24 Most Popular Types of YouTube Videos in 2024 (2024)

I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you.

Let’s start with the good one first: YouTube users watch 1 billion (!) hours of content daily. Meaning: there’s a vast audience pool you can tap into.

The bad news? 500 hours of new content is uploaded on YouTube every hour. Read: you’ve got a lot of competition.

So, what's the one thing can you do to beat the competition and gain your audience’s attention?

Shake up the types of YouTube videos you create. This way, your viewers can get a variety of content from your channel.

In this post, we’ve put together a list of the 24 most popular types of YouTube videos you should be creating. We've also included examples and templates to get you inspired.

Let’s get on with it.

1 Video Tutorials

Also known as how-to videos, tutorial videos are effective formats to educate people — ones that viewers love to consume too.

You can create how-to videos that solve questions or problems your audience has. Tasty’s how-to videos, such as the one below, are good examples of this type of video content:

Or, you can create bite-sized product tutorials that explain how your tool works.

For instance, Notion has tons of tutorials that dig into one feature in one video and another one in another short video to help people use their product.

2 Ask Me Anything (AMA) Videos

AMA videos are a fun way to engage your community. They also bring a fresh voice with unique perspectives to the table.

Case in point: Todoist, a to-do list-making tool, invited a productivity expert for an AMA session.

3 Whiteboard Videos

These are pretty popular for their simplicity.

All you have to do is record yourself explaining a concept or your tool — even a product feature.

Of course, for whiteboard videos to be a success, it’s essential you give a confident vibe. So, if you’re new to this video type, you’ll want to record a couple of times before you get the vibe right.

Rand Fishkin’s whiteboard videos are a good inspiration here:

4 Listicle Videos

Much like listicle blog posts, list videos like "X best" or "X top" are another popular YouTube video type you can try out for your brand.

Simply put together a strong video script and start recording.

But you don’t need to record yourself — in case you need a break from all the shooting. Instead, you can use a DIY video maker like Visme to create a top list video like this one:

5 Product Reviews

Pairing with influencers for learning their take on your product? Ask them to create a product review for your YouTube channel.

Videos like this bring social proof into the picture — subtly convincing viewers to buy from you since others like them (or influencers they trust) have good things to say about your product.

Here’s an example of a product review video:

6 Educational Videos

These types of YouTube videos help you gain your audience’s trust by providing them free value.

In fact, when it comes to learning about a service or product, 69% of folks prefer watching videos over text.

The takeaway? Educational videos, whether product- or topic-related, are an effective way to win your audience.

The best part? Using Visme, you can easily knock together educational videos in less than an hour. To speed things up, you can pick from video templates, customize them and you’re done.

7 Challenge Videos

These videos show your business’s human side — whether you’re an independent contractor or a medium to larger business taking on a challenge.

Different types of YouTubers make the most of challenge videos to get their channel in front of a wider audience.

Here’s Microsoft’s research team taking on the ice bucket challenge, for instance:

8 Unboxing Videos

Wondering what type of videos are most watched on YouTube?YouTube points out unboxing videos attract a lot of watch time. Meaning: you need to start creating these types of YouTube videos if you already haven’t.

Take this as an example unboxing video for your inspiration:

9 Behind the Scenes (BTS) Videos

Like challenge videos, BTS videos are other YouTube video ideas that show your brand’s human side.

In fact, these videos not only show your company culture but also help with hiring and onboarding new employees by giving them an inside look at how things work at your end.

Your BTS videos don’t have to be limited to team behind-the-scenes content. Instead, you can dive into product or project BTS content — giving viewers a peep into the work that goes behind your products.

Interestingly, there’s a whole YouTube channel dedicated to going into the movie industry’s BTS. Watch a couple of these videos to get to grips with how you can create a BTS video:

10 Explainer Videos

This is a popular pick among the different categories of YouTube videos.

96% of potential buyers have watched explainer videos to learn about a product or service. This number alone is enough to say that you need explainer videos in your video content gallery.

Again, the good news is that you can put together explainer videos easily using templates. Or, create one from scratch using Visme.

11 Product Demo Videos

Considering people love watching product videos to learn about products, demo videos are another type of YouTube video you need to be creating.

For demo videos to wow viewers and win them over with a solid first impression, it’s essential you add character to your videos.

One effective way to do this is by leveraging storytelling. How? Use this framework: the PAS or Problem-Agitate-Solution formula. Here’s how it works:

• Introduce a problem your target audience has
• Then rub or agitate that problem
• Finally, offer a solution in the form of your product/tool

Here's an example of a product demo video from Airtable:

12 Video Testimonials

If you're looking for popular content on YouTube, this is a perfect pick.

Same as product reviews, video case studies or testimonial videos bring social proof to the table.

Your viewer sees the results others like them are driving and think they can achieve the same results.

Case in point: Slack has an entire category of partner and customer testimonial videos on their YouTube channel.

Here’s just one example:

13 Reaction Videos

These videos are fodder for entertaining content.

