Everyday we get questions about what makes a YouTube video successful. How do you grow an audience? How do you become part of this growing creator economy? To get some insights, we gathered top thinkers from leading brands, forward-thinking agencies and even some of our own Googlers and creators to talk about the massive shifts in viewership, culture and content to nail down answers to five of your most pressing questions. The bustling creator economy is beholden to audiences, not networks, and that has big implications for creators and advertisers alike.

So, let’s break it down:

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Experts explain: What's behind the boom in the creator economy?

What's behind the boom in the creator economy?

Sadie Thoma, Director of US Creative Works at Google says, “Creators have been pushing the boundaries on the platform … and they’re not afraid to try new things, to help not only lift YouTube higher, but the entire creator economy higher.”

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Experts explain: What defines "good" content?

What defines “good” content today?

"Aesthetically imperfect content that resonates, that gets to the heart of the matter, is what’s winning right now," Parris Bowe, Managing Director at EGAMI Group, says. It's all about being authentic!

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Experts explain: What does only YouTube offer viewers?

What does YouTube uniquely offer viewers?

“It’s this unique, hyper-personalized entertainment vehicle, but it’s also this hyper-personalized educational vehicle for consumers – all run with one of the sharpest search algorithms as the backbone,” says Carolyn Dawkins, VP and Global CMO at Clinique.

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Experts explain: What makes creators loyal to YouTube?

What makes creators loyal to YouTube?

YouTube creator sWooZie says, “I think what YouTube provides as a platform over anybody else is just, it’s a home. It’s literally an anchor for whatever you’re into."

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Experts explain: How is viewership evolving?

How is viewership evolving?

“There's this massive explosion of streaming, which is these incredibly deep, rich content libraries on a big screen where I have a full experience," says Ben Jones, Global Creative Director at Google. "And then at the same time, this explosion of short-form;. [We’ve] had five trillion views in Shorts in a year." We're now seeing the rise of multi-format creators who aim to do it all!

Viewers and creators continue to be loyal and actively choose the platforms like YouTube and content that are relevant to their lives. Creators are relevance engines, responding to and shaping culture as it ebbs and flows. On YouTube, they’ve cemented a new mainstream where story beats structure and relevance trumps all.