Gwangju City YouTube 'BitTube' Achieves Cumulative 1.23 Million Views

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Since the 7th local government, Gwangju Metropolitan City's official YouTube channel, ‘BitTube,’ has established itself as a new platform that connects with the world.

It has gained great attention by producing healing videos, policy promotions, city administration news, and COVID-19 information featuring hidden attractions of Gwangju with 4K UHD technology, on-site sound, and differentiated content such as ‘masterpiece parodies’ and ‘participation of famous YouTubers.’

The turning point for the rapid growth of ‘BitTube,’ first launched in 2013, was last November when it released a video of Gwangju citizens challenging BTS member J-Hope’s ‘Chicken Noodle Soup’ cover dance.

The Chicken Noodle Soup cover dance video marked the beginning of enhanced communication, going viral with over 100,000 views within just three days of release.

At that time, with video-sharing platforms growing into important marketing channels and increasing their influence, the city promoted the activation of ‘BitTube’ to produce diverse video content to enhance Gwangju’s brand image and strengthen communication with citizens.

As a result, the number of subscribers, which had been in double digits until 2018, has now increased to 3,282, and the cumulative views have reached 1,234,975.

Among BitTube’s various contents, the ‘COVID-19 Information’ series is especially focused on as COVID-19 spread nationwide.

It provides citizens with various related content, including a social distancing campaign parody set to singer Rain’s song ‘Gang,’ a promotional video adding social distancing campaign explanations to the movie ‘Roman Holiday,’ explanations of livelihood stabilization measures and emergency living expense support, and sharing hospital beds in Daegu.

Recently, videos reflecting the latest trends have attracted attention.

The ‘Wise City Hall Life’ series features famous YouTuber Sophia visiting administrative welfare centers, Uchi Park, the May 18th Memorial Hall, Gwangju Environment Corporation, etc., working as a one-day official, creatively presenting Gwangju’s current affairs. With overflowing enthusiasm and charm, she stumbles around while informing citizens about the work of government offices they are usually curious about.

The ‘Now in Gwangju’ series informs citizens about key city policies such as the designation of the Gwangju Free Economic Zone and explanations of the Gwangju-type job model, as well as city news and promotional campaigns. It produces videos in the form of skits like ‘2020 Simcheongjeon’ to make difficult and rigid policies easy and comfortable for citizens to understand.

The ‘Oh My! Gwangju Tourism’ series introduces Gwangju’s representative tourist attractions and food, beautifully capturing places such as Mudeungsan Mountain, Seochang Field, the National May 18th Democratic Cemetery, and the National Asia Culture Center.

Gwangju City plans to continue operating the ‘BitTube’ channel as a communication window with citizens by producing viral videos reflecting current issues, citizen participation VLOG contests, content covering major city issues, and various events.

Spokesperson Kim Yi-gang said, “Gwangju City uses social network services (SNS) to promote and deliver city news and information accurately and promptly,” adding, “Considering the increasing utilization of video platforms recently, we plan to use the BitTube channel with even more diverse content.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.