If you’re a business that plans to leverage these types of YouTube videos, you can drive another benefit from them: showing your human side. And to reiterate, this helps you gain your audience’s trust.

14 Webinar Teasers

While you can certainly post teasers to get more people to watch your gated webinars, you can also post or host webinars on YouTube.

This way, you can build an educational webinar content library on your channel over time as Clearscope is doing:

15 Community-Based Videos

These videos are much like educational videos but with a twist. How? You don’t do the teaching. Instead, your users or community members do it for you.

By creating these videos, you pair the educational approach with social proof, therefore, doubling the odds of engaging viewers.

Miro does this best — recording videos under their “Tips and Tutorials from Miro Users” category:

You can also invite experts to your webinar videos and then post them on your YouTube channel. BuzzSumo collaborated with industry-influencer and content marketing expert, Ross Simmonds, for the same:

Remember: you can structure these types of YouTube videos any way you like.

Three ideas to try are:

• Interview experts or community members
• Ask your guest(s) to present on the topic
• Host a live Q&A where you source questions from the community

16 Business Results Videos

This kind of video is great for wrapping your quarter or year — showcasing your results to impress your audience, investors and potential employees.

At Visme, for instance, we created a Year in Review video to walk our viewers through our achievements in 2020:

Keep in mind: this 2020-results-video we created was in addition to our usual educational video content and tutorial videos.

We also share webinars on our channel and create fresh product promotion videos as needed:

This way, we practice what we preach—creating different types of YouTube content to engage viewers.

This way, we practice what we preach — creating different types of YouTube videos to engage viewers.

17 Meet the Team Videos

These are a type of BTS video. Their objective? To spotlight employees for gaining the audience's trust and onboarding new employees.

Here’s an example:

18 Employee Spotlight Videos

Again, these types of YouTube videos showcase company culture.

You can always create one Meet The Team video as Wild Frontiers did in the example above.

Or, take Sprout Social’s approach and highlight each employee’s contribution as part of your internal comms videos:

19 Company Values Videos

Again, these videos are perfect for telling your audience more about you — giving people reasons to buy from you.

In fact, 83% of millennials want companies to align with their values. It’s only then that they plan to buy from companies. And, it’s how you can grow brand advocates and loyal customers.

Plus, if you’re looking to collaborate with influencers or find investment partners, a company values video can help you make a compelling introduction.

20 Q&A Videos

Q&A videos are crucial for engaging your audience and showcasing your authority.

For businesses, these types of YouTube content are perfect for establishing yourself as a thought leader.

Here’s an example:

For sourcing questions for these videos, you can always collect questions live — people share their struggles and you answer them on the spot. Or, you can gather questions beforehand using social media and email. You can also blend both options together.

21 Company Culture Videos

These videos are essential for hiring the right talent for your company. There are two creative angles to creating company culture videos.

One, create a graphics-based video that features reasons that make your company culture outstanding as this example video featuring DocuSign’s culture does:

Two, show your team members at work — capturing the work culture in the process. Zendesk does this well:

Want to create such a video? Record clips of your team at work and pair them with visually engaging graphics while adding interesting transitions using Visme.

22 Video Blogs (Vlogs)

Vlogs are video-based blog posts talking about anything from productivity to making passive income.

You’ll need to feature yourself for vlogs, though, and edit them by adding text, images and other visual elements — find these easily in your Visme dashboard. In fact, you can add animated characters to your vlog content using our tool.

Wondering how to start vlogging? Explore vloggers like Ali Abdaal and Holly Gabrielle for an idea of what it is to create vlogs consistently. Meanwhile, we’ll leave you with an example video:

23 Product Launch Videos

Build hype around your new product or anticipated feature launch by creating a product launch YouTube video.

And keep the aim simple: drilling your key feature/message into your viewers’ minds. This example does so incredibly well:

As for a new feature promotion video, here’s a template to help you get started on the right foot:

For online stores, this would translate to launching new collection videos like this:

24 Video Podcasts

These types of videos don’t take much work.

All you’ve to do is capture yourself and the guest recording the podcast. And there you go — you get the same content out to both audio lovers and video consumers.

The Joe Rogan Experience podcast repurposes content in this way:

How to Make YouTube Videos with Visme

Now that you’ve got great YouTube video ideas, it’s time to create your own. Visme offers a wide range of tools to help you create stunning YouTube videos that attract subscribers and get more views.

1. Register or Login into your Visme Account

Sign up for a new Visme account or log into your account if you’re an existing user. To do this, simply fill in the details required in the form and you’ll be redirected to the Visme dashboard.

2. Select the Right Template or Start from a Blank Template

In our library, you’ll find an extensive collection of expertly crafted video templates designed to ignite your creativity and provide a head start. Our templates are entirely customizable, enabling you to create captivating videos that can be shared on YouTube.

• In the Visme dashboard, click Create New> Project and scroll down to select Videos/ GIF.
• Next, start with a blank template. Or select the video category that fits the type of video you want to create. Then scroll down to find a template that suits your taste.
• Double-click on the video template and select the video size. You’ll be redirected to the video editor, where you can tweak the video as much as you want.

