YouTube Outengages TikTok

Sam Parr and Noah Kagan discuss the quality and engagement differences between various social media platforms, particularly focusing on YouTube, podcasts, and TikTok. While TikTok offers rapid growth, they believe deeper engagement comes from YouTube and podcasting.

• TikTok Growth and Engagement:

  • Fastest current way to grow an audience
  • Generated 30M views in 3 weeks through user-generated content
  • Primarily consumption-focused
  • Younger demographic (19-20 year olds)

• YouTube Advantages:

  • Higher quality audience engagement
  • More committed viewers
  • Better for newsletter subscriptions
  • Audiences more likely to comment and interact

• Podcast Benefits:

  • Creates intimate connection with audience
  • Listeners spend 45+ minutes with host
  • Results in real-world recognition (3-4 times per week)
  • Very sticky medium once established
  • Harder to grow than other platforms
  • Guaranteed minimum of 50k views per episode once established

• Cross-Platform Strategy:

  • Easiest to convert users from similar mediums (podcast to podcast)
  • Should leverage YouTube descriptions to promote newsletters/podcasts
  • Important to have clear calls-to-action across platforms
  • Focus on getting direct podcast subscribers for consistent engagement

• Growth Strategy:

  • Invest in content quality
  • Improve host chemistry
  • Buy ads on other podcasts
  • Consider strategic platform selection (YouTube vs TikTok)