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YouTube is the big daddy of online video hosting, with over 1 billion unique users every month,
and a straggering 100 hours of video uploaded every minute. In this blog we'll be looking
at the pros and cons of hosting your videos on YouTube.
Pros and Cons of YouTube
If you've produced some awesome promotional video content, then you'll want it to be seen by the masses. YouTube, as we've
already established, is the biggest online video platform, unmatched in size, traffic
and exposure. So it seems a pretty good place to start right?
Firstly, YouTube offers both a platform that is free and unlimited, two of our favourite
things. YouTube is also geared towards shareability which is crucial if you want your content
to spread. The platform comes pre-loaded with some excellent analytical features, links
to social media, and it's relationship with Google means it will only become stronger
and more important in terms of SEO over time. YouTube isn't just a curation platform though,
it's also the world's second largest search engine. People and potential customers are
using the video giant to find and explore topics, issues, businesses and products. It's
not just Google search where you'll find new business nowadays. You may have seen that
certain videos appear on some Google searches, nestled amongst the web results and in many
cases preceding them. This occurs when a video is well optimised and Google selects it as
quality content equal or above the web results. You also have access to some smart analytical
insights, allowing you to determine whether you're reaching the correct audience. Distinguished
by age, gender, geographical location and even what hardware people are using to view
your video. The problem with YouTube, if there is one, is that of reputation. Despite the
video marketing crown the platform now wears, it's still seen as home to millions of cat
videos, epic fails and hours of irrelevant amateur content. It is also widely perceived
as a free platform and therefore unprofessional. This can be rectified by using a combination
of YouTube for your social sharing and a commercial host for your website based content. The incestuous
relationship between Google and YouTube can also throw up a few road blocks when optimising
your video for Google search. Google doesn't want your video listing to take viewers to
your site, instead they want traffic for themselves and so will direct visitors back to YouTube.
This is another example when a commercial host may grant additional benefits. So, this
is just a brief introduction to the monster that is YouTube, future blogs will carefully
dissect the platform by features and functions, so if you're interested in learning more then
hit that sexy subscribe button. And I'll see you later.