Are Sensationalised Social Media And Youtube Posts Damaging The Broads Tourism Industry?

[oldgregg]

33 minutes ago, twowrights said:

Google AdSense pay monetized YouTubers, figures I've seen quote between ten and thirty pounds per thousand views, depending  on things such as subscriber numbers. 

Indeed.

And this is why there is so much clickbait on YouTube.

There's lots of "You won't believe what happened" and "My latest car purchase was a huge financial mistake" titles on Videos, with the bigger channels also able to add a custom thumbnail of them holding their heads in despair.

It's aways a good way of spotting the dullest videos where they were scraping the barrel for ideas.

[MauriceMynah]

Maybe I should start a YouTube channel. I'll call it

"You won't believe what I can't be a***d to watch."

[oldgregg]

Does anyone remember this guy?

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/dec/05/youtuber-jailed-after-staging-plane-crash-to-make-video-trevor-daniel-jacob

The YouTuber who had the misfortune of suffering an engine failure on his light aircraft and had to bail out.

Lucky that he was wearing a parachute and had a fire extinguisher strapped to his leg under his trousers..... 

It wasn't long before people analysed the video and suggested that the FAA got involved. He got six months in prison for staging the crash.

[dom]

33 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

So are we saying that this is all funded by advertising?

Edited to add :

Thank you very much for reply. I am not being flippant : I am actually very keen to see how this monster feeds itself!

There are two main principles in operation:

1: Legitimate businesses pay Google to advertise their products with "Pay per click" or "Pay per view" ads. They then choose how much to pay Google for every person who views or clicks on one of their ads (typically £0.10 to £1.00 per click, but a lot more in some cases, ie. financial services). Bids can be set by account, campaign, or even a specific keyword. Google needs somewhere to place the ads, so they look for videos on their Youtube platform where they can run ads. They match content based on demographics, ie. a young beauty influencer's videos might attract ads for beauty products, shampoo, mobile phones, etc. Every ad view generates income for Google, who pass on a percentage to the video producer. Clever content creators pick their video subject matter to attract lucrative ads (a point seemingly lost on those filming at Ludham).

2: Affiliate marketing. A product manufacturer or distributor (often Chinese) will run an "influencer campaign". They look for high traffic channels and gift them a product in return for having their product featured, either used in context, or being reviewed. Obviously in the latter case, the reviews tend to be positive - but are never, ever fake . In most cases, the free product is the incentive for the video producer - but in others, there may also be payment involved. At the moment, there's a lot of focus on lithium portable power packs in the boating field. JustEat's home delivery meals are also getting flogged to death.

I've run PPC ads from the business advertiser side since they first appeared. I have also run ads on content networks on the other side of things (web, rather than video content). As a result, I could suggest a way to make far more money from a Broads based video, but won't for obvious reasons.

[catcouk]

13 hours ago, SwanR said:

My videos are just a hobby and mostly made for my own amusement and as a nice record of my own holidays and trips out.

Ditto. I've always seen YouTube as a free way to share silly homemade videos. My son is very impressed that I can 'be on TV' though... Lol

[dom]

13 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

The YouTuber who had the misfortune of suffering an engine failure on his light aircraft and had to bail out.

More notable is the British guy (who actually lived not far from me) who did a base jump off a 29 storey skyscraper in Thailand earlier this year, whilst filming himself for his Youtube channel. His canopy failed to open and he died as a result.

The sad part is, he's far from alone. Young people are increasingly suffering fatal accidents whilst trying to create content. Particularly sad when influencer now features heavily in "what do you want to be when you grow up" top 10 lists.

[catcouk]

13 hours ago, CambridgeCabby said:

I remember eagerly awaiting “London Rascals” next adventure in the days when he used to hire , his videos were always informative

I used to watch the boat review religiously (and rewatch to get me in the mood for our Easter holiday). Great videos. I have only done reviews of our hire boats to try and pay back the time he invested.

