Nine million unique users reached, and double the engagement rate, all within 11 days.
That’s the impact four popular YouTube creators in Indonesia drove when online travel platform tiket.com partnered with them on a campaign to inspire travel through food and culture.
It’s one of many examples of brands successfully converting customers by partnering with creators who are profoundly shaping culture and trends through YouTube.
In Southeast Asia (SEA), creators are using YouTube’s rich and vibrant ecosystem of video formats and experiences to develop content that tops viewers’ needs.
YouTube is the top platform where surveyed viewers in Indonesia1 and Thailand2 say that they go back to creators again and again because of their high quality content, outperforming the average of other online platforms.
What that means for your business is: YouTube creators are your essential collaborators for driving influence, growth, and business results.
Here are three ways you can tap into the culture-shaping, community-building power of YouTube creators.
1. Connect with creators’ passionate communities through local food and music
Food and music have long been languages that bring people together. In SEA, creators are taking those forms of expression to the next level with YouTube.
They’re using YouTube’s immersive video formats, both long and short, to tell moving stories about food and music, and importantly, the people and communities behind them.
The creators of Thailand’s Tigercrychannel, with 3.2 million subscribers, for example, do more than satisfy viewers’ culinary curiosity with their multiformat YouTube videos on local food spots.
Their YouTube interviews with celebrities at under-the-radar eateries provide audiences an intimate encounter with celebrities and eatery owners who share about life and dreams. The documentary-style videos and humorous Shorts are so immersive that viewers are drawn to connect with the creators, video guests, and other viewers in the comments.
Its behind-the-scenes video at Singha’s bottled water factory, for instance, sparked a lively discussion in the comments about Singha’s distinctive tasting water.
Indeed, because the influence of YouTube creators extends beyond the topics themselves to the wider community, any brand, regardless of its industry, can collaborate with creators to influence audiences.
One such case study is Toyota’s YouTube marketing campaign with the popular Indonesian rock band Noah. Its YouTube remakes of hit songs draw millions of views and inspire plenty of memes.
Toyota’s influencer collaboration with Noah on a music video remake of a song about yearning, which features the Toyota Veloz car, attracted over seven million views.
2. Connect with creators’ engaged communities through fresh entertainment experiences
Another way YouTube creators in SEA influence culture and communities is by rescripting people’s experience of entertainment online.
The creators of Indonesia’s omped_visual, with 13.2 million subscribers, and Thailand’s Far Fin Fun, with 788,000 subscribers, use YouTube’s creative canvas to produce everything from engaging episodic skits to intriguing micro-drama serials for mobile-friendly viewing.
Creators also use YouTube’s interactive features to extend the excitement of in-person events into online spaces.
Sports entertainment creator One Sports, for example, hosts live chat parties on YouTube where audiences get to experience the excitement of watching a live game online with others, while interacting with commentators in real time.
Additionally, creators use Communities, a dedicated space in their YouTube channel for posting updates, polls, and quizzes to deepen interaction with fans. That’s how Indonesia’s Celloszxz, whose boxing videos have attracted 7.2 million subscribers, asks viewers what they’d like to watch next.
Given how creators are using YouTube to continually reinvent online entertainment and its experience, brands keen to engage audiences in new ways should partner with YouTube creators.
That’s what businesses ranging from telcos to snack manufacturers did, when they collaborated with the influencers behind the sports channel Vindes on its game show-style volleyball tournament Bahkan Voli 2.
The tournament, where Indonesian celebrities play against music stars, was live streamed on YouTube as a Premiere. Its Live Chat feature allowed audiences to interact with one another and with the brands, whose products were seamlessly integrated into the game show through off-court skits and player interviews.
3. Connect with creators’ curious communities through life hacks
YouTube creators in SEA are also helping people better understand and enjoy complex topics that impact their livelihoods.
For example, through engaging discussions on Gen Z’s spending habits and content that simplifies budgeting jargon, YouTube creators have increased watchtimes for personal finance videos. It’s up by more than 175% in Indonesia3 and 125% in Vietnam,4 year over year. And in the Philippines, watchtime for financial literacy videos is up by more than 40% year over year.5
Chinkee Tan, a creator in the Philippines with 2.9 million subscribers on YouTube, is loved by audiences for his empathetic sharing, which includes lessons from his own money mistakes. His recent long-form videos have attracted over 7 million views.
Indeed, the authentic sharing by YouTube creators on life hacks has led viewers in SEA to regard them as trusted peers.
Given how YouTube creators support public financial literacy, brands like Indonesia’s Krom Bank are using influencer collaborations to convert audiences into customers.
Krom Bank partnered with YouTube creators to create a diverse range of Shorts content where they used their own storytelling styles to explain the bank’s offerings. The result was a 42% Search lift.
With creators profoundly shaping culture, trends, and communities through YouTube, any brand that wants to grow their business should tap into influencer collaborations with YouTube to convert customers.
