How AIR Brands is growing the UNITED24 Media YouTube channel through international influencers

Author: Olena Beskorovaina

Social networks have long been considered the fifth force.
According to the Pew Research Center, 71% of Americans get at least some of their news from social media.

And the war in Ukraine was called the first "TikTok war", referring to the huge amount of war-related content (Stokel-Walker, 2022; York, J, 2023; Chayka, 2022). ).
In the conditions of war, all Ukrainians transformed into warriors on their front, learning to apply their skills in wartime. AIR Brands, one of the most well-known influencer marketing agencies in Ukraine, adapted its professionalism to assist Ukraine during the war.
Objective
AIR Brands, alongside other agencies, is working on the development of the YouTube channel UNITED24 media*: https://www.youtube.com/@UNITED24media/videos
*UNITED24 media is an English-language digital media of a modern format. UNITED24 media was created by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine as part of the global initiative UNITED24 by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.
Target Audience: Foreigners
One of AIR Brands' tasks was to spread information about the YouTube channel UNITED24 media through well-known international YouTube creators.
The key message is:
UNITED24 media helps the world see the real Ukraine.
Our mission is to elevate Ukraine's informational status through collaborations with international influencers, independent of geopolitical agendas, providing foreigners with objective and competent information about key events in Ukraine.
Mechanics
We wrote emails to influencers, introducing ourselves and asking for help in informing their audience about the UNITED24 media channel. Typically, this involved the influencer featuring us in their video with a link to the channel or end screen, along with information in the video description.

Challenges
However, securing such integrations proved challenging. Some were wary of political content, while others simply ignored our messages. We faced hundreds of rejections, hate, and even threats. Some creators requested something in return.
UNITED24 media had no budget for integrations. Creativity, persistence, and a sincere desire to get mentions from well-known content creators came to our aid. We offered bloggers assistance in finding rare photos of Kyiv from the 20th century, connected them with an expert on Odessa catacombs, and helped find tickets for the famous Warsaw-Kyiv train for foreign journalists.
In the early stages of channel development, the challenge was that the channel was not known to foreign YouTube creators, and subscribers were few. We had to explain individually to each influencer who UNITED24 media was and why their informational support was crucial to us.
Today, thanks to the active daily work of many people, the channel has over 964 thousand subscribers. However, new challenges arise: interest in Ukraine is waning, war fatigue is felt, and the Israel-Palestine conflict competes for viewers' attention.
But we continue to find creators, do the impossible to get them to share information about us.
Eugene Rashman, Project Manager at AIR Brands:
"Sometimes I have to answer calls at 3 AM from creators or explain to them why we can't currently organize an interview with the President of Ukraine :)"

Results
In a year of UNITED24 media's development, we managed to collaborate with over 25 English-speaking bloggers on a voluntary basis.
More than 165k views came from bloggers to the UNITED24 media channel,
with over 30 collaborations with English-speaking creators on a voluntary basis.
The collaborations resulted in 12 million+ views on their channels.
Example of collaboration
We reached out to a well-known blogger from Colombia who moved to Canada. His channel, Planeta Juan, has 2.11 million subscribers, and he travels to different countries, showcasing their unique features.
Language of the channel: Spanish
Channel audience: Latin America and Spanish-speaking viewers
For us, it was essential to show the real picture of events to Latin American society, as it is strongly influenced by Russian propaganda. We fully organized the influencer's visit and his movement around Ukraine.
Juan went to Kharkiv, volunteered, helped prepare food for front-line fighters. He was interested in talking to both ordinary people in Ukraine and representatives of the YouTube community. We managed to arrange a meeting between Juan and Anton Pushkin, a well-known Ukrainian travel blogger with over 5.5 million subscribers.
In total, seven videos about Ukraine were released on Juan's channel, each with views ranging from 400k to 2.5 million.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T07WAlw5sK0&ab_channel=PlanetaJuan

Examples of collaborations with other YouTube influencers:

Kings and Generals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSSiPrF8GoM&ab_channel=KingsandGenerals
Suhomimus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOlwrCQH3kU
The New Travel (Dan Vineberg)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qP2wUtD-fY&ab_channel=TheNewTravel
Wild Iron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enf1mVuKF0A&t=210s&ab_channel=WildIron
Lazer Pig
https://youtu.be/6QsRuaWrsO8
In three weeks, Lazer Pig's video gained 252k views, meaning that many people heard about Ukraine for the first time or learned more about it.

Audience Reaction
Thanks to English-speaking YouTube creators, we have the opportunity to spread information about current events in Ukraine to audiences in the USA, Canada, Europe, and Britain. The audience's reaction is usually very loyal, and they express gratitude in the comments for interesting content recommended by their favorite YouTube creators, leading to subscribers following the link and subscribing to the channel.

Monetization remains with the blogger. They monetize this content and get into trends.

Conclusions
Knowledge of social media, algorithms, trends, and mechanics helps AIR Brands attract attention to the war in Ukraine. Influencer marketing is evolving, opening up new interaction possibilities that are not limited to promoting cosmetics or clothing, as initially thought. Influencers help UNITED24 media be a mouthpiece of truth and not let people forget that the war is still ongoing.
We are doing everything to bring victory closer and dream of writing letters to creators we collaborated with, informing them that we will now promote the brand of Ukraine as a wonderful travel destination, inviting their audience to ski in the Carpathians, visit the Pink Lakes of Kherson Oblast, stroll through the streets of Kyiv, and have coffee in Lviv. But for now, we continue to work

Kyiv
17-21 Bahhovutivska St.
02000

For 9 years, we have been helping brands grow: creating branded YouTube channels, managing collaborations with influencers, and distributing content to other platforms like Reddit.

Our advantages:
☘️ We are official partners of YouTube and TikTok
☘️ Part of AIR Media-Tech, an ecosystem for YouTube creators
☘️ Access to certified specialists and YouTube support

Our website: https://brands.air.io/

This release was published on openPR.