[Vaughan]

29 minutes ago, dom said:

There are two main principles in operation:

1: Legitimate businesses pay Google to advertise their products with "Pay per click" or "Pay per view" ads. They then choose how much to pay Google for every person who views or clicks on one of their ads (typically £0.10 to £1.00 per click, but a lot more in some cases, ie. financial services). Bids can be set by account, campaign, or even a specific keyword. Google needs somewhere to place the ads, so they look for videos on their Youtube platform where they can run ads. They match content based on demographics, ie. a young beauty influencer's videos might attract ads for beauty products, shampoo, mobile phones, etc. Every ad view generates income for Google, who pass on a percentage to the video producer. Clever content creators pick their video subject matter to attract lucrative ads (a point seemingly lost on those filming at Ludham).

2: Affiliate marketing. A product manufacturer or distributor (often Chinese) will run an "influencer campaign". They look for high traffic channels and gift them a product in return for having their product featured, either used in context, or being reviewed. Obviously in the latter case, the reviews tend to be positive - but are never, ever fake . In most cases, the free product is the incentive for the video producer - but in others, there may also be payment involved. At the moment, there's a lot of focus on lithium portable power packs in the boating field. JustEat's home delivery meals are also getting flogged to death.

I've run PPC ads from the business advertiser side since they first appeared. I have also run ads on content networks on the other side of things (web, rather than video content). As a result, I could suggest a way to make far more money from a Broads based video, but won't for obvious reasons.

Oh God, what a muddle we are getting ourselves into, in our "civilised world".

Oh happy band of pilgrims, look upward to the skies :

Where such a light affliction shall win so great a prize.

Hymns (A&M) 629.

[TFrench89]

2 hours ago, Vaughan said:

Firstly, thank you Grendel, for starting this debate on what I might call the "open" forum.

And now, here's the dinosaur in me : I just can't get my head around the economics of all this.  In the business world that I am used to, you manufacture your product and then your customers come and buy it.

If I view something on Youtube, I don't pay for it - it comes for free.  But all these little bloggers can make what seems to be a good living just by getting lots of clicks for their "efforts".  So who is actually paying them?  The clickers certainly are not and I can't see how Youtube is, either.  So how does this new multi billion Pound industry sustain itself?  And how does Elon Musk make so much money, just out of everybody's silly little tweets?

Or was my mother wrong all along, and money really does grow on trees?

It's primarily through ad revenue, they also offer YouTube premium which removes the ads. I believe in the UK it's around £12pm. YouTubers are paid depending on the revenue they generate for Google, so the more views/likes the more the creator makes. Also creators make money from paid promotions on their vlogs, so if it's a car channel they'll have an ad for say Car vertical, vehicle score or Topdon for instance. There's channels making an absolute fortune on there. 

[rightsaidfred]

I must be quite sad, the only YouTube content I look at is the educational  how to fix it ones and even then I am cautious as to their accuracy.

Fred

[Smoggy]

19 minutes ago, rightsaidfred said:

I must be quite sad, the only YouTube content I look at is the educational  how to fix it ones and even then I am cautious as to their accuracy.

Fred

I'm very close there Fred although I've downloaded music gigs as well, usually via 4k video downloader so I can save ad free with no subscription and watch froma usb stick at leisure. 

[Hylander]

What really gets my goat and I cannot get my head round is the fact that daft people pay a monthly fee to these people , who on the whole are on a glorified paid for holiday all year round.   I watch a lot of canal videos.    Watching them buying cars, campervans, trips abroad etc.   One guy with a dog has a fabulous bungalow and gets piles of parcels from Amazon on a weekly basis that people send him.   I am not talking cheap items ,   boxes and boxes of dog food , biscuits etc.    Expensive equipment for the house and garden.    Top price electrical items, electric bikes, I mean they just cannot lose and these people send them money each month.    Gift Cards for stays in hotels.    Am I missing something.    They send him , a complete stranger , better gifts than I could ever afford for the family.   

[dom]

22 minutes ago, Hylander said:

What really gets my goat and I cannot get my head round is the fact that daft people pay a monthly fee to these people , who on the whole are on a glorified paid for holiday all year round.  

