Income of the media, news websites, TV channels, and creative agencies all over the world is dropping because of the coronavirus pandemic. And what is happening to video hosting services? According to OneZero, YouTube traffic grows, but at the same time YouTubers have a steep decrease in income. AdWeek published an article that says influencer marketing is unfazed by coronavirus. Kateryna Manokha, CMO of YouTube’s official partner, AIR Media-Tech, explains what is happening to Ukrainian influencer hubs.
Ukrainian market of influencer marketing is in the early development stage. Five years ago it was non-existent, and now it is like a little child who is not ready for such adversity. The events in the world and Ukrainian economics may have a huge impact on this part of digital ecosystem.
Quarantine has inevitably led to the increase in traffic of social networks and video platforms, for obvious reasons. People need to somehow entertain themselves while they are locked inside four walls, and the stream of negative information from TV screens makes them sick already. What did Ukrainians do in March 2020? They asked YouTube for help, namely:
- watched 50% more movies than a year ago at the same time;
- started doing 60% more workouts, yoga, stretching, and other kinds of fitness together with the YouTube bloggers, and also search for information about how to stay healthy on the video platform;
- trying to at least have some tea (ideally, hot) gave their children tablets with children’s content already running 20% more often;
- were 30% more attentive to the videos in the news and politics section.
Does this mean that the times are good now for influencer marketing and bloggers? Not at all. The traffic did indeed grow: the number of video views in our partner network in March 2020 increased by 15%. Topics most loved by the viewers were Sport (53% of the general number of views), Business (35%), Entertainment (19%) and, of course, Kids (16%), and Gaming (12%).
However, we can’t say that the income of the bloggers increases even with such great view figures. Large creators who have traffic not only from Ukraine earn the same at best. When it comes to business, some of the brands made the decision to entirely stop all advertising activities for the time of quarantine (for instance, Coca-Cola that made a public announcement about that or others that refrained from it). Some other companies temporarily suspended their projects.
There are also those who actively use the situation to become closer to their target audience, and are not afraid to reveal themselves in terms of business and to declare their social position. For instance, in March, already after the quarantine started, our strategic agency AIR Brands launched a campaign attracting bloggers for Torchin and Mivina brands. In their posts and stories influencers showed how to diversify meals and make them more original with sauces and seasoning. Taking into account how the need to cook at home increased, this information turned out to be useful for many involuntary ‘desperate housewives.’ Right now we are also implementing several relevant ‘quarantine’ projects — we will definitely share these cases with Adsider after they are finished!
Forecasts are an ungrateful thing: quarantine may end on April 24 and may continue for the entire summer. We can give the same piece of advice to both business and creators for this period: be closer to your consumers, be useful to them, support them, and help them. When the crisis ends, those who were by their side will be remembered, and that’s where consumers will go first of all.