How to use YouTube for Social Listening

YouTube’s been around for a while. Two decades this year, in fact. But it’s arguably one of the few social media platforms that has stood the test of time, and has managed to evolve to be as popular with users today as it ever was. It might not have the street cred that TikTok or Snapchat have, or the visual appeal of Instagram. But, as social media shifts more towards video, it’s been able to capture a cross-generational audience that makes it a useful tool for gathering cultural insights across the spectrum.

So, let’s go deeper into YouTube to learn what makes it different from other social data sources and how we can use it to extract deep cultural insights about all types of audiences.

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YouTube 101: What’s it all about?

YouTube is a social video platform that was launched in 2005 by former employees of PayPal and sold the following year to Google. The idea was sparked after Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson’s infamous Superbowl half-time performance in 2004. The founders were frustrated with how hard it was to find video clips of it online, which led them to create the video sharing platform.

In the early years, YouTube adopted the slogan “Broadcast yourself.” Much of the initial content was a mix of artists and brands sharing curated videos and individuals sharing their amateur home videos. Now, it’s not only a major video distribution site but it’s become a legitimate platform for original content that competes with established media and entertainment brands, with a diversity of content to match.

YouTube is now one of the most effective platforms for influencer marketing, as people have been able to make a living by creating content and promoting brands and products. On top of that, it’s the second most visited website in the world after Google. This makes it a great place for brands to understand different audiences and the trends that influence them, as well as how your competitors are engaging with them. 

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What’s the vibe?

More than any other social media platform, YouTube feels like it offers something for everyone. In terms of content, it’s probably the closest to old school cable TV covering an eclectic mix of topics, from simple “how to” videos and kids entertainment to documentaries to well produced game shows, interspersed with ads.

Although the platform introduced YouTube shorts in 2020 to compete with TikTok and Instagram reels, the core of its offering is long-form content. It rewards people with longer attention spans and encourages more nuanced discussions in the comment section. And this format lends itself more to entertainment and educational content. In fact, the top ten most viewed channels globally are entertainment channels. 

The content on YouTube also feels more polished than on other platforms. Because of the creator-led element to the platform, it’s clear that, in the most popular videos, time, effort and money have been put into producing them. While the content might feel less authentic than on other platforms, users are more likely to engage with it as they would with their favourite TV show. And there is, of course, value in that in understanding viewer behaviours and preferences. 

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What makes YouTube different from other social data sources?

Being a video-based platform means YouTube is better able to capture the nuance of online conversations. For social intelligence professionals, rather than having simple text or an image of a single moment to analyse, video can bring together multiple elements that offer a more rounded context to generate insights. And, because video content on YouTube is longer, and in some cases, serialised, it provides more content to analyse, and encourages greater depth of conversation in the comments section - often the most informative bit of any social media platform as this is where the more authentic, cultural conversations happen.

Another key element is the multi-generational demographic of users. We’ll get into this in more detail in the next section, but the fact that a wide range of age groups use YouTube, means social intelligence professionals can learn something about almost any audience through just one platform. 

Where content on most social media platforms usually comes from a blend of regular users, creators and brands, YouTube is a largely creator-first platform. As mentioned earlier, this can give interesting insights into cultural and competitor trends, but it can also blur the authentic voice of the user. Given much of the content is performative, and creators are often sponsored, any insights generated from video content need to bear potential biases in mind. Again, though, the comments sections can provide more useful insights into how audiences truly feel about an idea. 

And connected to this, YouTube has a unique recommendation algorithm that is designed to keep people on the site as long as possible by recommending content based on previous searches. This not only creates echo chambers but, over time, it removes choice for users: are people watching content because they want to? Or are they watching it because it’s presented to them? There have also been debates about the type of content the algorithm recommends, with some studies showing it to favour extreme right content, and others more left-wing content. In all these cases, it’s clear that the algorithm has the potential to skew the authenticity of user behaviour.  

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Who uses YouTube?

Over the last 15 years, the number of active YouTube users has grown from 200m to 2.74bn. It’s the most widely accessed streaming app in the US, and has 122m active daily users globally. YouTube users watch more than 5bn videos and perform 3.5m searches each day, which places it as one of the most popular search engines after Google. This could be said to be driven by the amount of educational content available on the platform. Viewing the platform in this way can open up new ways of analysing and understanding online audiences.

