Monday, June 2, 2014

Youtube: The Best And Worst Bits

By Lauren Buxton


Amongst the web universe nestles a variety of media forms. There's the ones we all know and use like Facebook and twitter (if you aren't using these then you missed out on the glory that was FarmVille), then there's the lesser known ones, like Vimeo, Vine and YouTube, which all have all the means to make much more creative content. Of these platforms, YouTube is perhaps the one we're all more acquainted with. So what exactly has this got to do with marketing? YouTube is known for a sheer amount of pointless content, but have you ever considered its potential when it comes to sharing your business stuff.

In other posts you might have read you'll have seen I've talked about the benefits of viral videos and how bigger conglomerates are using them to market their own products. What we're prone to forget is that in order for these videos to be a success, they need a popular video platform. Hello YouTube. The benefits of YouTube are endless, though you might not know it, there's more to it than just being free and simple... which in itself is pretty smashing, all things considered.

YouTube focuses largely on how your video content is viewed on other online platforms. When you upload a video, you have the option to share it in at least ten different forms. The most common of these would be Facebook, Twitter, Google+... but then there's others: Bebo, Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest and Odnoklassniki (which, going off my five Russian lessons, is Russian - but that's as much light as I can shed) are all on the extensive list. The analytical features on YouTube are incredibly clear and beneficial as well as allowing you to see whether you are targeting the right demographic. It is carefully assessed by age, gender, location as well as other means of analysis and is formatted in nice graphs so you can see where and who your video reaching - and be very smug when Madagascar is highlighted on the map feature, as unlikely as that is.

You might not know it, but Google has suspiciously close ties with YouTube... as a result YouTube often ranks highly in Google web results. I recently found out that YouTube is also the second largest search engine, so when you're wandering in and out of web domains searching for the benefits of YouTube, like me, you might stumble across this video blog from Lambda Films, a Norwich online production company. It lists a few useful pros and cons when it comes to YouTube.

It highlights how a YouTube vid might appear above the web results in the Google ranks. Google will often select what can be described as quality content that, when well optimised, will rank above the web results. Thankfully, YouTube has function to tag the video with relevant subjects, in order to optimise your content, so tag to your heart's content.

Although it's free, it does not in any way suggest YouTube is unprofessional. Actually, it has the potential to really give your business a leg up... so I'd advise using YouTube to any online marketer.




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