You need YouTube. That is, you need it as part of your digital marketing strategy.
YouTube is a website and app that allows its users to create, share, and watch videos. YouTube is known for the sheer number of videos you can find there, on just about any topic you can think of. And if you can’t find it, you can create and upload it to share with others.
Since its introduction in 2006, YouTube has become one of the largest social networks and continues to grow. The simplicity of creating, uploading, and sharing videos is one of the reasons for YouTube’s ability to attract both viewers and content creators. This popularity is an opportunity for marketers to leverage YouTube to grow their brands.
Is YouTube still a good marketing platform for businesses? Here are some thoughts about including YouTube as an effective part of your campaigns.
Is YouTube Facing Challenges As A Social Network?
Is YouTube dying? While YouTube still commands the lion’s share of video-based social media popularity and user base, it is seeing rising competition. Apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitch are all competing with YouTube for an overlapping audience.
While YouTube is far from dying, it will need to work harder to maintain its audience as these competitors continue to gain popularity.
Is YouTube Still A Good Marketing Platform?
Is YouTube still a good platform? While YouTube has been around longer than many social media platforms, it continues to grow at a fast rate.
As of September 2021, YouTube had 2 billion users, up from 800 million in 2012. It currently ranks second in terms of overall traffic and 43% of all global internet users access YouTube monthly. 720,000 hours of new videos are uploaded to YouTube per day.
Unlike some of its competitors, YouTube’s audience still has a broad age demographic. In the U.S., 74% of adults and 77% of 15- to 35-year-olds watch YouTube. While this is an extremely large audience, the key for marketers is to understand whether this audience is a good fit for your brand.
Because of this huge following, many marketers focus on YouTube channels with the largest audiences. However, vast numbers of people spend time on channels other than the most popular. Marketers can grow brand awareness by diversifying a campaign and concentrating on some of the other channels a brand’s audience visits. YouTube has some unique targeting tools not found on other channels.
Which Industries are Present On YouTube?
While it’s not an understatement to say that virtually every industry on the planet is active on YouTube, some industries have been more successful than others.
YouTube tracks the top ads that its users choose to watch each year and shows them on the YouTube Ads Leaderboard. In 2021, technology, entertainment, and automotive were among the industries with the highest numbers of ad views.
Reasons To Continue Marketing On YouTube
Are YouTube ads still effective? While some industries do better than others in using YouTube as a social medial marketing platform, below are five reasons why most industries should start marketing on YouTube to reach their consumers.
1. Video Consumption Continues To Grow
Video content is in higher demand than ever. Larger, more powerful phones, tablets, and computers continue to make it easier for people to create, share, and watch videos. Millions of people watch video content through streaming services as well.
In 2020, 78% of people watched videos online each week, and 55% said they watch them daily. The demand for video content is not slowing down; it’s speeding up. For digital marketers, here’s more good news: viewers reportedly retain 95% of a message when they watch it through video, which means video ads perform better than text or image ads.
2. Mobile Adoption Continues To Drive Video Adoption
Those larger and more powerful phones and tablets have enabled people to watch more video content on mobile devices. Increasing mobile adoption is driving video adoption.
The average human is bombarded with 34 gigabytes of digital information every day. While text takes time to read, a short video can send the same message in a fraction of the time. In addition, mobile users are subjected to a higher frequency of content than desktop or laptop users. If digital marketers can keep their video content short and to the point, they can get their message out more effectively, and viewers are more likely to retain and act on it.
3. YouTube Marketing Value Gives More Bang For The Buck Than TV or Radio
Digital marketing outpaces TV and radio marketing, and this gap continues to widen. Here are three reasons why:
- Viewers pay more attention to YouTube than TV. Viewers miss TV ads because they are multi-tasking, channel surfing, or fast-forwarding and not absorbing TV ad messages.
- YouTube allows more precise targeting and quick adjustments. This means campaigns can be more easily tweaked on the fly to improve performance.
- YouTube KPI measurement ensures an effective campaign. Campaign success can be tracked by setting key performance indicators (KPIs) and using data and analytics to assess effectiveness.
4. YouTube Advertising Offers A Much Easier Interface Than TV or Radio
YouTube ads are still relatively inexpensive and much easier to create, manage, and measure than TV or radio ads.
Creating a YouTube Advertising account and setting up a video campaign only takes a few steps, and YouTube walks users through the process. YouTube has several ad formats that can be chosen based on which will best meet a brand’s or campaign’s needs.
5. YouTube Measurement Is Robust, And Campaigns Can Be Adjusted Easily
YouTube ads provide access to a wealth of data. If a marketer likes numbers, they can view raw data on video ad metrics and reporting. If they’d rather see an analysis of the data, YouTube’s built-in tools can be used to analyze the performance of ads.
This information provides valuable insights into the interactions of ads with audiences and how viewers are responding. This enables marketers to more quickly and easily adapt and change their campaigns based on ad performance with viewers.
In summary
YouTube is a tremendously popular social media site and app that allows its users to create, share, and watch videos. It is one of the largest social medial networks with 2+ billion users and 720,000 hours of new videos uploaded per day. YouTube represents a tremendous and still-growing opportunity for digital social media marketing to generate brand awareness and revenue.
What are your thoughts or questions on social media marketing on YouTube? Post in the comments below and we’ll keep this discussion going!
— Sean