Is YouTube Really a Social Network in Disguise?

By Carl Weiss 

When you ask most people to name the most influential social networks online you will hear household 

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names such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn bandied about.  But you will hardly hear anyone mention YouTube in the same breath.  This is a shame, since YouTube gets followed more avidly than any other social site on the planet.  While Facebook boasts more than one billion followers, YouTube followers watch an average of four billion videos each and every day.  More importantly, YouTube , just like any other social site, fulfills all the other requirements of true social networks.  Just like Facebook, you are encouraged to build a following on YouTube.  Like Twitter and LinkedIn, people can like and comment on your posts.  They can also repost your videos to the other social networks.   But the most important reason to use YouTube as a social medium is the fact that videos are five times as likely to be watched as written posts. 

Lights, Camera, Online Action

Face it, people like to be entertained.  I mean, a million cat videos can’t be all wrong.  But when that entertainment is informative, then the audience is more likely to respond.  That’s the one reason that television is still one of the most effective and expensive methods of advertising on the planet.  Like TV, YouTube offers those in the know a means to deliver a message visually.  Anybody with a smartphone, laptop or tablet computer can shoot, edit and post videos at will on YouTube.  If you’re all thumbs when it comes to editing, don’t worry.  YouTube has a built-in editor that offers such things as color correction, image stabilization and even royalty free musical scores onsite.  Unlike the boob tube, YouTube has one other advantage…It’s FREE.  Literally anyone can post videos on YouTube.   

So why isn’t every business owner on the planet flooding YouTube with videos?  Some people say that it’s 

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just too complicated to write and shoot weekly videos.  Others lament the fact that video production is just too time consuming.   Yet these same professionals will take the time to write blogs, create ad copy and memos day in and day out.  What they don’t realize is that YouTube’s parent company, Google, offers a way to create and post videos instantly.  It’s called Google Hangouts.

Anyone who is a member of that other social network known as Google + has access to a videoconferencing facility known as a Hangouts.  This facility is accessed by firing up Google+ and then hitting the Hangout tab on the left hand tab bar.  (It’s sometimes located by mousing over “More.”) Once activated, Hangouts allows you to interface live via video with up to nine of your friends.  Even better, by toggling “Hangouts on Air” when you initiate a Hangout, not only will you be able to broadcast your event live to the world, it will also create and post a video on your YouTube channel at the same time.

Can You Say Instant Video?

What this means is that any time you write a blog, you can create a Video blog (otherwise known as a Vlog) on YouTube.  We routinely create a vlog of our weekly Working the Web to Win radio show on BlogTalkRadio.com by spawning a Hangout on Air at the beginning of each broadcast.  Once the Hangout is concluded the video posts in about fifteen minutes, at which point you can edit it right on YouTube.  Think of the possibilities that Hangouts on Air could offer your company.  If you host a webinar, you can post a video.  Want to do a product demonstration?  Fire up Google+ and launch your Hangout on Air. 

Show Me the Money

Ultimately, the reason that every business should start taking advantage of the power of YouTube has to do with the money making potential of the world’s most watched superstation.  There have been a number of savvy entrepreneurs who have turned their business around overnight due to YouTube. 

Case in Point: OraBrush.  A couple of years back inventor Bob Wagstaff spent eight years trying to bring a tongue cleaner called the OraBrush to market.  After spending more than $40,000 developing the product, he approached a number of big box retailers, all of whom declined to put his product on their shelves.  In desperation, Bob took his product to the Marriott School of Business at BYU and asked a market research professor to have his students come up with a different way to promote the OraBrush. One student, Austin Craig agreed to help Wagstaff create a humorous video for the OraBrush, which they shot in a pool hall.  That video was such a huge success that tens millions of viewers were introduced to the product and more than a million units were sold online.  Today, OraBrush has generated in excess of 40 million views and is the third most popular site on YouTube after Apple Computer and Old Spice.

The point is if you are sitting on the fence regarding YouTube, all I can say is that if this is what online video can do for a tongue brush company, think of what it could do for yours.

Carl Weiss is no stranger to online video.  His companies, W Squared Media Group and  Jacksonville-Video-Production.com specialize in online marketing via video.