Acing the digital game

Last few months have seen an amazing spurt in digital entertainment, and this is despite the challenges in creating new content due to Corona pandemic. One of the leading video hosting platforms YouTube itself has seen a steep increase in content creators, and today we have over 10000 YouTube channels in Telugu alone, next only to Hindi in the volume, in India. The flipside to this is the significant dip in YouTube revenues in the last few months. Plus the ever increasing number of content creators makes it that much difficult for the video to garner viewership, and it is also not so easy to be noticed in the crowd; not unless you have a definite edge.

"It is only if you have the right content will you have a future as a Youtuber," says Suman, managing director of Suman TV Network, one of the top digital media platforms in Telugu. Picking the right topic and making timely videos is the key. He adds, "While it's important to create quality content, you must know what kind of content will reach the audience on a particular day. You must do your own research to understand the trends in demand for content and must be able create useful videos and upload them on time. There is a demand for technology reviews, and videos of personality development, cooking videos etc., these days. One must also learn about technical aspects like SEO."

Based out of a small town Naidupeta, near Nellore, 44-year-old Suman studied Polytechnic in Tirupati, and was working as a video editor with a couple of television media companies and also ran his editing studios before he began his stint as an individual Youtuber in 2015. In just one year,Suman TV won YouTube's Gold Award for reaching 10 lakh mark viewership. Today the network has grown into 100 channels employing 150 people and enjoys 2 crore viewers across the globe, per day. With continuous efforts the various channels in the network have become quite popular; Jobs channel that helped around 20000 people to get jobs, the farmers channel in Telugu and the spiritual channel, which is the most viewed in south India. The network is slowly inching towards its objective of reaching every Telugu viewer from across the world, from a remote village to the US of America.

During initial years,Suman TV crew found it hard to rope in people for interviews. Celebrities, doctors, and who ever mattered did not find YouTube channel attractive enough; but not anymore. "One of the memorable interviews we did was with hero Suman. Many thought our channel belonged to him, and that was how we began our conversation with him. A couple of years ago hero Chiranjeevigaru gave a few bytes to us, and that gave us the credibility in the film industry," relates Suman.

"Since the time we used to repeatedly request people to convince them for interviews, we came a long way. Today many approach us and are ready to pay for interviews. This is no overnight success. I used to work for 18 hours and my team members also used to work with me. And along with the company they have grown, their salaries have increased and we take pride in being able to pay salaries on 30th of every month, provide health insurance to all our employees, afternoon lunch on a daily basis and an annual holiday to relax and bond."

Every day, there are scores of YouTube channels being launched; Suman says the platform has reached a saturation point. "It will not be so easy for the newcomers in the space. And the existing channels also must reinvent. The advertisements have reduced. With more channels competing, it is not easy to be noticed. For your video to come up on page one of search, you need publicity;and for it to be the first one in the search, you would need SEO. While we have many YouTube channels resorting to provocative statements, misleading headlines and sensationalising content to gain hits; these may give short term results, but in no way ensure success in the long run. There is no quick recipe to success on digital platform. It involves a lot of hard work, understanding your viewer and the medium."

However, soon we are going to have other players coming into the video hosting space providing more options for content creators, he shares. In order to stay in tune with demanding digital space, soon, Suman TV Network will be launching exclusive Apps, and riding on its popularity, the group has already launched e-commerce activity. In the coming years, there will be more platforms like YouTube where content creators can upload their videos. The future is digital, states Suman, who had come to this conclusion way back in 2015 itself. It is important to increase quality of content in the lines of the kind you see on Satellite channels, he concludes.