The Client
GitHub is a leading AI-powered developer platform connecting over 100 million developers worldwide. It provides tools for collaboration, code management, and software building across open-source and private projects. Serving a diverse audience from hobbyists to professional developers, GitHub simplifies development workflows and project management. As a key player in the tech industry, GitHub fosters innovation and collaboration, making it indispensable for individual programmers, teams, and large enterprises alike.
Vireo Services
Consultations
packaging
Video SEO
Chapters
TLDR
We partnered with GitHub to help them optimize their YouTube strategy for the GitHub Universe 2023 conference. GitHub handled video production and planning, execution, and initial titles and descriptions, while we provided YouTube strategy consultation, thumbnail design, video SEO, and together, we collaborated on the creation of video chapters. In working together, we achieved a 388% increase in views (716,678), a 673% increase in watch time (67,827 hours), and a 496% increase in subscribers (8,658) when compared to GitHub Universe 2022.
The Challenge
GitHub Universe is an annual conference hosted by GitHub, where developers, project managers, and tech enthusiasts come together to learn about new features, updates, and best practices for using GitHub. It includes keynote speeches, workshops, and networking opportunities focused on software development and collaboration.
With five stages hosting more than 100 sessions and 150 speakers, how do we decide what and how to use this content on YouTube in a way that is engaging and valuable to the audience? Plus, how do we make it all happen with a quick turnaround time to keep up with the event as it’s happening live?
The Execution
goals
In the short term, our first goal was to engage audiences interested in the GitHub Universe event but were not attending.
Secondly, we also aimed to make each video thumbnail easily recognizable with consistent event branding to attract and retain viewers.
In the medium to long term, our goal was to extend the event’s hype by creating content that remained relevant beyond the event itself. We wanted to ensure ongoing audience engagement to sustain the spike of interest in GitHub’s channel.
Packaging
Titles & Descriptions
- Researched and made use of trending keywords, maximizing SEO value to boost organic visibility.
- Crafted titles and descriptions that provided context while sparking curiosity, drawing viewers in.
Thumbnails
- We created a recognizable look and feel that aligned with the event branding for easy recognition.
- We used engaging images of the speakers paired with text that provided context and sparked curiosity about the topics being discussed.
- We focused on posting only the keynote speakers, emphasizing the AI pillar due to its trending nature at the time.
- We assigned specific colors to each topic pillar—AI (Purple), Collaboration (Pink), and Security (Blue)—and had this formula approved beforehand for quick and effective execution during the event.
Purple Thumbnails
AI Related
Pink Thumbnails
Collaboration Related
Blue Thumbnails
Security Related
Content Strategy
- We emphasized keynote speakers who are well-known in the field and discussed broader coding topics, avoiding overly specific content to resonate with ~80% of the YouTube audience.
- We supported publishing top-priority videos and presentations while the event was happening, followed by daily recaps for those interested but not in attendance.
- We repurposed content into YouTube Shorts that linked back to the full speaker presentations, both reengaging the audience and finding more potentially interested viewers.
- We analyzed retention graphs to pinpoint the most engaging segments and clipped these into shorter videos.
- For sessions with multiple speakers, we separated them and posted each as a stand-alone video with a unique title and thumbnail.
- After the event, we identified and posted interesting and engaging speaker recordings on trending AI topics.
The Results
Overall
In collaboration with our client, we made GitHub Universe 2023 a huge success on YouTube! By focusing on the keynotes, leveraging strategic video SEO, and sticking to less but highly relevant video topics, we significantly boosted YouTube metrics across the board. Here’s a look at the outcomes we achieved together.
Emphasizing that last metric, we achieved these results with 61% fewer videos than last year’s conference — which was a deliberate strategy to focus on only the most impactful and engaging content.
Opening Keynote Video
GitHub’s opening keynote performed significantly better than in previous years. This was a result of leveraging video SEO strategies, including optimizing the video’s title and the first 200 characters of the description, as well as chapter labeling and tags. This ensured maximum visibility and engagement. Below you can see the video’s performance significantly above the average video on the channel.
2023 Opening Keynote
308K views
37K hours watch time
5.3K subscribers
2022 Opening Keynote
24K views
2k hours watch time
246 subscribers
Project Contributors
Vireo Video
Sally Lamberton
Senior Account Manager
Kenzie White
Senior Strategist
Ignacio Benitez
Designer
GitHub
Nicole Numrich
Senior Brand Marketing Manager
Karishma Kumar
Brand Marketing Manager
