YouTube has made changes in the terminology department by renaming some of the modules that appear on the homepage, in the search results, and on video watch pages. The updates were made at the end of March, and I’ve since received quite a bit of questions from YouTube Secret Weapon owners wondering how and if these changes affect them.
First, the three new categories born out of the change:
1. Spotlight Videos
2. Promoted Videos
3. Featured Videos
Not intuitive are they? Lots of people are freaking out needlessly over these new categories. The good news is that the name changes have very little impact on most average users’ video campaigns.
What they do show us, however, is that YouTube is taking steps toward making premium content more prominent on the site. So far, it’s not affecting things too much, but we’ll know later in the week if bigger changes are coming.
Meanwhile, read on for all the details on the first changes to come about:
1. Spotlight Videos - “We like to highlight videos we think you’ll want to watch; videos that hopefully inform, inspire, and entertain. We think ‘Spotlight Videos’ is an appropriate moniker for this section, and soon we are going to take a more thematic approach to showcasing some of the best videos our community and partners produce. When you see these videos, they will have top billing on the page — a true spotlight.” (This is YouTube’s own description.)
This is part of YouTube’s effort to highlight premium content and done to keep sponsors and brand channels happy. (In the category of If You Have To Ask You Can’t Afford It, some brand channel sponsors pay upwards of $200,000 for this privilege). In addition to coming up on users’ YouTube Homepage upon log-in, Spotlight Videos now come up in place of “Related Videos” on the main video pages for content put out by Brand Channels (though Brand Channels can decline taking part). An example of this would be videos coming from the Turbo Tax Brand Channel. Note the videos coming up as “Spotlight” next to one of Turbo Tax’s recent videos, example at left.
What this is doing is taking the place of “related videos” that could be content coming from any user and that previously were more based on titles, tags, description copy, and other metadata sorted out by YouTube’s search algorithm.
Again, the good thing is that we’re not seeing this affecting the average user, just the larger Brand and Partner Channel content.
Some Brand Channels, like The Out Islands of the Bahamas have opted not to allow Spotlight Videos to come up adjacent to their videos, because they prefer to have other videos related to their product show up alongside them, such as user generated content from people’s vacations in the Bahamas. That, of course, makes more sense for their brand.
2. Promoted Videos (Formerly “Sponsored Videos”) - “Our search advertising program is about helping anyone promote their videos to a larger audience on YouTube (right now this is only available in the U.S.). Whether you’re a start-up band trying to break out with a new single, or an advertiser showing off how to use your cool new product, this program is a great way for you to promote and drive traffic to your content. We think ‘Promoted Videos’ more accurately describes this program than ‘Sponsored Videos,’ the original name.” (Again, this is what YouTube says officially.)
This is the original “Sponsored Videos” which are now called “Promoted Videos” because they think it more adequately describes their Pay-Per-View (PPV) advertising program (just like PPC on Google). Learn more about this here.
Note: YouTube’s Promoted Videos/PPV program was covered extensively by Paul Colligan in one of our YouTube Secret Weapon bonus webinars. Paul has used it to promote several videos he made for affiliate products, and he demonstrated several of these examples as case studies for us.
3. Featured Videos - “Featured Videos will be primarily populated with videos from YouTube’s thousands of partners, but they might also include select user videos that are currently popular or that we have previously showcased in Spotlight Videos. We will automatically rotate these videos throughout the day to keep them fresh.” (Again, this is the official explanation.)
This is the one that has received the most negative feedback from users on YouTube’s blog. The gripe is that the average user no longer stands a chance to be featured, because it’s only advertiser videos that are making it into this mix. That’s not exactly the case, as I’ve seen several new video content producers make it into this pool mainly by the quality of their video (as far as I can tell), BUT the majority are definitely Partner and Brand Channel videos from which YouTube is able to score a profit via text overlays and display ads on Partner watch pages and channels.
There is also a Featured Videos section on user homepages upon log-in. Why they have to put both Featured and Spotlight Videos on the homepage is beyond me. They do let us customize our Homepage, but moving these features around is all that can be done; they can’t be deleted.
Whew! As you can tell from this post, YouTube is a work in progress, but you can rest assured that Paul and I will stay on top of all the latest revisions and updates so all you have to do is focus on creating great content.
To maximize your traffic on YouTube, be sure to get your copy of YouTube Secret Weapon today (and hurry, because the price goes up to $197 on Wed., April 15th at Midnight PDT).
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