The video-first world is already here. Have you been watching?

The following post is based on a presentation on YouTube Optimisation I gave at Ness 2025. Videos from the conference are now available on-demand.

PRESS PLAY

Let me hit you with a stat. According to Goldman Sachs there are currently 67 million people out there that identify as creators. By 2030, that number is going to increase to 107. Forget faceless AI video slop misinformation (although that’s coming at well)- with the tsunami of video that’s about to erupt - how do you expect audiences to have time for your precious news articles or even your brand?

Well, let’s get one thing straight, it’s not by pivoting your entire operation to Reddit. That platform might be getting some decent visibility in LLMs at the moment but there’s no guarantee how long this will remain. Also, have you ever tried to convert actual humans who are deep into their subreddits? It’s no easy feat.

But there IS another way.

In the beginning there was…PopBuzz Back in 2014 I worked with a team to launch a pop culture brand called ‘PopBuzz.’ It was so successful that we followed up with a YouTube/Creator focused brand called ‘We The Unicorns.’ One for the reasons we were successful was that we hired actual creators on the team - it’s content strategy 101 right?

Want to attract an audience? Then HIRE the audience.

PopBuzz (sadly no longer with us) was a great experience because it really allowed the team to shoot what they thought was most important - which at the time wasn’t music (which was part of the original plan) but ISSUES that really mattered to that demographic. Or sometimes, just plain silliness like this:

Here's PopBuzzer Benedict Townsend in all his glory fronting the fabulous Scroll Deep (previously YouTuber News).

(It also meant reporting back on a lot of YouTuber CONFESSIONALS apologising for previous bad behaviour - but that’s another story).

The point i’m trying to land here is that PopBuzz was popular because we had some very clever people who understood BOTH the audience and the algorithm. They might talk about the news, but it was always through what many newsrooms might consider a tangential or irrelevant starting point - let’s say a meme for instance.. At PopBuzz HQ the ‘side quest’ always took centre stage which is really interesting because I see this a lot in the - oh no, here comes another header…

…The Rise of the News Creators

If we assume that video consumption is on the rise (you’ve all read that Washington Post article right?) then it stands to reason that audiences are reading less. It then becomes paramount that newsrooms invest in video with personalities who understand the audience and the algorithm.

The interesting thing I see in this space is that many creators who cover the news actually left newsrooms to spin up their own social video channels. There are so many great examples out there (and I would encourage anyone who’s researching this sector to check out what is going on over at Project C) and they all loosely use the following magic formula..

Hook First, Content Second

News creators have been able to crack the algorithm precisely because they take NO RISKS in with their content. They know how to keep their audience locked in with a HOOK FIRST, CONTENT SECOND approach i.e.

• This is the topic I’m going to talk about

• Let’s be clear I’m not talking about this or this so there’s NO NEED TO SWIPE AWAY

• You NEED to know about this because X

• I (or the person I am interviewing) am the perfect person to tell you about this because X (i.e. credibility)
  

Of course, there’s a lot more going on - like the visual identity and their general tone - and put all together it’s not hard to see why their videos are just so addictive. Let’s face it, by comparison, some of the traditional newsroom bulletins look like they’ve been broadcast from war room bunkers.

Future Shock

What makes 2026 such an exciting year is that newsrooms can either do what we did and invite these creators to be part of their news teams OR push to make video stars from their own staff. Or maybe it’s a bit of both - hire a creator to train your staff? Now that sounds fun!

It’s pretty clear that at some point, LLMs are going to able to feature videos in their AI search results. So that should be incentive enough to make sure your brand or newsroom is featured in those results. Just make sure you have an SEO/AI Visibility Optimisation expert supporting in your journey because It’s going to be a wild ride!

PRESS STOP.