Patrik Wilkens, VP of Operations at TheSoul Publishing, one of the world’s most prolific and popular online media companies, TheSoul Publishing has over 644m unique views each month and has broken the one billion subscriber record on Facebook and YouTube combined.

What are the similarities between digital publishing and the gaming industry?

In terms of what we've seen of games and what we’ve seen of social media, there’s a definite overlap. You see gaming companies providing these massive multiplayer online environments, which other digital-first companies produce content for. When we look at TheSoul Publishing, in the United States we have a 70 per cent market share of the female audience between the ages of 18- 34. Gaming is trying to aggressively move into the same market, so again I think there’s quite a lot of learning opportunities that gaming companies can take from us.

How important is 'fandom' to game developers and content publishers when developing a lasting franchise?

The new definition of fandom would be retention - people sticking to a particular brand or sticking to a particular channel over a period of time, as opposed to jumping between the next trend or the next fad. So when you talk about keeping users or keeping fans within your ecosystem I think one thing that is important for every kind of company is to be able to offer tailor-made experiences across the different demographics and geographics.

What can platforms do to improve or build on their current user experiences when engaging with video content?

I think it's super important to listen to users and utilize the feedback that you have in order to improve your content. Then again, in regards to catering to a relatively wide audience, I think that positive content is incredibly important. There is one thing that I really hope to see more on the internet - engaging, uplifting, value-added content.

Although you don't publish any gaming content, your brand channels really seem to attract gaming enthusiasts.

I would assume that every one of our channels has a fair amount of gaming enthusiasts watching, but we also have a number of dedicated channels. We've seen recently that gaming-related content on social media also has one of the highest engagement and follower rates. So yes, it's certainly an area that we are creating content for and that will grow over the next months and years

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