The platform is available and localised in 100 countries and is available in 80 languages. India has the highest number of users at 491m, followed by the US (253m), Brazil (144m) and Indonesia (143m). The most subscribed channel is the US entertainer, Mr Beast, followed by the Hindi language music channel, T-Series. 

When it comes to gender, there are more male users (54%) than female (46%). And from an age perspective, there is a much wider spread than other social media platforms. Gen Z and Millennials each make up around 25% of the total audience, with Gen X making up 20% and Baby Boomers 15%. This is reflected in the type of content available on the platform which is truly diverse in terms of topics and length. And, whilst they aren’t counted within general demographics, it’s clear that YouTube is also popular with young children as the third most subscribed channel is CocoMelon nursery rhymes. 

The majority of YouTube users are individuals but these can be split into creators and viewers. Whilst all social media platforms have an element of this, it’s more pronounced on YouTube which is seen as a creator platform, where others are more like marketing channels for creators. 

Brands also have a strong presence on YouTube. In fact, Nike was one of the first brands to ever share an ad on the platform in 2005. As of 2023, there were more than 52m brand channels on YouTube. Some of the top performing ones inclue CocaCola, Lego, Disney, BMW, GoPro and Red Bull. 

When it comes to bot accounts, like with all social media platforms, it’s hard to quantify exactly how many exist. However, based on the many conversations on this topic, it’s clear that they are prevalent. 

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How to access YouTube for social listening

YouTube has a data API that can be used for social listening. As a result, most social listening platforms will provide YouTube data. However, there are restrictions around data limits and historical data access. The public API has a default quota allocation of 10,000 units per day for each project that uses it, where a search request is the equivalent of 100 units. This restricts the amount of messages that any social listening platform can fetch per search, so many emphasise that YouTube listening should be taken as representative only. Not every single message or comment will be captured. 

There are also limitations around how much historical data can be obtained and stored through the API. According to Meltwater, data older than 15 months cannot be accessed or stored. Depending on how far back your research needs to go, there could be challenges accessing it through the API. In that case, there is always that option of manual search and analysis.

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What are the main use cases that YouTube data can support?

The additional context that social video gives, and the wide range of audience groups that use the platform mean YouTube is a versatile data source that can support a whole range of use cases. Including:

• Ad performance
• Brand awareness
• Brand positioning
• Brand tracking
• Campaign analysis
• Campaign performance
• Campaign tracking
• Category and cultural trends analysis
• Comeptitive benchmarking
• Competitor crisis tracking
• Consumer advocacy
• Consumer interests and affinities
• Consumer perception deep-dives
• Consumer purchase behaviour
• Content & social media performance
• Content ideation
• Conumer behaviour
• Crisis detection
• Crisis management & prevention
• Cultural insights
• Customer experience
• Customer feedback & satisfaction
• Customer journey/ CX
• Detecting misinformation
• Earned media
• Employee ambassadors analysis
• Identify brand advocates
• Influencer awareness impact
• Influencer identification and vetting
• Lead identification
• Market insights
• New audience discovery
• Opportunity identification (engagement/comms)
• Opportunity identification (innovation/product dev)
• Product development
• Product launch
• Reputation monitoring
• Strategic planning
• Trendspotting
• Viral trends tracking

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Stay tuned for more

YouTube is one of the richest sources of social video data, offering short and long-form content that engages audiences across the demographic spectrum in different ways. However, the creator-first vibe of the platform along with its strong recommendation algorithm mean it feels less authentic and community-focused than other platforms. Having said that, there is still value to be gained by analysing YouTube data, particularly comments, to understand audience behaviour and preferences.

You should now have a better idea of how to use YouTube data for social listening, the use cases that it can support and the challenges you’re likely to face trying to use it at scale. As with the other posts in this series, this is a work in progress. Given how fast the internet changes, this article is probably already out of date by the time you’re reading it! So, if you spot anything that’s changed or hasn’t been included, feel free to let us know and we’ll fix it in the next edit. 

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