Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Steve Chen became mates when they worked for PayPal where Karim was one of the founders. In early 2005 they were at a party to which many folks had brought their video recorders. Conversation turned to how hard it was to share videos with others using the web. By February they were testing their system online and getting a great reply. The reply was strong enough that in November YouTube received $3.5 million in venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital. Many millions of people have been waiting for YouTube. When the site launched officially, in December 2005, it already had more than 1,000,000 short video clips.
By Apr 2006 visitors were watching 35 million videos a day. The company received another round of funding from Sequoia Capital : $8 million to expand sales and marketing efforts and build-out the information centres. In October, Google agreed to buy YouTube for $1.65 bln in Google stock. At this point YouTube visitors were downloading over a hundred million videos a day. The purchase was finalized in February 2007. Talking at the Library of Congress in June 2008, Professor Michael Wesch of Kansas State University described the impact of YouTube. “YouTube produced more hours of video in the past six months than the 3 major networks have produced since 1948.”
Obviously, YouTube is a very important force on the web and in digital media but as Professor Wesch also noted , the majority of videos on YouTube today are short, amateur videos of three minutes or less. YouTube today isn’t what YouTube will be in a year or 3 years. The changes are driven by some dynamic trends and will follow predictable patterns ; Understanding them will help you to get out in front of the curve.
Promoters using YouTube benefit from the commercial substructure that is already in place online and the level to which people around the globe became used to shopping on the internet. According to Nielsen worldwide as of February 2008, 875 million people worldwide have bought something on the web. Purchasing is strong across many nations. When it comes down to direct purchasing influence, the numbers are lower but don’t forget we are considering the influence of a single site so the statistics info are electrifying. 35 p.c of YouTube users have purchased something online that they saw publicized on YouTube and thirty p.c have followed a YouTube link to make a purchase. These figures are actually depressed since users include a big proportion of kids who do not have a Credit card to make net purchases.
In general, the buying demographics of YouTube follow those for the Net in total. With the exception of youths, younger people are likely to get online than older folks. Men are much more likely to buy online than ladies. The commercial action on YouTube is not limited to customers. 25 % of visitors to YouTube have used the site for business. About half them do so regularly or at a minimum now and then. From our research we identify that YouTube’s commercial usage breaks down into 3 main classes. Virtually half of business users are looking for more information about a subject which will help them commercially. 45 percent are seeking information regarding services to buy and 28 percent are checking out the competition. YouTube is already a market that you can exploit. There are some key trends that YouTube is a component of which will outline what YouTube will become.
YouTube is one of the most powerful marketing platforms on the web right now. YouTubeReport.net gives you the latest YouTube report that you can use to use YouTube to give you a competitive advantage over your competitors.
Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (New Rules Social Media Series)Stop pushing your message out and start pulling your customers inTraditional "outbound" marketing methods like cold-calling, email blasts, advertising, and direct mail are increasingly less effective. People are getting better at blocking these interruptions out using Caller ID, spam protection, TiVo, etc. People are now increasingly turning to Google, social media, and blogs to find products and services. Inbound Marketing helps you take advantage of this change by showing you how to get found by customers online.
Inbound Marketing is a how-to guide to getting found via Google, the blogosphere, and social media sites.
• Improve your rankings in Google to get more traffic
• Build and promote a blog for your business
• Grow and nurture a community in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
• Measure what matters and do more of what works online
The rules of marketing have changed, and your business can benefit from this change. Inbound Marketing shows you how to get found by more prospects already looking for what you have to sell.