The only time I've ever paid money to someone is just before Christmas, when a couple I've already mentioned were having their first full winter on a narrowboat. Their domestic batteries died, the one of them who works was struggling to get shifts and it was leading up to Christmas. I made a small donation - partly because of their circumstances, and partly as a "buy yourselves something nice to eat or drink over Christmas" to say thanks for a lot of enjoyable content over the previous year.

Donating to conspicuously well off people is just slightly unhinged. Apart from anything else, there are far worthier channels actually doing positive things with the money they generate instead.

[Tobster]

5 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

Ever since one caveman saw another one slip on a banana skin, people have laughed at the misfortune of others. Yes we can type about how nasty it is, and that we wouldn't do so ourselves,  but are we being truly honest with ourselves?

If I mess up and notice that it's been caught on camera,  these days I'd expect to see it on YouTube within hours. Happy about it? No not really, but that's life nowadays.  

There used to be a program on TV called "You've been framed" it ran for years and years with a succession of presenters. It wouldn't have lasted so long had it not been so popular. We still laugh at banana skin humour, we can't help it.

From Charlie Chaplin's tramp through "Some mothers do have 'em" to ... well what ever's on today it's same old same old. 

Do I think it would put people off coming to the Broads, nah I don't think so. It might make some of the viewers more careful when approaching bridges but I suspect that more people will have the Jeremy Clarkson attitude "How hard can that be?" than will think "I don't think I can do that."

As far as the footage that was responsible for this thread goes, I take my hat off to those here who watched it all. I switched it off after just a few minutes having lost patience with the presenter. He seems to be referred to as an 'influencer'. Anybody who is influenced by that chappie needs to get out more, further, anyone calling themselves 'influencers' need to stay in more.

When the water skiers were fighting with the BA proposal to ban waterskiing on the broads. we contacted Jeremy Beadle the presenter of yo’ve been framed and asked him if they would stop showing the clips of waterskiing, as it was presenting the sport in a bad light, he not only agreed to stop showing waterskiing clips, he also stopped showing any clips involving ski boats inflatables as well. Unbeknown to us at the time he was a keen waterskier himself, and had read about our situation and offered to assist in anyway he could. Absolute gentleman in my book.

I think we would have been in big trouble had we had social media back then, there would have been no stopping it.

[grendel]

there are other ways that youtubers can make money other than the adverts (one channel I used to watch had 30 minutes of adverts in their 1 hour film- overkill in my experience)

the first way is through patreon, where you can get the videos early and get certain benefits from a small monthly donation, get a few thousand people paying £2 a month, or £2 a video, and it soo adds up to an income, there are only 3 channels I pay to help them survive- One is travels with Geordie- a guy  in Canada who works on 3 wooden boats, I know he isnt making a lot from youtube on his videos, so am happy to pay in the equivalent of a beer to allow him to buy timber to keep fixing his boat. Another is a youtuber with a niche channel that I enjoy, she is only making a few dollars a month and only has a few patreons, just enough to help pay the bills while living a frugal life.

the third channel I pay into is once again not a big channel, but he is a local to me tinkerer, and also makes videos i am interested in and I also make some of the projects he shows, once again he is not making a great income and the few pounds i spend is I know going to a good cause. 

another way is you can make donations to a channel via the chat feature during a live streaming session.

there is also something called Ko-fi- where you can donate the cost of a cup of coffee t the youtuber if you think their content was worth watching.

I have also seen channels run go fund me campaigns- recently Brupeg ran one after managing to blow up all their solar charge controllers- raising enough to get their electrical system totally replaced with a victron system, including victron batteries and inverters and getting the system designed and installed by a victron approved electrical engineer. - for the right channels run by quite normal people some of these channels really do generate a lot of support (and they dont sensationalise their content.)

my sponsorship of youtubers comes to the cost of a few cups of coffee, and i am very selective just who I will sponsor, only sponsoring channels where I know the few pennies I do donate make a difference.

[Wonderwall]

I think there is also a lot of truth in the saying  “ there is no such thing as bad publicity”

Most people come to the broads for the 1st time, either by word of mouth, or are taken by experienced friends or family. I can’t remember the last time I seen an advert on mainstream tv by Hoseasons or Richardsons for a boating holiday on the broads?

