; Hendle is the General Manager of FameBit, a digital marketplace that connects content creators to relevant brands.

One clear advantage of partnerships with emerging creators, from a brand’s perspective, is a relative cost-effectiveness. Both Johnson and Hendle cited Social Bluebook, a website that allows users to measure the monetary worth of personal brands. Naturally, the size of a specific creator’s social media reach affects the Bluebook’s estimate. Therefore, partnerships with emerging channels are likely to cost less than those based around multi-million subscriber operations.

What they lack in raw numbers, the emerging creators make up for in terms of engagement. “They have very strong mid-sized audiences that are super valuable,” said Hendle of his creative panelmates, “you don’t need to have a six-figure budget to [work with digital influencers].” Added Doww, “I always engage with my followers. Each video I post, everyone’s in a conversation with me, so people tend to listen to what I’m saying.”

Brands looking to take advantage of this highly-engaged audience must make sure they sponsor content that fits in with each individual creator’s voice. Both Doww and Giraldo stressed the importance of branded videos that feel “organic.” Those videos fit into the close relationship between creators and their fans, and they make for good business, too. Doww said he is less concerned with financials “if it’s a brand I like or I can help.”

YouTube is such a powerful marketing tool because it fosters close connections between videomakers and viewers, and no creators better exemplify that than the emerging class. They’re “not viewed as celebrities,” said Hendle, so the audience “views you more on their level.” Replied Doww, “that’s why I love YouTube.”