YouTube is often overlooked as a social media channel. Yet the channel has one major advantage over TikTok, Insta and Facebook: the half-life of the content is significantly longer. Here are some format suggestions for museums, theaters and orchestras.
There are no real YouTube stars among German cultural institutions. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra has over 350,000 subscribers, the Miniaturwunderland in Hamburg over 250,000 and the Panzermuseum over 50,000, but after that things quickly thin out. This is hardly surprising, as YouTube is mostly used as a repository for videos. This “strategy” goes hand in hand with the fact that no serious attempt is made to gain subscribers for one’s own channel. As YouTube also functions as a search engine, individual videos can of course still be very successful. Just as an example: Deutsche Oper am Rhein has less than 3,000 subscribers, but the most clicked video, the trailer for La Bohème, has around 300,000 views. Note: There is a fundamental interest in high culture on YouTube!
Why don’t cultural institutions run a “proper” YouTube channel?
Success on YouTube would give a cultural institution more appeal, more visitors and greater social acceptance (and therefore protection from subsidy cuts). In order to introduce even more cultural institutions to this channel, I therefore published the guide “YouTube for beginners” in cooperation with kulturmanagement.net in September. To be fair, it has to be said that there are also reasons not to have a regular YouTube channel. Due to the amount of time involved, a YouTube channel is only financially viable in the rarest of cases, successful YouTube channels are usually personal and you need a relaxed attitude that cultural institutions often lack.
YouTube formats for cultural institutions
There are more than enough video formats. However, not all of them are suitable for a YouTube channel – for example, the image videos that are popular in the corporate world. Although… a new image video every week would be so grotesque that it would be cool again 😉 Most formats are not strategically mutually exclusive, quite the opposite. There are many YouTubers who do rants, challenges and pranks, for example. Here are some formats that are also suitable for cultural institutions:
Explanatory videos
While tutorials often resemble step-by-step instructions, explanatory videos focus on imparting knowledge. For example, a video showing how to play the Moonlight Sonata on the piano would be a tutorial. A video explaining how a piano works, on the other hand, would be an explainer video. Explanatory videos are ideal for communicating culture and are often used by cultural institutions. A “look behind the scenes” is another example.Thenow unfortunately discontinued channel “The Art Assignment” provides excellent examples of how to create interesting explanatory videos.
Tutorials
Tutorials show viewers how to complete certain tasks. Like explanatory videos, they also have a long half-life and therefore only become outdated slowly. There are tutorials on almost every topic: How do I make a bun? How do you prepare asparagus? How do you play reggae on the guitar? etc. pp. There is no everyday problem for which there are no suitable instructions on YouTube. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s Master Class is not structured like a recipe, but you could still call it a tutorial.
Vlogs
In their original form, vlogs are online video diaries. Here, the focus is clearly on the person, who usually looks straight into the camera as a “talking head” and talks about their life. A classic example of this would be Bibi’s video “First big vacation with Emmi and Lio“. Such vlogs are not suitable for cultural institutions. Nevertheless, they can accompany artists and provide insights into their everyday lives (see below). Whether this is still a vlog or already a portrait is, of course, debatable. In any case, the term is difficult, as “YouTuber” and “vlogger” are sometimes used interchangeably. A vlog can therefore also simply be a regular YouTube channel.
