Trends Q: How frequently are resorts uploading YouTube videos now since they started in 2006?

In April we dug into the SlopeFillers data archives to compare the pace of posting on Facebook this year compared to previous years. What surprised us was that in 2012/13, posting volume dropped for the first time ever. With similar historical data on YouTube, we decided to see if the same trend held true for video as well. Here’s what we found.

The Goods
To find our answer, we analyzed over 20,000 ski resort YouTube videos uploaded since July of 2006 (only two videos were uploaded before then). Videos were grouped by the month they were uploaded and counted to get a total number of uploads for each month until September 2013. Here’s how it looks.

Sure enough, it appears the monthly video upload volume in 2012/13 was slightly lower than 2011/12. Looking at annual volume confirms this trend. Between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013 there were 5,038 videos uploaded versus 5,224 between July 1, 2011 and June 30, 2012.

What This Means
There are many factors at play in social media marketing strategy. At the center of any discussion are quantity and quality. What we do know is that the volume of social posts from ski resorts peaked in 2011/12 for Facebook and YouTube – a trend that likely carried over to other networks as well.

The obvious question is “why”. While that’s a question we’ll hope to answer in a future Stash, we’d guess that the drastic improvement in content quality has come through a “fewer and better” approach where the time saved from posting less frequently is spent making each post more engaging and relevant.

Onward and Upward
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