TheSoul Publishing launched in 2016, and since 2019 has been a pioneer in short-form video content. The company's willingness to experiment with new formats and flexible approach to content creation helped it quickly become an award-winning and industry-leading digital studio that reaches more than 1.5 billion social followers with its entertaining, positive, and original content in 21 languages.
Within a few short years, TheSoul and its international creative team developed an entire universe of the internet’s most popular brands — including 5-Minute Crafts®, Bright Side, 123 GO!, Avocado Couple, La La Life, Teen-Z, Baby Zoo, Slick Slime Sam, and Polar – initially distributed via Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, and more, that now generate more than 20 billion monthly social media views. That’s more than long-standing media companies like Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, according to Tubular Labs.
With the recent rise and continued exponential growth of TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, the studio was keen to expand on its adoption of short-form content formats to maintain its own meteoric rise and retain its status as the social media industry’s leading digital studio. TheSoul also wanted to create engaging, tailored, and irresistibly shareable content for all ages as platforms for short-form content increasingly attracted Gen Z audiences.
To achieve this, TheSoul Publishing set a specific goal to meet growing demands for short-form content: increase the studio’s content output and level of innovation without sacrificing quality by adapting its internal processes to the fast-paced production required for short-form content creation.
When the rise of short-form content first began, TheSoul Publishing put its trust in its platform partners' objectives and showed a willingness to be flexible and take risks, which are key factors in its success in this realm.
Today digital consumption has increased, social media platform usage continues to skyrocket, and more consumers are consistently turning to snackable, short-form videos on destinations like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram Reels, Pinterest, Snapchat, or YouTube Shorts for their entertainment fix.
TheSoul was eager to expand on its adoption of short-form content formats in order to continue its spectacular growth and keep its position as the leading digital studio in the social media industry. Moreover, TheSoul had to ensure it was creating engaging, tailored, and irresistibly shareable content because platforms offering short-form content increasingly attracted a unique and engaged audience.
However, changes in digital video viewing preferences led to a distinct challenge for the studio: with the increased popularity of the short-form video format, TheSoul needed to find new ways to handle the growing demand from audiences for this specific format.
Overall, the company's inherent adaptability has proven to be a core strength. It has enabled a rapid response to the emergence of new platforms and the ongoing development of existing ones.
At the start of the process, TheSoul analyzed its extensive content library to determine what content produces the most impactful results. The company then aimed to build on those insights to enhance its decentralized production strategy and adapt its revolutionary digital video publishing model to the creation of short-form content.
Company leaders know that completing tasks requires taking action, not just talking about taking action. So, while many companies continue to rely on video meetings and constant email updates to keep their teams in sync, TheSoul Publishing has taken the opposite approach. Namely, TheSoul instituted a company-wide "no meetings" and "no internal email" policies.
This innovative approach and its groundbreaking methods:
Encouraged team members to jump right into their work and get going in order to increase production efficiency.
Ensured team members spent their time doing what they were best at instead of sinking time into low-value, low-impact, and non-transparent discussions.
Streamlined the content production process across different platforms to ensure audiences were continuously engaged across multiple touchpoints.
Enabled TheSoul to take advantage of various short-form platforms’ growth by developing internal processes that allowed the team to quickly react to and produce highly customized content for both larger emerging trends in audience content consumption as well as quickly emerging viral short-form video trends.
Today, TheSoul Publishing seamlessly brings together remote team members spread across six continents thanks to its incredibly successful adoption of “no meetings” and “no internal email” policies. This has been key to the success of the studio, particularly in identifying emerging short-form video trends and adapting its content’s production processes.
In 2022, TheSoul Publishing achieved more than 75 billion views on its short-form video content (under one minute) across platforms — more than three times what was achieved the year prior.
YouTube Shorts:
TheSoul focused on YouTube Shorts-friendly brands and now has three of the most-viewed Shorts channels in the world.
TheSoul also had great success creating YouTube Shorts content for underserved global niches like crafting, recycling, and parenting advice. For example:
5-Minute Crafts’® "Summer Hacks for Smart Parents" achieved 394 million views.
5-Minute Crafts Family’s "Dress Code" achieved 350 million views.
5-Minute Crafts Recycle’s ”Squishy Phone Case” achieved 192 million views.
TikTok:
TheSoul saw similar success on TikTok. For example, Polar's channel has gained over 1.6 million followers and attracts 10,000 more each day. Plus, 5-Minute Crafts® was highlighted by TikTok for empowering "viewers to solve everyday problems with simple, creative solutions" and features TheSoul's most viewed video, a bed sheet hack with over 100 million views.
TheSoul also saw the appeal of global niches like gardening hacks and recycling tips on TikTok. For example:
5-Minute Recycle gained 9.1 million followers
5-Minute Recipes gained 5 million followers
5-Minute Green gained 1.9 million followers
Overall, TheSoul quickly adapted its internal processes to digital video consumption trends to increase its short-form video content offering and output to become a leader in this new digital space.
