As a large company with a search engine as its main product, Google needs to have someone to facilitate the communication between SEO specialists and web owners.
This is why Google Search has Danny Sullivan.
Sullivan was the Chief Content Officer at Third Door Media, and the co-founder of Search Engine Land. Since October 2017, Sullivan has been working for Google as an adviser, and the company's public Search Liaison, who helps people better understand search and helps Google better hear public feedback.
And since its product YouTube is also becoming a popular place on the web, Google thinks that it too needs a liaison.
For this reason, the company created a new position called 'Creator Liaison' to facilitate the communication between YouTube and its video publishers, and appointed a former YouTuber named Matt Koval to the position.
Sullivan who operates Google SearchLiaison's Twitter account welcomed Koval to the team in a tweet:
Hello to @YouTubeLiaison -- where @MattKoval is in a new role of helping people better understand YouTube and helping YouTube better hear user feedback.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 24, 2020
A liaison is meant to be the communication medium for corporation, in order to facilitate a close working relationship between people and the corporation.
And here, Koval is the Danny Sullivan of YouTube.
Just as Sullivan acts as an advocate for SEOs and site owners to Google Search, Koval takes the role as a liaison in which he acts as an advocate for YouTubers.
What this means, Koval is appointed to the job where he is communicating with YouTube video creators directly via social media, and work to resolve the issues and concerns they may have.
While Sullivan has been in the search engine marketing industry for years, Koval has a similar background to Sullivan, in the sense that he was involved with the YouTube community for a number of years before joining the company as an official employee.
Koval was involved with YouTube when he uploaded videos to his own channel back in 2008. Four years later, in 2012, Google appointed him as a lead content strategist for YouTube.
In his first tweet as the official YouTube Liaison, Koval said that:
Spent years as a @YouTube creator, and then years as a YouTube employee. There are challenges on both sides that each often don’t understand. My new job is to try and improve that understanding. Got ideas on how I can help? Lemme know!
— Matt Koval (@YouTubeLiaison) February 24, 2020
Koval’s appointment comes not long after YouTube creators finally know how much the company is earning from their videos from ads.
At around $15 billion in 2019 alone, many YouTube creators feel that they deserve more than what YouTube gave them.
With the many algorithms change due to YouTube's continuously difficult times to monitor video contents, growing concerns over family-friendly videos, and YouTube in dealing with FTC guidelines and problems in Europe over copyright frustrations, concerns grew as YouTube lacks the transparency.
CEO Susan Wojcicki once said that she acknowledged the company heard "creators say it feels like an inconvenience when we run experiments or make changes," adding that creators "ask why we’re trying to fix something that doesn’t seem broken, and they want more of a heads up."
With creators frustrated, this is where a liaison is needed. And here is where Koval comes in.
In cases when YouTubers felt that they don't understand how YouTube's algorithms work that affected their reach for example, they can reach Koval about their issues.