How Yeti Gained +250% YouTube Subscribers YoY

Purpose of This Research

Track Yeti’s YouTube subscriber growth and performance YoY. We’ll identify what’s performing best to help inform your content strategy.

• ‍Benchmark against Yeti’s metrics—subscribers, views, engagements, duration, formats.‍
• ‍Unpack YoY changes in content strategy from themes (i.e. documentary) to discipline topics (i.e. fishing).‍
• ‍Break down top-performing growth periods and identify what changed from Yeti’s production tactics to its content strategy. 

‍Disclaimer: Views on some videos may be elevated due to an ad spend attached to it. For this report, we triangulated our organic content pull with our advertising data platform to ensure that any content we address is purely organic. The only content with spend added to it from 2022-2023 were product videos like this.

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Key Takeaways

Yeti increased the types of content they are producing by +100% YoY.

• Recommendations
  Offer a variety of content types—roughly 6. 
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  In 2022, Yeti produced 3 types of content (product videos, mini-documentaries, trailers). In 2023, they added 3 new types (full documentaries, clips and mini-series). 

Yeti expanded the disciplines they created content for in 2023 by +400%, and expanded their content formats from only widescreen in 2022 to include Shorts in 2023. 

• Recommendations
  Rethink the boundaries of what sports or interests you intersect with and make content about it. Introduce Shorts to your strategy to show YouTube you’re invested in their platform. 
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  In 2022, Yeti only produced content about fishing and rodeo. 
  In 2023, they covered up to 10 different disciplines from fishing to cooking.
  

Yeti increased their posting cadence by +148% YoY.

• Recommendations
  Aim to post an average of 6 videos a month.
  In 2022, Yeti posted a total of 27 videos, and increased to 67 by 2023.

Yeti increased their video duration by +123% YoY.

• Recommendations
  Aim for posts to be an average of 4 minutes in duration on YouTube.
  In 2022, Yeti’s average video was about 01:43, which increased to about 4 minutes in 2023.

Documentaries (between 10-30 minutes) tend to see the highest average views & engagement (252K) during top growth periods. 

• Recommendations
  (i) Tell stories about nature that highlight humanity and (ii) elevate untold stories in a cinematic way.
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  Use nature to inspire conversations about the human condition by using the environment as a backdrop to tell real, niche and exciting stories.

The only content type that Yeti reduced in 2023 were trailers by -75% YoY, from 8 to 2 videos posted.

• Recommendations
  Post content that prioritizes telling a full story rather than teasing it.
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  Documentaries and mini-documentaries were the top-performing content in Yeti’s top growth period of August and September 2023.

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Yeti gained +250% followers YoY in 2023.

August (+6K) and September (+6K) 2023 were top growth months for Yeti.

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Yeti added three new post formats in 2023. They introduced (i) longer documentaries, (ii) clips and (iii) a mini-series.

They also reduced the number of film trailers they released by -75%.

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Yeti’s 2023 YouTube Content

‍Arranged by Categories’ Average Engagement in Descending Order

Documentary

Avg. Eng. 3.5K | Avg. Views 203K | Share of Posts 14%

Films over 10 minutes in length, up to 30 minutes, that follow specific people and their connections to nature.

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Mini-Documentary

Avg. Eng. 513 | Avg. Views 26K | Share of Posts 17%

Short films up to 10 minutes in length that follow specific people and their connections to nature. 

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Product

Avg. Eng. 445 | Avg. Views 133K | Share of Posts 52%

Videos between 7 seconds and 5 minutes that prioritize selling products. These are most often made for advertisement creative.

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Mini-Series

Avg. Eng. 288 | Avg. Views 21K | Share of Posts 3%

Serial videos between 6-7 minutes with more than one episode about a specific topic. In this case, they focus on following chefs and cooking.

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Trailer

Avg. Eng. 190 | Avg. Views 20K | Share of Posts 3%

Videos between 30-90 seconds that promote upcoming documentaries and mini-docs that Yeti is working on.

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Clips

Avg. Eng. 106 | Avg. Views 3.3K | Share of Posts 11%

YouTube Shorts between 27-60 seconds that share quick but impactful moments from documentaries and mini-documentaries. 

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In 2023, Yeti covered 10 content disciplines from sports to food.

This is a +400% increase from only featuring 2 disciplines in 2022—fishing and rodeo.

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Prioritize widescreen content but experiment with YouTube Shorts.

Yeti introduced YouTube Shorts in 2023, representing 42% of their content.

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Aim to post an average of 6 videos a month. Top growth periods saw 10.

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Yeti increased their post cadence by +148% YoY.

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Set your average video duration to 4 minutes.

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Top growth months saw an average run time of 7 minutes.

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Documentaries and mini-documentaries led the average views and engagements for Yeti in August and September 2023.

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Tell stories about nature that highlight humanity.

This documentary follows fly-fisher Oliver White as he journeys to Bhutan with the goal of catching a mahseer doré, a fish with cultural significance.

• Enlist the help of well-respected creators in the environmental field. Yeti worked with acclaimed filmmakers Ben Knight and Travis Rummel for this project.
• Use nature to fuel new conversations about the human condition. This video covers topics about survival instincts, the balance of happiness, resilience and passion.
• Let viewers travel with you. Integrate locals into your storytelling to discuss history, conservation and cultural respect. 
• ‍Tie the story up neatly from beginning to end. White embarks on a big journey and successfully catches the mahseer doré in the end.

Views 639K | Engagements 8.8K | Duration 28:28

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Elevate untold stories in a cinematic way.

This documentary follows storm chaser Pecos Hank. He takes viewers through his life and his storm chasing origins to show viewers what it really is like. 

• Tell niche stories in engaging ways that help viewers get to know the subject. This video was Yeti’s top-engaged video of 2023 with 13K engagements. 
• The filmmakers told this story through the persona of their subject—an eclectic guy with a dramatic and intriguing personality. 
• The film features footage that captures dangerous and hard-to-access moments for the general public to see in an artful way. 
• Offer a reflection on the environment and the responsibilities that come with participating in its unwavering ways. Hank often reflects on attending to the aftermath of a storm in local community environments.

Views 220K | Engagements 13K | Duration 12:19

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Post content that prioritizes telling a full story rather than teasing it.

Mini-Documentary

Views 130K | Engagements 3K
Duration 08:20

This video follows a father-daughter duo as they discuss overcoming misogyny in the fishing industry as she becomes a captain.

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Trailer

Views 22K | Engagements 108
Duration 01:30

This video teases an upcoming story “All That is Sacred”, about friendship, water and art. It follows writers Tom McGuane, Jim Harrison and singer Jimmy Buffett. 

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Mini-Series

Views 9K | Engagements 206
Duration 05:52

A fun but educational video that follows a chef who forages for mushrooms. They share what to look for along the path for the best foraging experience.

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Clips

Views 6K | Engagements 202
Duration 00:36

A short clip from a tense moment in the documentary “A Thousand Casts” where the narrator tells a story about being accosted by a man with a machete.

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This data includes product content that may have additional ad spend. Of the 34 product posts in 2023, at least 18% were promoted.