What’s YouTube up to now? Well, talk around town is that YouTube’s aiming to use the FIFA World Cup as another avenue to promote YouTube Shorts via a range of themed activations and challenges for the event. YouTube seems like it’s willing to go out of its way in the lead-up to the holidays just to really milk Shorts as much as possible, which isn’t a bad move for creators wanting to monetize from such.
Nothing Will Fall Short
First off, YouTube will be flying a group of popular Shorts creators to Qatar to create content from the event, including Cheeky Boyos, Noor Stars, and Rima & Jesser. As YouTube explains:
“With a combined reach of more than 90 million subscribers from around the globe, these creators will be sharing their experiences at the first round of matches in person. Fans at home can join in the excitement by following #ShortsFIFAWorldCup.”
So far, anything involving Shorts makes for a good way to boost overall content engagement, especially around the event. By sending top stars to cover different angles and elements, drawing their fans, and extending audiences, then that, too, would benefit both YouTube and the World Cup by building hype, which, in a way, is also free publicity. YouTube will also send a second cohort of Shorts creators to Qatar to cover the World Cup finals.
YouTube’s also hosting classic World Cup matches on the official FIFA YouTube channel, along with other elements tied into this year’s tournament. Lastly, YouTube’s also hosting ‘Shopping on Shorts’ Challenge, in partnership with FIFA, which will enable users to purchase an official 2022 World Cup T-Shirt for their country directly through YouTube Shorts.
“Post a Short to the official FIFA World Cup Challenge song showing your transition into your matchday fit and your country love using the hashtag #FIFAWorldCupChallenge.”
The World Cup, given its very nature, is set to be a major event across all social platforms, with YouTube, in particular, seeing surging interest in Soccer (or Football) in recent times. YouTube says that soccer was the most watched sport on the platform in 2021, while the previous World Cup generated over 10 billion views of YouTube content.
The Wrap
With all this in mind, it’s worth noting that such trends, and considering how your brand may be able to link into the World Cup hype, along with the global celebrations tied with it. In short, the World Cup is as big an event as the Super Bowl or the Miss Universe pageant, offering advertisers and social platforms a big opportunity to get in some promotions at scale. If you’re aiming to improve your reach, tap into alternative or related audiences, or simply make a little more money from your efforts, then playing into the trends and online traffic of the World Cup and similar events might just do the trick.
Sources