YouTube Recommended Videos, Clicked After Seeing Titles from 20s and Comments from 40s!

Korea Press Foundation Survey... Title, Video Description Content, and Image Order

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] Kim Seong-gyun (pseudonym), who shares information for YouTube beginners online, recently posted an explanation about 'good YouTube titles' on his blog. He advised, "The most important factor to increase the views of uploaded videos is the 'title,'" adding, "Including specific keywords in the title is advantageous for search." For example, if you aspire to be a YouTuber specializing in restaurants in Jeju Island, you should label it as 'Jeju Island restaurants' or 'Jeju Island eateries."

In fact, domestic YouTube users are greatly influenced by factors such as the title, view count, number of comments, and video description when watching videos of interest. According to the 'YouTube Recommendation Algorithm and Journalism' report by the Korea Press Foundation on the 10th, 23.6% of survey respondents cited 'title' as the most important factor when playing recommended YouTube videos. This was followed by 'video description content (17.4%)', 'video thumbnail image (15.3%)', 'view count (9.6%)', and 'channel name (8.6%)'.

By age group, respondents in their 20s were more likely than other age groups to decide whether to play a video based on the title (61.1%) and channel name (37.9%). Those in their 30s prioritized view count (43.6%), 40s prioritized comments (22.1%), 50s prioritized video description content (55.2%), and 60s prioritized whether the video was live (30.5%).

This survey was conducted over one week in September last year by a joint research team including Oh Se-uk, senior research fellow at the Korea Press Foundation, and Song Hae-yeop, assistant professor in the Department of Media and Culture at Kunsan National University, to analyze YouTube's video recommendation algorithm. A total of 590 people responded to the survey.

The research team stated, "The more videos users watch, the greater YouTube's revenue as a company becomes," adding, "To this end, YouTube recommends videos through a private algorithm, with more than 200 million recommendations made daily." They further noted, "In the Korean language environment, simple factors such as titles and keywords within titles operate strongly in YouTube's recommendation algorithm."

Meanwhile, when asked whether algorithm-based recommended videos have actually increased YouTube viewing time, 41.5% of 996 respondents answered, "I end up spending more time on YouTube."