YG Entertainment on the impact of Youtube and international promotions

With an increasing amount of Korea’s idol groups heading overseas, Youtube has become a strategic focal point for popular entertainment agencies such as YG Entertainment.

YG  immediately realized the potential of Youtube and created official channels as a new promotion measure.

The individual international business team revealed a bit of their thoughts on their Youtube channels and how they’re using it to market their idols.

[allkpop: Please note that the original articles were written exactly in the format seen below; while YGE's interviews had more of a Q&A format]

 - How did you come to create a Youtube channel?
YG: “We first used GOM Player and released music videos, mostly catering to just our fans in Korea. However, with Se7en going overseas in 2008 and Big Bang beginning their Japanese promotions, we decided to use Youtube to promote our company to international fans. Youtube also became quite popular in Korea at the same time anyway, so everything coordinated perfectly.”

- Does YGE’s Youtube channel have its own concept?
YG: “There is no special concept, we just matched everything to the hip hop street style that our company is known for. We change the channel layouts for each artist whenever they release a new album. We have also been catering to the international fans by offering a more variety of languages such as Chinese, Japanese, English and many others.”

- What is the usual age range and location for YGE subscribers?
YG: “2NE1 has a lot of international fans in Thailand and the Philippines, and the majority of YGE’s channel subscribers consist of female fans in their teens and 20’s. The channel also gets a lot of hits from the U.S. as well – YGE has just as much popularity in the U.S. as in Asia, actually.”

- What are the merits of using Youtube to promote yourselves?  
YG: “We can easily see the stats for each video since Youtube provides a detailed analysis of which country, age group, or gender the video is most popular with. We’re also able to just upload videos without any additional expenses, which gives us a hefty return in advertisement income.”

- How are you using Youtube to promote yourselves?
YG: “We’ll release new songs or music videos first on Youtube to give both Korean and international fans a faster chance at sampling them. We can also use Youtube’s streaming service for our live concerts. Beginning in the new year, we’ll be improving each of our artists’ individual channels so that fans can zoom in and focus on content specific to their interests.”

- Compared to when you first started your channel, how has the way you’ve been using Youtube changed?
YG: “With the release of smartphones, people can search Youtube videos through more various routes. Our company will be attempting to utilize this to our advantage, along with the use of Facebook and individual Twitter accounts.”

- Is there a limit to using Youtube for promotion?
YG: “When artists release a new album and promote it, there’s a lot of content to upload and consequently, there’s more updates. However, once their promotion cycle is over, they usually take an absence ranging from six months to a year. There’s nothing to upload during that time period, so it’s difficult to maintain our subscribers. We’ll be working on trying to come up with a way to decrease that gap as much as possible.”