Arjun Kumar on 'benefit of collaborations on YouTube': Zee Melt 2015

The first day of Zee Melt 2015, the two-day festival of creativity in advertising and marketing created by Kyoorius in partnership with Zee, GroupM and D&AD, witnessed eminent speakers from digital as well as the advertising and media industry.

Held at Nehru Centre in Mumbai, one of the sessions, conducted by Arjun Kumar, partner manager, YouTube, educated the audience about the benefits that YouTube creators can have by collaborating with each other.

Excite Common Subscribers (followers on a YouTube channel) - Many YouTube subscribers subscribe to more than one or two YouTube channels. "If you and your collaborator have a common pool of subscribers, for them it's double the value. They have a common set of subscribers and it helps."

Activate each other's subscriber base - Websites like Zomato and Yelp are doing well because they are taking recommendations and adding social layers. "If you go on Zomato and see that a friend has written a recommendation, you are more likely to trust his judgment as opposed to what a restaurant says about itself. Similar analogy applies in the YouTube case. For instance, if I am a follower of TVF (The Viral Fever) and I don't know about AIB (All India Bakchod), but if the two collaborate and TVF recommends me to check out AIB's channel, I am more likely to do that," he explains.

Tap into each other's casual viewing audience - There may be viewers who may not be subscribers, and come once in a while to view videos. "The pool is out there. At least, they are aware of either your channel or your collaborator's channel."

Make waves (and not ripples) across social networks - "Simply because you are now tapping into an engaged social army because you are working with someone else."

Kumar said that there may be an overlap of subscribers. It may be because the two creators are in the same field. For example, AIB and TVF are both into comedy and have similar kind of audiences. So, it may be logical. "Sometimes, it may be simply be because you are so big and popular that you will have an overlap. Example, TVF and Vsauce - again similar kind of audience. You want to make sure that you are tapping into these subscribers because they are the most excited lot, and they are the ones who are going to make the most amount of noise."

Type of collaborations:

YouTube Cameos - wherein you have some other YouTuber pop-in for a few seconds. It starts with the overlapping subscriber base where the viewer recognises the YouTuber. For example, Tinder in India.

Celebrity Cameos - "It's not about force-fitting them; it's a good idea to have them stay true to your own voice. If they can act in your video and stick to the voice you have established for your channel, then it's interesting." For example, Alia Bhatt - Genuis of The year, which also featured Mahesh Bhatt, Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra.

Full episode appearance - "You are actually getting people for the entre video and have proper characters in that story." For example - 'Jungle Raj : Indian Politicians' Qtiyapa' by TVF.

Revolving collaborations - regardless of which video a person views, he will move to the other video. Example - 'Guns in Space' by Vsauce and 'What if the Earth were Hollow?' by MinutePhysics.