Overview of this campaign

We restructured our strategy on YouTube after Shorts became the vertical video display that the platform was rolling out. We had already revamped our video strategy on Instagram Reels and TikTok and started experimenting with which vertical content performed best on Shorts versus these other platforms. We also paid close attention to SEO and what our descriptions and headlines looked like. Taking a more conversational approach actually wasn’t performing well on YouTube, whereas on Instagram that is a strong strategy of ours..

 

After becoming more selective with the long-form videos that we were posting on YouTube, we saw an uptick in average watch time performance. We noticed that our audience watched longer videos that explained cases such as the Gilgo Beach Killings, interviews with well-recognized individuals such as those featured on Long Island TikTawk and documentaries about cold cases across Long Island. 

 

Simultaneously, we started streaming local press conferences live through YouTube and noticed that our audience really cared about hearing from law enforcement officials about high-profile cases happening on Long Island.  

 

But we noticed the strategy with vertical video was different in the sense that the best way to get your stories seen by new people who may not already engage with your page was through short-form content. So, we used Shorts as a funneling tool — it provided our audience with just enough information to learn something but left them wanting to know more. The ultimate key was getting discovered by new, young and diverse audiences who came across the content naturally in their feed. 

 

We then used long-form, horizontal videos as a strategy to retain those new subscribers by engaging with stories that had more in-depth coverage to them. 

Results for this campaign

By implementing a new, focused strategy on YouTube, we brought more attention and awareness to our website and NewsdayTV. Not only did we increase our video views year over year by 214 percent but we also garnered over 48 million video views and drove about 3,000 Newsday digital subscription sales for the year. 

 

Our subscriber growth on YouTube  also saw an increase of 325 percent, year over year.  In all of  2023, we gained a total of 4,000 subscribers with 2 million video views whereas in  2024, we gained 17,000 subscribers with 8 million video views. 

 

We used Shorts as an acquisition tool whereas long-form video was a retention tool. This strategy helped not only expose and expand our reach to new audiences but also helped us gain an understanding of the stories that Long Islanders really care about in real-time. With this understanding, we were able to collaborate with our newsroom, pitching them new local angles to these topics and as a result 7 of our top 10 YouTube videos for all of 2024 were local stories that made a big impact on our audience’s lives. 

 

The new strategy also led us to experiment with different approaches to storytelling and use short-form to promote long-form video content. In 2023, we launched a project called Long Island TikTawk that shared how local content creators have used TikTok to grow their careers and amplify their voices. 

 

After season one of TikTawk was a success, we created season two in 2024 and each interview lived on YouTube as the long-form piece of content. We then clipped shorter videos from those interviews that were engaging and posted those as Shorts to expose that content to new viewers, linking to the long-form interviews. That effort contributed to season two’s success which brought in over 787,000 video views across social platforms. 

Contact

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