Is YouTube a Social Network?
Some people would not consider YouTube a social network, but there are many reasons to classify it as one. After its humble beginnings in 2005, YouTube has become more than just a place to watch cat videos. YouTube has morphed into the world’s second-largest search engine, a driver of online culture, and a springboard for Internet fame. There’s still plenty of cat videos to go around, but YouTube has its sights on bigger, better ideas. Check out these statistics from Brandwatch:
- 300 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute
- There are 3.25 billion hours of video watched each month
- More than half of YouTube views come from mobile devices
- The average mobile viewing session lasts more than 40 minutes
- The music video “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi has over 3.94 billion views as of January 2017
- On average, there are 1,000,000,000 mobile video views per day
- In 2014, the most searched term was music. The second was Minecraft
- 9% of U.S small businesses use Youtube
- You can navigate YouTube in a total of 76 different languages (covering 95% of the Internet population)
How the network is being used by consumers
In a word, sharing. Content is being uploaded and shared through YouTube at record rates. Users can follow channels (which have gotten more sophisticated in their design and functionality over the years), upload their own content, comment on and discuss videos, and follow other users’ content. With the ability to link directly to or embed videos, YouTube has become a primary source of video entertainment for users all over the web. Its ability to monetize through ads—both for itself and its users—adds a layer of financial sustainability.
Strategies & Tactics
Engagement: The comments on YouTube are famous for being a bit of a wasteland. Many of them are meaningless and often from trolls. Many brands shut off their comments for good reason. You may opt to leave comments on, just to see what type of engagement you get, and that is okay too. What is not recommended, though, is to leave them on and ignore them; either tend to the garden or get rid of it altogether. And you can see powerful results by choosing to engage with your audience.
In order to improve commenting on YouTube, YouTube comments are now directly tied to G+ accounts. As a business, you’ll need to link your G+ brand page and your brand’s YouTube account. First, you need to make your YouTube account an administrator on your G+ page. Then make sure you’re logged into your YouTube account and then follow YouTube’s connect instructions. After everything’s connected, alerts for new comments on your YouTube videos will appear in your G+ notifications, and your YouTube videos will show up in a tab on your G+ brand page
Content Strategy:
- Help content and other how-tos: For some products, tutorials and how-tos are going to be incredibly valuable. Help your audience learn how to better use your product, including ideas about how to use your product in novel ways. Help them learn how to do things that may not be directly related to your product, but are highly relevant to their interests.For example, a nail polish brand may occasionally highlight how-tos for special-event hair. This is incredibly relevant to their audience, but not directly related to their product. This is a tactic we’ve mentioned before: think horizontally.
- Exclusive content: This can take the form of early access to new products, special channel-specific promotional deals, or even insider company news. Giving these limited audiences exclusive access to different types of content will make them feel honored and “in-the-know.” Also, creating channel-specific content will give each individual a reason to follow you on more than one channel, increasing the depth of their relationship.
- Incentivize participation: Have your community create content and share it on your behalf across their networks. You then can curate based on hashtag or on a central repository (e.g. a blog post holding YouTube content), or find some other way to help draw attention to and connect the user stories. This activity can drive awareness of your presence and help engage the audience while cutting down on the amount of work required of you.
Measurement: Just like your other marketing efforts, it is imperative that you know what success looks like. Tailor your efforts (content, engagement, etc.) toward initiatives that help you move the needle and prove your success by measuring progress against your identified goals.
Tips & Guidelines
Engage responsibly: If you have comments enabled on your videos, make sure you moderate them and stay engaged, as YouTube is more prone than other platforms to generate spammy comments. You’ll want to make sure your channel continues to provide value. If you happen to find yourself in the presence of trolls (and the sun isn’t out to turn them to stone), remember to keep your cool; you act on behalf of your brand in a public forum.
Comment wisely: Whether you have comments enabled on your videos or not, there are likely going to be times when you’ll need (or want) to comment on other threads and videos. The standard advice applies there, as well: don’t yell at people, check your spelling and grammar, use your brand voice, and definitely don’t leave spammy comments yourself.
Advertise safely: This isn’t a decision to take lightly. For high volume channels, it can be revenue-producing, but that needs to be weighed against the brand impact and the customers’ experience with your content.
Favoriting and subscribing: If you favorite a video, it also shows up on your profile page as a video you favorited, sharing it with your friends and subscribers. Subscribing to someone’s channel means that you’ll see all of their latest uploads and favorites in the feed on your page. This the equivalent of following someone on Twitter.
Uploading videos: Luckily, YouTube takes about every video format under the sun. Uploading the video is the easy part, filling out the information about the video is the real work. You want to make sure that your description is SEO- and people-optimized, that your title and keywords are on target, that your videos are properly categorized, and (if possible) that you provide a transcript of each video. Every bit of relevant information you can add to your YouTube upload gives you more opportunity for people to find your video and makes it accessible for all types of users and search bots.
Image Cheat Sheet:
Definitions: YouTube and video creation comes with a whole new set of terms that you might not be familiar with. Akshay Chandra of Vidolly put together a list of important YouTube terms explained in simple language that can help you understand YouTube’s terminology better. Some of these terms are not standard YouTube words/phrases, but are used by YouTube analytic tools.
Recommended Tools
YouTube TestTube: This works much like Gmail Labs. For those of you looking to stay up-to-date on potential, new YouTube features (or even just get access to some neat elements), you’ll want to occasionally check TestTube and see what they have to offer.
YouTube Analytics: This offers the equivalent of Facebook Insights for your videos. You’ll find numbers on engagement, discovery, and demographics.
YouTube Advertisers: This is a central hub where you can get an idea of what other brands are doing for inspiration, and it’s also a portal with a great deal of content about ad solutions.
YouTube Charts: A list of videos sorted based on most views, popularity, comments or other criteria. Looking for content ideas? This is a great spot.
SocialBlade: An analytics service that tracks YouTubers, video uploads, subscribers, and the number of video views. Not only does SocialBlade track YouTube, you can also find data for Twitch.tv and Instagram allowing you access to competitors trends and growth.