What I Learned Running A YouTube Channel With 120,000+ Subscribers - Content Genres (Part 2)

YouTube took off like a rocket ever since it launched, and I have been right alongside it over the past ~14 years. I have spent way too much time on YouTube as both a consumer and channel owner (if you want to know the story behind my YouTube channel, check out Part 1 of this article series here), and I have noticed that the vast majority of popular videos on the platform fall into certain high-level genres. This article will cover those genres, and if you run a YouTube channel, you should think about how your content can fit within 1 or more of these genres. Of course, you can succeed by defining your own genre, but it’s much harder as the almighty algorithm won’t chain traffic to you. Anyways, let’s get into it.

Memes

This genre is short, funny videos, usually less than 1 minute long. With the explosion of short-form video content (Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Vine), YouTube was bound to reflect these videos as a dominant genre eventually. As mentioned in the previous article, these videos are great for the user because their time investment is minimal. Every person on the planet loves to laugh, so this, combined with the previous attribute, makes the accessibility of these videos extremely high. And given how 2020 is unfolding, everyone can definitely use some light-hearted entertainment in their lives. The caveat to this genre is that YouTube heavily rewards watch time over raw views when it comes to monetization, so if…