The Internet is a place where nothing is static and players have to adopt the newest tactics to get attention. Well, for video channels, here is the newest technic.
YouTube videos featuring children under the age of 13 receive more than three times as many views as videos without children.
This is the conclusion of a new study from the Pew Research Center.
What Pew did was to assemble a list of popular YouTube channels from late 2018 and analysed all the videos these channels produced for the first week of January 2019.
The result is an amazing discovery. A small number of English language videos were targeted at children but they received more views than other videos.
But any video that starred a child who appeared to be under the age of 13, “received nearly three times as many views on average as other types of videos.”
Perhaps the trend is undeniable with Netflix, for example, producing a series of shows with kids and for kids that have grossed large viewership.
Stranger Things 3, with an almost all kids cast, is breaking Netflix records!
With 40.7 million household accounts watching the show since its July 4 global launch — more than any other film or series in its first four days. And 18.2 million have already finished the entire season.
Stranger Things showcase a cast of half a dozen teens some younger than 13 who are ordinary children aided by a hero (named 11 as in 11 years old) fighting a monstrous alien.
Not to forget The Umbrella Academy which also features kids.
Netflix’s series adaptation of the Gerard Way comics racked up a whopping 45 million in the first four weeks earlier this year. The series had already been renewed for a second season when the streaming service shared those staggering figures.
According to the Pew research, including kids in videos to increase views is a facet of YouTube that many creators have picked up on.
One of the largest family vlogging channels on YouTube, The Ace Family, amassed more than 16 million subscribers in less than three years, says The Verge.
“Creators have seen it as a way to guarantee ad revenue due to the videos’ popularity,” says the portal.
To prevent a such videos to become a haven for predators, YouTube has disabled comment sections on videos that feature kids.