Youtube

Youtube is a video-sharing social media platform that was created in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. It was then acquired by Google in 2006. The videos on YouTube are all user-based and are displayed through Adobe Flash and HTML5.

Over one billion unique users visit YouTube and over six billion hours of video are watched each month. It is localized in 61 countries and 80% of its traffic comes from outside of the United States. Mobile viewing accounts for much of the viewing time. With 40% of viewers globally watching on mobile devices.

YouTube is a user based sharing platform where users can upload, share, view, and subscribe to channels. Users or brands can upload video clips, television clips, music videos, commercials, vlogs (Video blogging), and educational videos. It is an all around utilitarian video-sharing source.

As mentioned above, users can subscribe to individual channels on YouTube. Often times, these channels are brands or companies. According to Youtube, millions of subscriptions to channels happen daily and the number of people subscribing is up more than three times since last year.

Like other social media platforms, YouTube has an advertising program with video ads located in the Youtube search, in videos with stationary banners, in-video overlay ads, mobile ads, and advanced targeting options.

YouTube has another component called TrueView Ads, which only charges advertisers when viewers watch allowing for advertisers to reach “highly engaged” viewers. TrueView connects with Google Adwords.

Another component of YouTube is its Content ID which helps to identify if there is copyright infringement taking place on a video.

Why is YouTube important for marketing?

YouTube is an important channel for marketers with its video sharing capabilities. There is a huge user and audience base for YouTube. It allows for marketers to spread their brand voice or message widely. According to Alexa Rank, YouTube is third most viewed website after Google and Facebook.