3. Customize Your Video Template

Unleash your creative potential with Visme's user-friendly interface and drag-and-drop video editor. The editor empowers you to effortlessly add, edit, or remove content, as well as rearrange design elements on the canvas.

Boost your productivity with Visme's shortcut features, allowing you to complete design projects faster than ever before. Simply type the forward slash (/) on your keyboard and a search bar will appear. Type anything you want in the search bar and you’ll find it at the snap of a finger.

Video Editing Capabilities

• Upload your clips to Visme or record directly from the editor so that you can start making your YouTube video.

• Add and edit text, change font style, color, size, weight and adjust alignment and arrangement.
• Add video backgrounds, animate text and incorporate cool effects and transitions to liven up your content.

• Add multiple slides and objects, customize video timeline, trim videos and duplicate slides.
• Split or trim your clips directly in the editor without having to trim them manually.
• Make your video timeline wider by dragging it upwards to reveal more video details.
• Easily access the timeline zoom by clicking the “-” or “+” icons.
• Edit multiple text boxes simultaneously, making the process faster and more efficient.

• Easily resize the video by simply dragging the horizontal and vertical edges.

• Upload images using a URL or add directly from your laptop camera.

Interactive Features

Our video editor has lots of interactive elements and here’s how to incorporate them into your video.

• Spruce up your design with captivating text animations.
• Create clickable hotspots that link to other pages, content blocks or websites.
• Use hover effects or clickable pop-ups that reveal more information when users interact with your content.
• Incorporate animated icons, illustrations, graphics, special effects and cool transitions between video frames single and multiple slides.
• Embed polls, quizzes, videos and other interactive content into your video

Extensive Library of Assets and Features

Tap into Visme’s comprehensive library of stock photos, illustrations, icons, and royalty-free music to enrich your videos.

And if you don't find any graphics or assets to complete your design, Visme’s AI generator ensures your creativity is limitless. With a super accurate prompt, you can generate professional-looking art, images and graphics.

Voiceover and Captioning: Visme’s video maker offers built-in audio clips and voiceover recording capabilities, allowing you to add professional narration to your YouTube videos.

You can also upload your own voiceover or audio clip created with third-party software. Additionally, you can easily add icons, text overlays, captions, and subtitles to accommodate diverse language preferences.

Collaboration and Sharing: Collaborate with your team seamlessly by inviting others to work on your videos in real-time or asynchronously. Team members can tag each other, leave comments, make annotations, resolve comments and more.

Besides videos, you can also create YouTube thumbnails, banners, channel art and other social media graphics.

4. Download and Share your Video

Once you're done creating your video, you want to share it with your team for review or feedback before posting it on YouTube.

Visme has multiple downloads and sharing options you can use.

Click Share at the top right of the editor. You’ll find the options below:

• Publish for Web: You can generate a shareable URL (and even shorten it) or share with team members on Slack. Bonus: Visme supports social sharing to other social media platforms.
• Share your video privately: This option lets you share with specific people, allow comments by viewers, password-protect your content and more.
• Embed: Generate a fixed or responsive embed code to place it on your website or online library.

Also, you can download it in MP4 or GIF format. The best part is that you have the option to either download it to your device format or directly to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Widen, HubSpot, MailChimp, and more.

Buzzing to learn more about the art of making professional videos? Read this article and kickstart your journey to transforming your video content!"

YouTube Videos FAQs

Q. What Kind of Videos Are Most Viewed on YouTube?

According to Statista, music videos have been the most viewed videos on YouTube since 2010.

Other genres, topics and YouTube categories that attract a large audience include:

• How-to, tutorials and DIY videos
• Entertainment videos, such as comedy sketches, pranks, and vlogs
• Commentary
• Docuseries
• Interviews and podcast videos
• Gaming videos and walkthroughs
• Personal Development
• Educational Content
• Top list
• Product reviews

Q. What Are the Different Parts of a YouTube Video?

A YouTube video consists of several parts, including the video player, video title, video description, video tags, video thumbnail, and comments section.

The video player is the main section where the video is played, while the video title and description provide information about the video content.

The video tags help users find related videos, and the video thumbnail is a small image that represents the video. The comments section is where viewers can leave their thoughts and feedback on the video.

Q. Which Type of Video is Best for YouTube?

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the best type of video for YouTube largely depends on your audience and your goals.

However, some of the most popular types of videos on YouTube include tutorials, vlogs, product reviews, how-to videos, and entertaining videos such as challenges, pranks, and comedy skits. Ultimately, the key to success is creating content that is both engaging and relevant to your audience. With the right approach, you can create a YouTube channel that stands out and draws in viewers who are eager to see what you have to offer.

Create Different Types of YouTube Videos Today

With that, our list of YouTube video types comes to an end.

Keep in mind: not all of these types of YouTube videos are going to be right for your channel. Nonetheless, it helps to freshen up the content you publish to engage viewers by trying different video types.

So what are you waiting for? Start today. And don’t forget to sign up for Visme's online video maker for free to create better videos faster.