Q&A videos
Q&As (“Questions and Answers”) are primarily used to interact with your own subscribers in order to build up a personal relationship. YouTubers answer questions that have been asked in the comments section of previous videos, in messages or – in the case of live videos – in the chat. These are sometimes restricted in terms of subject matter. If they are not, they are also referred to as AMAs (“Ask me anythings”) – whereby the questions are selected in advance, just like with Q&As. So you can ask anything, but you won’t get an answer to everything. 🙂
List videos
Lists work just as well on the Internet as articles (“listicles”) as they do as videos. They are often lists of the best, such as the “Top 5 Museums in Berlin”. But it doesn’t always have to be a ranking list and the number is also largely irrelevant. Whether you present the five or the 14 most impressive Expressionist works in the Museum Ludwig in a video, for example, hardly anyone cares – as long as the video doesn’t become tedious. List videos also offer room for humor, as “Kessler’s etiquette” shows in the following video:
Interviews and discussions
Although interview formats on YouTube are not as prominent as talk shows on TV, there are still some channels that use them. Hiphop.de, for example, almost exclusively publishes interviews with rappers, Kino Plus analyzes films and series and Rocket Beans TV talks about pretty much everything in the “Almost Daily” series. It is obvious that interviews are a good fit for cultural institutions. Theaters in particular are houses of people, where everyone from lighting technicians to actors to administrative staff has something to say. But there is also plenty of potential in museums. Here is a nice and well-edited interview from the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt:
Unboxing, hauls and product tests
In unboxing videos, products are unpacked and briefly presented. Haul videos, on the other hand, present recently purchased cosmetics, clothes, accessories or food – usually by women. Hauls therefore focus even more on the shopping experience and tend to show inexpensive products. These formats are not suitable for cultural institutions.
Product tests are often distinguished from unboxing and haul videos by their greater depth of content. A format such as the 3sat program Museums-Check could also be considered a product test with a little goodwill. Although it would be strange if cultural institutions were to “test” their own exhibitions, exhibits could be presented in the style of a product test in an entertaining way. It would at least be a refreshing approach.
YouTube formats that are only selectively suitable for cultural institutions
Cultural organizations should not categorically exclude any formats. In terms of image, however, it would certainly be strange if, for example, a theater on YouTube were to constantly criticize someone (“ranting”), or a museum were to constantly make fun of its own visitors (“pranking”). On the other hand, it can make sense for specific occasions. Only “Let’s Plays” can actually be ruled out for cultural institutions. Here, well-known online computer games such as Fortnite, League of Legends or Counter-Strike are played live, streamed and commented on by the gamers at the same time.
Rants
In a rant, a person, company, organization or cause is criticized in a polemical and entertaining way. One rant that has become very popular with over 17 million views is “The destruction of the CDU” by YouTuber Rezo. There are only a few cultural rants, but “The Problem with Museums“, for example, is directed against the way museums deal with looted and colonial art.
Challenges and battles
Challenges are an integral part of online and YouTube culture. A few have gone viral, such as the “Ice Bucket Challenge” (2014) or the “Mannequin Challenge” (2016). Battles go in a similar direction to challenges, but here you compete against one or more people. On YouTube, however, the terms are often used interchangeably (e.g. on “ThoMats“). The odd art-related challenge can be found on YouTube (e.g. “Drawing 700 Fortnite Characters in 100 Hours“), but the curator battle is still a long way off. Challenges do not usually originate on YouTube, but on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
Pranks
Pranks have been popular not just since YouTube, but have a long tradition. “Die Lümmeln von der ersten Bank” and “Verstehen Sie Spaß?” send their regards. Sometimes there are also artistic pranks. For example, the work “No Eye Contact Allowed” by Erik Pirolt can certainly be seen as a prank.
Reaction videos
In reaction videos, YouTubers watch videos from the internet and comment on them. They are legally problematic. The format was satirized by comedian Teddy in “Percy reacts to Antoine Reaction on Percy Reaction“, among others. The use cases of Reaction videos are limited for cultural institutions, but at the same time it can be quite amusing when a theater dramaturge reacts to the irrelevant “I dye my hair black” video by Shirin David, for example.
ASMR
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR; meaning “uncontrollable sensory high”) refers to a tingling sensation on the skin that is often triggered by acoustic sensory stimuli. It is often produced by soft rustling, stroking or tapping, as well as a calm voice narrating trivial things. There are already a few orchestral and museum ASMR videos.
Conclusion: There is no shortage of ideas
Even before corona, awareness of the topic of digital cultural mediation had increased and pots of state project funding had been created. In my opinion, however, it is bad that it is primarily supposedly super-innovative concepts (virtual and augmented reality, games, chatbots, etc.) that are supported. A YouTube channel, on the other hand, is not normally eligible for funding. Yet it would presumably reach significantly more people. So unless patrons or sponsors can be found, good YouTube channels from cultural institutions will continue to be in short supply.