I am sure I am not just imagining that there was adverts once upon a time?

Maybe there are regional commercials but they don’t make it all the way up to Bonnie Scotland. Social media is here to stay, and it’s not all bad. You are on a form of it right this second 🤪.

It would be interesting to know for example if anybody watching the rascals clips were convinced to try for the 1 st time, or did 99% watch them, because they already had the bug?

[catcouk]

I watched because I already had the bug from my childhood.

[floydraser]

So you can go premium and pay to not see ads. Radio stations do similar.

So there's the providers actually admitting that we don't like adverts then saying "well you can either pay the advertisers or just pay us direct". Isn't that blackmail? 

I think a lot of these platforms started as free then sold out to the big guys. Unfortunately there isn't currently a decent alternative to Youtube.

[SwanR]

5 minutes ago, floydraser said:

 

So you can go premium and pay to not see ads.

 

You also get access to be able to download videos to watch offline. Plus access to YouTube Music. I’ve taken it up and it’s well worth it for us. 

[MauriceMynah]

Can I pay to see the ads and have the influencers edited out?

[Smoggy]

18 minutes ago, SwanR said:

You also get access to be able to download videos to watch offline.

See previous post about 4k video downloader.

Just now, MauriceMynah said:

Can I pay to see the ads and have the influencers edited out?

Might be less irritating.

[twowrights]

1 hour ago, Wonderwall said:

I think there is also a lot of truth in the saying  “ there is no such thing as bad publicity”

Most people come to the broads for the 1st time, either by word of mouth, or are taken by experienced friends or family. I can’t remember the last time I seen an advert on mainstream tv by Hoseasons or Richardsons for a boating holiday on the broads?

I am sure I am not just imagining that there was adverts once upon a time?

Maybe there are regional commercials but they don’t make it all the way up to Bonnie Scotland. Social media is here to stay, and it’s not all bad. You are on a form of it right this second 🤪.

It would be interesting to know for example if anybody watching the rascals clips were convinced to try for the 1 st time, or did 99% watch them, because they already had the bug?

We watched because after a life long wish to have a boating holiday we finally booked. I thought it best to look for advice and experiences from others. So glad I did, as things like crossing Breydon and mooring were made much easier. 

[MargeandParge]

Our London Rascal always gave great insight into the boats he reviewed and when he did it was humorous, fair an educational especially for those looking to hire a boat. Or (open a can of hot dogs).

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[SophieWallace]

On 16/04/2024 at 17:49, dom said:

I suspect I know who you mean. Also goes wherever he likes, including filming a video fishing from private land in someone's back garden. Has also fallen out with two boatyards, a pub landlord and homeowners in Wroxham - all of whom he criticizes, completely failing to comprehend his intrusion.

To be fair though, he does at least show his face and makes no secret of his identity.

What I do notice is that two of the worst Ludham Bridge offenders have never shown their faces and use pseudonyms. Obviously, anyone can film another person in public. I'd really like to see how they'd react when caught on video and uploaded to Youtube.

 

Some people just wish not to appear on camera.

[grendel]

Clickbait is an often used word amongst youtubers, what is it exactly- how is it defined, I have seen channels using the thumbnail of the female presenter partially clothed to entice users to watch the latest video, and in other cases the title sensationalises some of the content. Youtube expects a certain level of this to occur as part of the marketing strategy, but where does the line get drawn between marketing and out and out clickbait. I suspect that everyone would draw it in a different place, and others get upset over the interpretation of 'marketing' as 'clickbait'- I suppose similar to calling the Broads a national park- for some it makes no difference- for others its an absolute travesty and shouldnt be allowed.

so where is the line between what is allowed and what is not, the audience wont know the intent  and the difference between a short punchy title that describes part of the video of some importance and one that is clearly designed to get you looking and has no relation to the content.

to some of us if it encourages us to watch we will call it clickbait, while to the youtuber its just marketing. so the definition is everything here.