How product functions dictate the stories we’re able to tell: A case study of Youtube (ft Tik Tok)

If you know me, you know I love storytelling. I'm a complete storytelling junkie - I have lived and breathed stories my entire life. I think stories rule the world, and I think stories can be found in anything, from a conversation to your local corner shop man, dedicated family dinners to a fully produced ad like the many I’ve created & to short films (see my BFI nominated short Being Black wink wink).

I was loosely following Cannes Film Festival towards the end of May (I’ll be there one day soon!) and it was interesting to see TikTok partner with the festival. It makes sense when you consider the evolution of storytelling, from traditional methods like in books & fables to applications now powered by tech. Snap, Instagram, Facebook have features called stories centre around a feature literally called ‘stories’. 

Anyway amongst all the stars and the Top Gun noise, one particular stat jumped out to me amidst my scrolls on instagram stories…

“When eMarketer compared average time spent on the top social platforms by U.S. adults, TikTok surpassed YouTube. Users spent an average of 45.8 minutes on the Bytedance-owned social video platform versus 45.6 minutes on YouTube.”

YouTube has historically been my favourite app, however slowly but surely, my TikTok minutes have been increasing. I think there’s a lot more in these stats than meets the eye… the storytelling experience is evolving in front of our eyes - so let’s delve in to why this is happening and the part that product functions have to play in this.

I think it’s important to note 2 main things here:

1) How a product is built determines the type of stories that the consumer is able to tell.

2) Where a product lives determines who the consumer is and who has access to it. 

Since we're talking about two products that are available on the majority of smartphones (subject to location of course!), let’s hone in on point 1 first.

How is YouTube built as a product? Broadly, we know that the media Giant that is YouTube started as a platform for creators to publish user generated content, from music videos to sports to comedy skits to be consumed and shared. Shoutout to the gazillion Joga Bonito videos I watched as a kid with Eric Cantona & that Ronaldinho crossbar video? Crazy. Also, the moment that the first Brand touched 1 million views on YT is one to remember, (ah Nike are so good!). Important to note here that YouTube providing a platform to publish content is different from providing a platform to create - we’ll touch on this shortly.

Since inception, the product offering for consumers has evolved, and the app now accommodates a variety of channels: YouTube Kids, Youtube Shorts, Youtube Gaming, YouTube Originals, YouTube Music & YouTube TV & more! That’s a lot of products that need distinctly different product features in order to function and succeed. As a consequence, the app now serves in a few different markets (and you can see this as a good or bad thing depending on how you see product diversification! Personally, I rather like it for YT).

Youtube’s Competitors

• Music - Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Soundcloud (& all other music platforms etc)
• Film & TV -  Netflix, Disney+, TikTok, IG Reels, Amazon Prime (& all other video content platforms short or long form).
• Gaming - Twitch

It may well be the case that with all YouTube's new product additions, watch times are not the sole measure of application success; for example YT Music success metrics may be based on play times instead. So how do I believe YouTube can elevate its product offering for users?

2 Product development opportunities for YouTube

Whilst YouTube has created a direct competitor to TikTok in YouTube shorts, YouTube can still further develop a better, more competitive product. One major thing I’ve noticed is that whilst YouTube is a sharing & consuming platform, the creator studio abilities to create, edit, cut, filter, and re-purpose existing content within the app are not available to TikTok’s standard. Whether this is deliberate is a question for YouTube's VP of Product/PMs, but I'd love to know the reasoning. Most creators have to produce content outside the platform (e.g. on Final Cut Pro) before sharing. The in-app creator experience needs to rise to that of the user experience. 

As a consequence, a lot YouTube shorts created are snippets from existing interviews or shows rather than new, fresh UGC (I’ve noticed anyway or maybe it's my feed!). On the other hand, TikTok have developed advanced and easily accessible creator tools to create, edit and sync content in-app, which Youtube can look into developing. As opposed to;

1. Recording on a camera/phone 2. Editing on premiere pro 3. Then uploading to YouTube

I think with the evolution in user short form filmmaking in this case the product lend itself to the product providing greater creator tools to create will attract more users. 

Slight deviation, but a rather big by-product of the creator tools is TikTok taking shape as a verb & search engine (eg. Snap it, Google it, Uber it etc). The ability to instantly access and share such a vast range of thoughts, ideas and suggestions has elevated the app to 'go-to' status; a destination for many users. Now whether you see this as a good thing or not due to the issue of mis-information & verification on social media is a whole other conversation (which I’m open to having)! YouTube arguably does not have this problem to the same degree. Even simply regarding the sheer speed at which users can create and share content on TikTok (x seconds) vs on youtube (x minutes), there is something to be said about the speed and quantity of information sharing and the harmful implications of this.

Another point in contention is whether or not youtube will develop the in-app social commentary experience. 

On Twitter, threads can be created within threads, users can comment on other thoughts by quote tweeting, and can 'follow' hashtags or trends to stay updated on comments shared on certain topics. On Tiktok, users can stitch and duet videos to build on previously created content, creators can directly reply to comments with video responses (which are embedded into comment sections). This means that topic threads are more interactive, easily accessible and can be easily followed through. 

Whilst comment sections on YouTube do share similar functions with most other social media platforms (liking, tagging, blocking) it will be interesting to see how much further they will go to make this space more interactive. This is something that could be developed, but as far developing the ability to re-purpose other users content goes, this may be a step too far for YouTube?

Conclusion

All in all, I’m interested to see how YouTube develops with the variety of products they have on offer and their expansion into Film and TV. I think doubling down on longer-form content and using live streaming is where youtube can win and never let up on its hold in the Film & TV industry. In the case of YouTube Shorts, I think there is a need for better creator tools if YouTube wants to aid & expand user creation capabilities considering current trends. I’m not much of a shorts user now, but I’m definitely keen to keep an eye on how this develops (as I much prefer funny memes to interview clips with no context!). It's clear that the full bled screens, in-app creator tools have shaped the type of content (see Khaby Lame!) on TikTok contributing to its increasing consumer watch time - the former has been adopted, let's see about the latter. It’s worth noting that TikTok are also increasing platform length video time to 10mins so we’ll keep an eye on how this changing product function unfolds.. It could dilute the genius that comes with creating with a time cap or we could see greater ingenious longer short-film content. 

Lets see how the ball rolls on! Feel free to let me know your thoughts & opinions.

Thanks for reading, 

Peace & love - David