YouTube content consumption saw a massive spike in 2020. But in 2021, the spectrum of watching content on YouTube has widely increased among the masses. Apart from the long-form content, YouTube has also introduced a new video format to keep the audience engaged on the platform, called YouTube Shorts.
With both long and short-form video content available on the platform, YouTube aims to provide content diversity to the users. The content pattern has also seen a makeshift since 2020. The slight ease of the lockdown restrictions and continuous celebrations in the first three months of 2021 has pushed the creators of all possible genres like travel, food, and entertainment to diversify their content. If we compare the viewership of the first quarter reports of 2020, Vlogging category content and Gaming content have significantly shown more views.
The first-quarter report of 2021, rolled out by Eleve Media, explores the top content creators from 16 different categories and analyses their likes, total reach, comments, sponsors, and how much viewership each category/genre has generated.
Ayurveda content creators:
The Indian audience has always inclined towards ayurvedic remedies, but the COVID-19 outbreak has further pushed the demand for Ayurveda-based products in India. Boosting immunity videos generated more than 7 million views in just three months from the top 10 channels. But Ayurveda content viewership decreased by 27% compared to 2020 Q1 (Jan, Feb, Mar).
Brands that collaborated with the top 10 Ayurveda YouTube channels are:
The Derma Co, Oziva, TYV, and The Indie Earth Co
Beauty content creators:
Though beauty and makeup content consumption dipped in 2020, now its viewership is back on track. As a result, YouTubers have started working on content like hauls, skincare, and makeup videos.
In 2021, there was a sudden rise in the beauty product mentions in videos. Many brands collaborated with beauty YouTubers to promote their products as the viewership increased by 7.2% when we compared it to last year’s Q1 (Jan, Feb, Mar). The sponsored brands are Wow Mobile App, Meesho, Purple Beauty, Mamaearth, and Nykaa.
Comedy shorts creators and comedy skit content creators
Many media houses like TVF, Dice Media and independent content creators are jumping on to create short-form videos to engage the audience. However, long-form comedy sketches and stand-ups still hold a firm place in the YouTube community as it continues to generate billions of views from the audience. The comedy skits category viewership increased by 11.6% when compared to last year.
DIY content creators:
DIY content is spread all over the internet. People watch it to learn and try new things or just for fun. Either way, the viewership seems to have increased by 59% when we compared it to last year, with Mr Indian Hacker being the top content creator. Tech2Secure and Mucchstac are some of the brands that sponsor DIY YouTube videos.
Fashion and Lifestyle content creators:
Fashion and Lifestyle content covers an ample space of the YouTube community. From hauls to fashion styling videos, this content genre gains a decent number of viewership from all age groups of audiences. The fashion and lifestyle category’s viewership increased by 132% when compared to last year. Brands like Meesho, Wow Mobile App, Mamaearth, and Wow Skin are top sponsors for such content.
Fitness content creators:
Confined to the four walls of the home, people started focusing on fitness and home workouts. With no open gyms and no trainers, people resorted to YouTube videos. As a result, fitness has become an integral part of most households, leading to a spike in the viewership of fitness videos. The Fitness content category’s viewership increased by 73% compared to last year’s Q1 (Jan, Feb, Mar). Mamaearth, My Fitness, and Auric are the three top brands that sponsored videos of top 10 creators.
Food content creators:
2020 was all about browsing and cooking new recipes at home, and YouTube played a huge role in the process. For people who lived alone and learned to cook or people who wanted to try out new recipes for their loved ones, cooking channels on YouTube helped them all in 2020. Now that the markets have reopened, it’s more easy and accessible to get hands-on food items than last year. As a result, it has further increased the rise in viewership. However, after scanning the YouTube titles, we found that only 14% of the views belonged to Non – Veg recipes out of total content viewership.
Gaming content creators:
From gaming live streams to game highlights and walkthroughs, YouTube’s gaming content viewership has increased by 273 % when compared to last year’s Q1 (Jan, Feb, Mar) for the top 10 gaming YouTube channels in India.
Kids YouTube channels:
With YouTube offering various content options like nursery rhymes, alphabets, and educative animated series to choose from, parents’ jobs to keep the kids entertained indoors have become more accessible. The kids’ content category is currently one of the most viewed ones on YouTube in India and is a close competitor of the music category.
The kids’ content category’s viewership increased by 24.8% compared to last year’s Q1 (Jan, Feb, Mar).
Just like these categories, there are many more that we’ve examined and incorporated in our YouTube report. To know more about how one year has changed the content consumption for different content genres, click here.
