“We rely heavily on [Tubular’s] V30, because of our conversations with brands. They tell us it’s not enough to have views; they want quality experiences correlated with quality content… We believe [V30] should be the #1 indicator if a publisher is good or not.”
Guy Oranim, CEO, First Media
Key Takeaways
Challenge
Growing an audience and monetizing unique channels in the over-crowded, highly competitive world of social video.
Action
The creative department worked closely with the insights team to create a data-informed content strategy. The sales team used V30 as a metric to prove to potential ad partners that they have “quality” content. Quality, evergreen content means advertisers get a high return on their investments as viewership continues to grow and ROI compounds over time.
Results
First Media grew from less than 100K followers in 2016 to more than 110M followers and 1.5B monthly views across its properties
In 2004, First Media was founded as a TV network — but in 2016, everything changed. When the network realized that the video ecosystem was rapidly evolving and that its highly female audience was seeking lifestyle content on social platforms, the company launched its digital-first model into the stratosphere.
The results? First Media grew to more than 87M Facebook page likes, and 28M YouTube subscribers across its properties, including Babyfirst, So Yummy, and Blossom. This growth positioned First Media among the top 10 US Digital First Media Companies with the broadest global reach.
Blossom, specifically, continuously finds itself among the top 10 Home & DIY publishers with the broadest global reach (62.4M unique viewers across Facebook and YouTube in February 2022).
Blossom garnered a whopping 15.7M views per video in the first 30 days after upload on Facebook in February 2022 – for reference, the average V30 for Home & DIY videos is 1.1M. This positions them as the #1 Home & DIY media creator on Facebook based on average V30 views.
When it comes to content, less is more
The cluttered world of social video is incredibly competitive. Every month, 13M creators upload almost 100M videos online, and in February 2022 the Home & DIY category received more than 16B views and over 190M engagements.
First Media has cut through the clutter and reached its audiences by aligning all actions with its brand promise: inspiring action to make the everyday extraordinary through its diverse content offerings in verticals like DIY, lifestyle, food, and beauty.
So what’s First Media’s secret sauce?
They regularly create unique content that people want to watch by striving for quality rather than quantity. While hundreds of thousands of publishers believe that churning out content is the way to remain relevant, First Media proves that investing in fewer, high-quality videos inspired by trustworthy data is the way to grow an audience in both size and loyalty.
It all starts with a process of collaboration between several people from traditionally disparate teams. By pairing data analysts with creative masterminds, actionable insights inspire content production from one video to the next. As a result, First Media publishes high-quality and high-performing social videos consistently.
Virality is hard to replicate, but applying data-informed strategies to creativity allows First Media to create videos that its audiences love.
Pitching to brand partners using Tubular’s V30
First Media’s strategy leverages Tubular Labs to identify what is most relevant to its audiences by tracking shifting values, interests, cultural trends, and consumer behaviors.
First Media uses Tubular’s time-based video ratings as a proxy for content quality. With the V30 metric (the number of views within the first 30 days after publishing), they can objectively compare performance since videos accumulate views over time.
“If you’re able to make people watch your content consistently over 30 days, that’s the best evidence of your quality.”
Consistently maximizing views per video is critical to media companies like First Media because that is how they prove success to brand partners. In other words, long-term views on content prove compounded ROI during pitches.
First Media uses the V30 measurement across market to compare its success to its competitors. “With this data, we don’t have to compliment ourselves. We can prove that our videos are performing the best relative to our direct competition,” said Oranim. When pitching to new brands or benchmarking success with current partnerships, First Media presents its V30 against competitive sets in each vertical.