INTRODUCTION:
YouTube attracts over 2 billion logged-in users per month amounting to nearly one third of internet traffic (YouTube 2021a). This video sharing platform has exploded in popularity since its founding in 2005, with a diverse range of digital content and creators. Over 70% of watch-time comes from mobile devices, with the platform currently available in 80 languages (YouTube 2021a). Over 1 billion hours of videos are watched daily (YouTube 2015). YouTube is popular with younger adults, with the 18-34 age group making up the majority of active profiles, and users are more likely to have children than non-users (Google 2021b). With this vast reach in mind, YouTube represents an important pathway for highlighting wildlife and conservation science to a broad audience. However, use of social media data by much of the scientific community remains limited (Toivonen et al. 2019) especially with regards to conservation science (Wu et al. 2018).
Traditional research outputs including both publications and presentations are necessary for the advancement of academic science. Social media helps to deliver scientific content to a general audience, to those not able to participate in a conference setting, and to those without access to embargoed research. Social media can also deliver content in a more understandable (and enjoyable) way to the public, with links back to the original research. Underserved communities at a global level can benefit from the free YouTube content, providing education and excitement to anyone with internet access. Many interesting publications can be enhanced through adventurous explorations into the topic via YouTube. An example of this is algogenic insect stings (Schmidt et al. 1983) which are often popular with a general audience (Schmidt 2020). Publications detailing the personal experience of a given venom are limited; adding the human element and direct visuals helps to bring this research to life and connects digital content with a vast and diverse audience. Examination of the types of ecological stories and visuals that are popular on YouTube provides conservation practitioners and policy makers an understanding of what interests a general audience and offers inspiration for their future endeavors. Social media data has been suggested to be valuable in a variety of fields (Di Minin et al. 2015) with data of particular use to conservation science efforts (Otsuka and Yamakoshi 2020).
Many science themed channels exist on the YouTube platform (Huang and Grant 2020), with some obtaining a viral reach. One way a large audience size is achieved is by building a follower base who view content as it is produced, irrespective of topic. Here we report on the success of a single YouTube channel “BraveWilderness” with its animal-centric content receiving over 4 billion views. These demographics are comprised of a large base of interested viewers, many of whom would not search directly for a given topic but enjoy, and benefit from, the content.
BraveWilderness is a YouTube channel that was created in 2014 with the main focus of showing interesting wildlife in its natural habitat. The hosts find various creatures and highlight their morphology and adaptations in engaging short videos which are uploaded to the platform. Although rarely didactically instructional, BraveWilderness video content tells a multilayered story, often with the goal of answering questions in life science fields. Special attention is given to entering extremes of nature and finding interesting and misunderstood wildlife, many of which are underrepresented in conservation efforts. Although not all BraveWilderness videos are strictly conservation themed, the content created tells a compelling story and highlights fascinating wildlife, bringing awareness of science, nature and conservation subjects to a large audience. By highlighting such biodiversity, it is clear that the more people that are reached, the greater chance of them caring, which is how conservation ultimately succeeds. As social media becomes an increasingly powerful tool, academics and conservation practitioners can benefit from examining successful outreach efforts, and directly participating in web-based outreach activities.