Social Content Opportunities For the Aerial Sport Audience on YouTube in Q4 2022

Content Opportunity Methodology

1. Measure & Categorize: 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. Identify a Benchmark: Identify content themes that are performing above and under an average benchmark for the industry based on views & engagements.
4. Identify 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

• FPV Drone Freestyle: Split-screen moments sharing drone freestyle perspectives through abandoned plots of land beside the controller movements of the driver.
• Paragliding Moments: Top moments from paragliding sessions include takeoffs, landings and unique tricks such as rolling and flipping mid-air.
• Jet Suit Drills: Experimenting with jet suits to show how they accomplish specific tasks related to military & medic missions or time to arrive at a destination.
• Proximity Flying: Traditionally wingsuit BASE jumping, where the athlete takes off and flies in proximity to cliff faces and valleys. 
• Aircraft Detail: Owners take viewers through the details of their aircraft from tours to equipment upgrades. 
• Engine Failure: A creator locates helicopters or smaller aircraft owners that have had engine failures and meets them to unpack what went wrong in their flight.
• Unique Launch: Moments that vary from traditional BASE jumping where the athlete slides off a bridge, or launches from a mid-air rope swing to start their descent.  
• Team & Formation Flying: Parachute or wingsuit flying where athletes work together in the air to build different formations such as a wingsuit rodeo. 
• 360° Wingsuit Footage: Interactive 360° footage from wingsuit flight where the viewer can immerse themselves using VR or move the camera around on desktop. 
• Aerobatic Air Show: Videos of aerobatic air shows that highlight skills and aircraft features such as team formations, live-fire strafing and sonic booms.
• Takeoff & Landing: Dedicated to the arrival and departure of different aircraft, these focus on elements such as low flybys and handling in gusty winds. 
• Aircraft Demo: A way to introduce viewers to an aircraft and show its range of capabilities including steep climb outs and handling pyrotechnics such as a wall of fire. 
• Solo Skydiving: Videos that aim to demonstrate a solo skydiving experience where the athlete uses a fellow athlete or videographer to document their descent. 

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FPV Drone Freestyle, Paragliding Moments and Jet Suit Drills are extreme performing content opportunities, averaging 3x the views & engagement rate on YouTube.

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Excellent performing content categories for the Aerial Sport audience on YouTube include:

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Good performing content for the Aerial Sport audience on YouTube include:

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Substandard performing content for the Aerial Sport audience on YouTube include:

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Low performing content for the Aerial Sport audience on YouTube include:

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Content Opportunities:

1. Paragliding Moments

Top moments from paragliding sessions include takeoffs, landings and unique tricks such as rolling and flipping mid-air.

Tactics to Implement:

• Short-Form Videos: These videos average 16 seconds in length.
• Takeoff: Videos in this category tend to focus on the moments before and during takeoff from a BASE jump. The athlete will show himself building composure and getting ready before launching off into the air. 
• Landings: On the other hand, the top video is an example of the athlete landing on an extreme angle where at the beginning, the viewer doesn’t know if he’ll make it to the platform. 

Content Opportunities:

• Attempt to build story into the short-form process by inmore moments before lift-off and upon landing. Current paragliding moments don’t dwell much on specific aspects of flight and either end right after the athlete is in the air or lands.

5.2M  Views

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4M Views

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2. Jet Suit Drills

Experimenting with jet suits to show how they accomplish specific tasks related to military & medic missions or time to arrive at a destination.

Tactics to Implement:

• Video Length: These videos average just under 3 minutes in length.
• Wide View: These videos focus less on close-ups and more on capturing the full picture. During Jet Suit Drill videos, an athlete completes demonstrations to communicate the benefit of jet suits in military or medic scenarios, such as “record jet suit mountain ascent”.  
• Distance Traveled: Flight videos will aim to create some distance between a starting and ending point to show the length of space traveled. Videos will be edited with a POV cam from the athlete, showing distance and elevation progress on screen, as seen here. 

Content Opportunities:

• Explore the Jet Suit industry and see if there are unique ways to tie it into sport outside of a military context.

4.2M  Views

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3.6M Views

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3. Proximity Flying

Traditionally wingsuit BASE jumping, where the athlete takes off and flies in proximity to cliff faces and valleys.

Tactics to Implement:

• Video Length: These videos average 22 seconds in length. 
• Filming Style: 66% of videos in this category feature an athlete BASE jumping and being filmed from the side or behind by another athlete who stays behind on the base. 34% of the videos feature POV GoPro footage. 
• Music: Top performing videos in this category do not include any music but instead focus on the natural sounds of the mountains, wind, and fellow athletes cheering the base jumper on. 

Content Opportunities:

• Try to build dynamic perspectives into these videos. Proximity flying has an element of suspense for the viewer due to the nature of the distance between the cliff face and the athlete. Attempt to build that even more into the story of these videos. 

1M  Views

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456K Views

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4. Aircraft Detail

Owners take viewers through the details of their aircraft from tours to equipment upgrades. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Video Length: These videos average 10 minutes in length.
• Introduction: This creator features a 30 second introduction and outro that educates viewers on the gist of his content and values. 
• Personification: As this creator works on his aircraft, he gives it the name “Scrappy” and serializes the evolution of the plane by building an episodic theme around each video. This way he can introduce the plane and keep viewers updated with it over time. 

Content Opportunities:

• These videos tend to have momentary end goals, for example, this creator is aiming to get his plane ready for the Oshkosh air show by adding specific modifications to the plane. Work with athletes to build a series where they explore and develop their craft for competitions or shows to provide full before, during and after updates.

189K  Views

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111K Views

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Honorable Mentions

While this content category may not have been top performing - it has a great concept that could be executed and experimented with.

Content Bucket:

360° Wingsuit Footage

• Currently, this is the only form of interactive aerial content that exists on YouTube. These videos can be interactive in two ways; one for desktop users, and one for VR users. 
• On a desktop, viewers can use a toggle as seen in the screenshot to move up, down and around the entire scene to experience the full view of the camera. 
• With a VR machine, viewers can put their headsets on and physically move around to experience the same view as the athlete in the wingsuit. 

91K  Views

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Outliers:

These videos were omitted from their content buckets as ‘viral’ outliers for exceeding 3x the views and engagements of their respective benchmarks.

Proximity Flying

Tactics:

28 seconds in length this video features the preparation of an athlete to jump & complete a 360-degree spin before flying. 

2.5M Views

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Team & Formation Flying

Tactics:

40 seconds in length this video features two athletes attaching themselves and switching between paragliding, wingsuit rodeo and parachuting.

19M Views

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Team & Formation Flying

Tactics:

1 minute in length this video features five athletes skydiving with wingsuits as they arrange themselves into formation mid-air.

1.1M Views