SALT LAKE CITY — Most brands are bombing on YouTube, but the LDS Church's brand is the bomb on the social media video site.

The Mormon Channel is one of the top 5,000 YouTube channels, with 58.7 million views. That's a rare achievement for any brand, let alone The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to an analysis of the top YouTube brands by the Touchstorm Video Index.

Brands are underperforming on YouTube. Just 74 of the top 5,000 channels — fewer than 2 percent — belong to brands like Coke, Pepsi and Disney Parks. Some of the world's largest brands don't crack the list, which means they are being whipped by musicians, teens with webcams and professional YouTube content producers.

Touchstorm's analysis found that other brands, like the Mormon Channel, Blendtec and the Paley Center for Media, beat top-five global brands because they do a better job getting people to become subscribers to their channels.

"The Mormon Church outranks Apple and Microsoft, Ford Models tops Ford Motors, and Little Tykes buries Toys ‘R Us when it comes to YouTube subscribers, per Touchstorm," Adweek's Mike Shields reported. "That’s where brands blow it ... Even companies like Lego and EA that have produced standout YouTube content are lousy when it comes to converting subscribers and bringing back repeat viewers... ."

As of Oct. 5, the Mormon Channel had 58,737,563 views and 210,631 subscribers.

"The more subscribers you have, the easier it gets to launch more content," Touchstorm's the analysis found. "They see it in their newsfeeds, watch it and share it — which creates velocity. YouTube takes note of velocity, and that video will likely end up featured in more places. This creates more velocity. Subscribers help you create a cycle of success."

Touchstorm's analysis found that some brands scored massive numbers of views from three or fewer viral videos, while other channels spread their views broadly across their video library.

The Mormon Channel fits the latter category. It had published 1,875 videos as of the Oct. 5 Touchstone report. The analysis included a graphic that showed the Mormon Channel receives an above average of subscribers per million page views.

Today, the Mormon Channel has 1,963 videos online.

Just 5.3 percent of the Mormon Channel's views came from its top three videos, Touchstorm found.

"When views are dispersed in this way, it often is a sign of a brand that is publishing regularly and building a base of evergreen content able to grow over time," Touchstorm reported.

To make the top 5,000, a YouTube channel needed 43 million views. The LDS Church nearly qualified a second website, Mormon.org, with its 42 million views and 37,500 subscribers.

An official LDS Church blog post about the Touchstorm analysis noted that the church has several other YouTube channels:

Mormon Tabernacle Choir (40,000 subscribers and 5.5 million views)

Mormon Newsroom (21,000 subscribers and 3.5 million views)

FamilySearch (7,200 subscribers and 1 million views)

The three most popular videos on the Mormon Channel are:

I am a Child of God, a music video (1.11 million views)

My New Life, an account, in her own words, by mommy blogger Stephanie Nielson (NieNie) of surviving a plane crash and centering her life on her faith and family (1.09 million views)

What Matters Most, LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson's counsel to put people first (1.04 million views)

Email: twalch@deseretnews.com