Bhau, why do you have hardly any following on Instagram?
Simple answer. Instagram and Facebook were never our platform of choice. We started with YouTube 3 years ago with a very clear focus, and we are glad we did.
So let me explain why.
YouTube is mostly a long form video platform. Now before you take out the pitchforks and scream “but, but, YouTube Shorts!”, I know. YouTube is pushing hard to win the vertical feed. But the competition there is fierce. What YouTube is still best known for is long form content, especially video podcasts. It has truly replaced cable TV in living rooms across the world. Our own podcast is mostly watched on big screens like TVs.
Picking YouTube from the early days of American Bhau was a very conscious decision. It wasn’t one single reason. A few things weighed in. Here are the main ones.
1. YOUTUBE IS A TRUST PLATFORM
Trust is the currency on social media. Not views, not followers, not engagement. Those vanity numbers don’t mean much in the long run.
What we wanted was trust at scale around a brand our audience can relate to. I think we have built a solid base of that in the last 3 years. We get over 200k views every month on long form YouTube, and about 10,000 of those are from North America.
When someone has watched American Bhau for years, our vlogs or our super popular American Bhau Podcast, that is hours and hours of watch time. That is where the trust comes from. You can’t copy that on vertical platforms like Instagram or TikTok, simply because the math doesn’t math, lol.
2. YOUTUBE IS THE WORLD’S SECOND LARGEST SEARCH ENGINE
People still go to YouTube to search for all kinds of things. If your content is easy to search, or your brand has an interesting story, Google and YouTube together can put you in front of the right people without you lifting a finger. That is huge, like really really huge.
Case in point. A video we made with our awesome partners at Soul Foods India over a year ago has gone absolutely viral. It crossed half a million views this weekend. In the last 3 months alone it gained over 250k views. This doesn’t happen often on vertical feeds.
3. YOUTUBE SUPPORTS MANY FORMATS NATIVELY
I have watched YouTube change over the years, first as an eager viewer and now as a full time creator. It is still a horizontal first, long form platform, but it now has Shorts, Live, and Shopping, all with native support. It is a real powerhouse.
SO THERE, I SAID IT
That is why YouTube is still our biggest focus, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Want to tell your story on YouTube? We help brands and founders do exactly that. Let’s talk.
