• It’s Christmas in June! TikTok released a 2023 Holiday Marketing Playbook to help you plan.
• Positivity drives action at every stage of the shopping journey, according to new research released by Pinterest.
• Here’s how E.l.f. Cosmetics is beating out legacy brands in the race to capture Gen Z.
• Check out this test drive of Google’s search generative experience.

Are you using YouTube solely as a video hosting platform?

If your account is basically a brand video graveyard, you’re missing out on the potential for video ROI, brand awareness, traffic, and audience growth.

Success on YouTube requires iteration, consistency, engagement, and topicality, rather than a “set it and forget it” approach. Here’s how to revive your channel:

1. Conduct a channel audit. You can download a list of your uploads by navigating to Analytics > Content > Advanced Mode.
2. Measure analytics. Take stock of how long viewers watch, what percentage of the video they view, and where the audience drops off, skips forward, or rewatches.
3. Diversify content. Keep brand videos to a minimum, instead opting for blog videos answering a question or addressing a topic, testimonials, how-tos and demos, webinars and roundtables, and product feature videos.
4. Engage with your community. Promptly and respond to feedback, answer comments and questions, and encourage discussion.
5. Optimize videos. Just as you would for your website SEO—conduct keyword research, refine your video’s metadata (title, description, tags), and add a human-centric thumbnail.
6. Maintain consistency. Set a realistic upload schedule and stick to it.
7. Collaborate with others. Cross-promo, influencer collaboration, and guest appearances increase your channel visibility.

Check out more at Search Engine Land.

Sure, generative AI may have saved you time and effort on designs, copy, packaging, logos, or even ideas. But how well will these assets perform with real humans? Validate your AI content and run an iterative and agile Market Test with 100 real consumers. Get your results in two hours. (This is pretty valuable for human-generated content, too!)

Heinz is highlighting fan love with “It has to be Heinz,” featuring cinematic vignettes inspired by real folks who won’t settle for the house ketchup.