How VidCon 2024 Helps Creators Excel
By Jeremy Carroll, Creative Director at Movieguide®
In the ever-changing landscape of algorithms, social media and entertainment, one constant remains unchallenged: YouTube. YouTube remains the king of the social video kingdom, even outpacing top streaming services like Netflix or Disney Plus. In order to facilitate the deluge of content that is constantly being uploaded to YouTube and other social media platforms, creatives are in search of guidance. Content creators are seeing that you do not need to be the top Hollywood star in a motion picture blockbuster to become ultra famous, ultra wealthy or ultra “on fleek”…no one says that anymore…do they?
That’s where VidCon comes in. VidCon is a conference whose sole purpose is to get creators connected with professionals in the entertainment and web video space so that they can learn how to utilize the tools given to them in the form of analytics, algorithms, tagging and keywords.
In one session, members of the Movieguide® video team got to hear from Jenny Hoyos. Jenny is a spunky, highly energic and extremely knowledgeable content creator with an audience of over 4 million subscribers on YouTube alone. Her tenacity and excitement for all things social video immediately became evident as she took the stage. She informed the audience that her PowerPoint presentation had been lost and that she would be winging it… and wing it she did! She gave insights and knowledge about growing and tailoring her videos for her audience with such energy that it would put a Jack Russel Terrier to shame.
Another session was a panel with Todd Beaupre, head of YouTube growth, Gwen Miller, Senior Director of Creator Growth at Mythical Entertainment and Rene Ritchie, a YouTube creator and YouTube Ambassador. The panel discussed the inner workings of the YouTube algorithm and how it is essentially a machine that looks at what you’re watching, looks at what your history of views is and then tries to predict what your next favorite video will be. They also went into nuance about audience retention and engagement, short-form video vs long-form, audience analytics insights and more technical jargon that creators drool over daily.
Other sessions included how to increase viewership on Instagram, gaining ad deals on YouTube with major brands and, of course, AI or artificial intelligence. AI seems to be an overused buzzword these days, but it has become a standardized tool in the creative community. Katrina Torrijos, Adobe ‘evangelist’ explained how to use Adobe’s new AI tools called, Firefly. Using Firefly, she wowed the audience with demos of being able to remove unsightly pipes and other objects from the wall of a scene from a video, all with a couple clicks within Adobe Premiere Pro. These AI tools will only get better with time, but as of now, they are already impressive.
From algorithms to AI, VidCon offers a great variety of panels and sessions that creatives can learn from to grow their own mini YouTube empires on the internet. While the allure of fame, marketing deals and big revenue loom, there is a deeper message that’s threaded through all of this: that audiences want content that entertains, inspires and uplifts.
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