Social Content Opportunities for the Winter Sports Audience on YouTube in Q4 2022

How the Social Content Opportunity Analysis™ Methodology Works

1. ‍Measure & Categorize Posts. Sample a large number of social posts to find ones that are significantly outperforming the average.
2. ‍Identify Top Themes. Identify the themes that are resonating most with the audience by sorting the themes by their aggregated performance metrics.
3. ‍Measure The Benchmark. Identify content themes that are performing above and under an average benchmark for the industry based on views & engagements.
4. ‍Identify & Rank Opportunities. Look at the data and find the content themes that are resonating with the audience based on a set of top creators.
5. ‍Repeat For Each Platform. Repeat the analysis for every platform that matters to your brand and audience to find platform-specific opportunities.

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YouTube Content Bucket Definitions

• Athlete Biopic: Films exploring the life and achievements of notable figures in the ski industry. These videos use interview clips and action footage in combination with scenic cinematography.
• Docu-Style Film: Short films from the skier and filmmaker Nikolai Schirmer that use a participatory documentary form of production to document his backcountry adventures.
• Snowboarding E-Sports: Videos showing the gameplay and gamer as they play and react to snowboarding games such as Steep, Riders Republic and Shredders.
• Skier Vlog: These videos vary in length and focus on candid POV filming styles and raw footage, giving viewers a closer look at skiers’ lives and their time on the hill.
• Ski & Board Films: Short films produced by ski and snowboard brands featuring one or more of their team athletes and the highlights from a ski trip or entire season. In addition to action footage, the films include more candid B-roll footage that gives the viewer insight into the personalities of the athletes and their unique approaches to their sport.
• Gear Guides: In these videos, athletes discuss the gear they use and recommend for their respective sports, providing details on the benefits and drawbacks of each item and its intended use.
• Snowboarding Shorts: YouTube shorts featuring a variety of snowboarding styles and abilities in resort or backcountry settings. These videos have an average duration of 15 seconds.
• Snowboard Vlog: These videos have the same format as Skier Vlogs but are purely snowboarding-focused. 
• Boarding Tips & Tricks: Videos from the creator, SnowboardProCamp, that provide tutorials for beginner to intermediate-level riders looking to improve their skills. These videos are typically presented in a numbered list format. I.e. 5 Hacks That Make Snowboarding Easier.
• Product Feature: Stylized video content that shows a brand’s product in action or explains its features and benefits.
• Teasers & Trailers: Multi-clip edits and scenes of various lengths and formats from upcoming ski & board films.

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Athlete Biopic and Docu-Style Film are extreme performing content opportunities, averaging 3x the views & engagement rate on YouTube.

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Excellent performing content categories for the Winter Sports audience on YouTube include:

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Good performing content categories for the Winter Sports audience on YouTube include:

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Substandard performing content categories for the Winter Sports audience on YouTube include:

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Low performing content categories for the Winter Sports audience on YouTube include:

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Extreme Performing Segment:

1. Athlete Biopic

Films exploring the lives and achievements of notable figures in the ski industry. These videos use interview clips and action footage in combination with cinematic landscape scenes.

Tactics to Implement:

• Duration: These videos are 27 minutes long on average.
• Purpose Driven: In Beyond The Summit, Kit DesLauriers treks across Arctic Alaska to document the diminishing snowpack and the impacts of climate change. NEVIA documents Sam Anthamatten’s mission to conquer one of the most inaccessible mountains in the Swiss Alps.
• Supporting Roles & Cameos: Both films feature other big names from various winter sports in supporting roles or cameos. Examples include Jimmy Chin, Markus Eder, and Jérémie Heitz. 
• Personal Lives: The introduction of the athletes’ family and friends helps to create a well-rounded representation of the film’s subject.

471K  Views

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220K Views

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2. Docu-Style Film

Short films from the skier and filmmaker Nikolai Schirmer that use a participatory documentary form of production to document his backcountry adventures. Each film weaves together a narrative for the excursion, curating footage from planning stages to post-trip reviews and everything in between. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Duration: These videos are 16 minutes long on average.
• Editing: The films combine breathtaking cinematography with action-packed drone footage and GoPro POV shots from high-risk terrain that work together to evoke different emotions in the viewer.
• Introductions: Each video introduces the team members on the excursion and their relationship to Schirmer and skiing.
• On-Screen Elements: When laying out the details of the excursion, the creator uses on-screen visual aids to point out aspects of the landscape. 

376K  Views

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331K Views

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Content Opportunities:

3. Snowboarding E-Sports

Videos showing the gameplay and gamer as they play and react to snowboarding games such as Steep, Riders Republic and Shredders.

Tactics to Implement:

• Duration: Videos in this category are between 8 and 10 minutes in length.
• Picture-In-Picture: The creator includes footage of himself during gameplay speaking directly to the camera in a small frame that appears on-and-off in the corner of the screen. 
• Commentary: The player commentates on his own gameplay and shares details of the game, its creation and his opinions throughout the entire video.
• Multi-Interest Channel: As a skier, biker and gamer, steepsteep blends his interests together and targets a diverse audience. 

183K Views

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118K  Views

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4. Skier Vlog

These videos vary in length and focus on candid POV filming styles and raw footage, giving viewers a closer look at skiers’ lives and their time on the hill. The top videos in this category are from creator, steepsteep, professional steep player and freestyle skier.

Tactics to Implement:

• Duration: Skier vlogs are 14 minutes long on average.
• Intro: Each video begins with a brief intro of highlight clips followed by the location and date of the vlog episode. 
• Humour: Steepsteep brings the same enthusiastic and funny dialogue to his skiing vlogs that his gameplay videos are known for. 
• Candid Footage: The creator uses a GoPro and selfie stick to film first-person and talking-head POVs. The use of this raw footage and the original audio works to humanize the vlogger and gives the content a sense of authenticity.

187K Views

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151K  Views

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Outliers:

This video was omitted from it’s content bucket as ‘viral’ outlier for exceeding 3x the views and engagements of its respective benchmark.

Snowboarding Shorts

Tactics

Title: The video is captioned with an eye-catching title, “Snowboarder goes HUGE 🚀”.

Duration: 15 second YouTube Short.

Hashtags: 2 

Content: A snowboarder hits a man-made jump in the backcountry, gaining huge air before disappearing beyond a ridge. The video is shot on an iPhone and uses the original audio.

330K Views