How Gymshark Generates 2M YouTube Video Views Organically

Key Takeaways

‍

Gymshark has amassed a large following on YouTube with 292K subscribers as of August 2021. On average, Gymshark’s YouTube videos generate 49K organic video views while brands in the competitive set generate only 1.3K video views. The top-performing content buckets from Gymshark’s YouTube channel are the following: 

• Athlete Sponsored Spotify Playlists: Gymshark partners up with athletes and musical artists to create their own personal Spotify playlist that viewers can listen to during their own workouts.
• Fitness & Calorie Challenges: Gymshark works with different athletes to participate in popular YouTube challenges such as family fitness challenges, 50,000 calorie challenges, and the whisper challenge.
• Behind the Scenes (BTS): Gymshark has a series called “All Access” where they take viewers behind the scenes of their photoshoot sessions all over the world. BTS clips allow brands to showcase more of their personality to their audience. 
• Athlete Spotlight: The Train for Life series invites Gymshark fitness influencers to open up about their fitness journeys and talk about how they began their career. 
• Motivational Stories: Gymshark partnered up with professional race-car driver Billy Monger to take on the challenge of running the 140-mile ironman as a double amputee.

‍

On average, Gymshark’s YouTube videos generate 49K organic video views, while brands in the competitive set only generate 1.3K video views.

‍

Gymshark saw a +86% increase in average monthly YouTube video views YoY from 178K to 331K. YTD, the brand drove 2M total video views from its YouTube channel. 

‍

Amongst social media channels, YouTube drives the highest volume of web traffic to gymshark.com with 36% of total social web traffic coming from YouTube.

‍

Gymshark’s YouTube thumbnails contain emojis and text, which is a tactic often used by YouTube influencers whereas brands in the competitive set have a more polished look and feel.

‍

Top Performing Content Buckets:

#1. Music On, World Off

Create Branded Spotify Playlists. Gymshark partners up with athletes and musical artists to create their own personal Spotify playlist that viewers can listen to for their own workouts. Playlist YouTube videos (example 1, 2, 3) feature a snippet of each influencer’s playlist and links out to Gymshark’s public playlist on Spotify.

Average Video Views: 296K

Benchmark: 49K Views

#2. Challenges

Fitness & Calorie Challenges. Challenges are a popular content bucket amongst the YouTube community. Gymshark partners up with influencers (i.e: MattDoesFitness) to participate in various challenges (i.e: family fitness challenges, 50,000 calorie challenges) and the brand even partakes in popular trending non-fitness-related challenges such as the whisper challenge. 

Average Video Views: 129K

Benchmark: 49K Views

#3. Behind the Scenes

Gymshark, IRL. Gymshark has a series called “All Access” where they take viewers behind the scenes of their photoshoot sessions all over the world. 

It gives viewers a sneak peek into how each campaign comes to life and allows the audience to get to know more about the Gymshark influencers who are a part of the photoshoot. 

Average Video Views: 98K
Benchmark: 49K Views

#4. Athlete Spotlight

Train for Life Series. The Train for Life series invites athletes to open up about their fitness journey and talk about how they began their career. Athletes talk about their motivations, failures and what their future aspirations are, allowing viewers to really get to know each athlete.

Gymshark also produces the “My Vision” series which are 10-minute episodes that dig deeper into the story of each athlete. 

Average Video Views: 452K
Benchmark: 49K Views

#5. Motivational Stories

Support for the PWD (Persons with Disability) Community. Gymshark partnered up with professional race-car driver Billy Monger to take on the challenge of running the 140-mile ironman as a double amputee. Billy talks about his journey as a race-car driver and Gymshark shows his inspiring training journey to prepare for the triathlon. 

Average Video Views: 213K
Benchmark: 49K Views

‍