유튜브 트렌드: Educational Creators Are Coming Back / On-Platform Shopping Is Taking Over / Long-Form vs Short-Form / Social Platforms Are Becoming Search Engines (Huge)

 

Educational Creators Are Coming Back

The “entertainment influencer” era isn’t over, but brands are shifting budgets toward creators who are subject matter experts.

LinkedIn and Thinkers360 report huge spikes in companies preferring educational creators over general influencers.

Even on TikTok, the fastest-growing categories are finance, careers, fitness, and “how-to” content.

What this means for YouTubers:

YouTube is built for depth and problem-solving. They've already upgraded their community section to be more engaging (now called "Posts")

Expect YouTube to push:

• More educational search features
• More monetization tools for teachers (courses, shopping, paid memberships)
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• 3. On-Platform Shopping Is Taking Over

  Every platform is trying to keep users inside the app (not sending them to external websites)

  Examples:

• TikTok Shop exploded in 2024–2025. Some creators are making 6 figures a month without a website.
• Instagram launched native checkout (Shopify confirmed brands saw 20–40% higher conversions compared to sending people off-platform).
• Facebook lead forms still outperform traditional landing pages because people stay inside Facebook.

What this means for YouTubers:​
Get ready, YouTube is already building its own version of this future.

We're predicting:

• YouTube Shopping integrations with Shopify
• Affiliate tagging inside videos
• One-tap checkout (no external link needed)
• Native “buy” buttons inside Shorts + long-form

Creators who sell products will make way more by selling inside YouTube, not outside.

 

4. Long-Form vs Short-Form

Short-form is not disappearing but the novelty is. People are tired. Attention spans aren’t actually shrinking; people are just sick of junk.

Examples:

• Upskillist’s 2025 study: long-form gets 10x more views and 5x more meaningful comments than short-form.
• TikTok expanding to 10-minute uploads tells you everything.
• YouTube still owns over 50% of total global social watch time, mostly through long-form.

What this means for YouTubers:

• Longer videos > higher retention > more session time = algorithm love
• Depth is becoming a differentiator
• Storytelling and series content are coming back

If you’ve been wanting to make deeper videos, this is the time.

5. Social Platforms Are Becoming Search Engines (Huge)

Gen Z aren't Googling things anymore. They are searching inside social platforms.

Stats:

• 64% of Gen Z uses TikTok as a search engine
• 40% of Gen Z prefers TikTok/Instagram over Google for product or how-to queries
• YouTube continues to dominate how-to, buying decisions, and learning

Platforms are indexing:

• Titles
• Captions
• Spoken words
• Comments

If you say “how to fix ___,” YouTube hears it.

What to do as a YouTuber:

• Use clear, human-friendly titles
• Speak your keywords out loud in your videos
• Cover topics people are already searching

Search-based discovery will be one of the biggest growth drivers in 2026.

 

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