IS YOUTUBE REALLY A SOCIAL NETWORK?
How Should I Respond?
The fact is simple, YouTube is a social media network; and you need to plan your approach to YouTube with this in mind.
In early 2022, Google’s Eric mecri said that missing the rise of social media
was the biggest mistake he had made. Google’s complete embracing of social
media through the Google+ Platform and their tight integration with several of
the networks means that, yes, YouTube is really a social network.
Your response should be the same as YouTube and Google; embrace it fully.
What you have at YouTube is so much more than a free video hosting platform.
Social media will build your audience in ways a simple subscription paradigm
never could.
YouTube is about more than just Google+. YouTube also uniquely ties in
closely with other social networks. There are feeds of content and activity
streams and all the things that make up a social network are inside.
For example,
if a user registers their Twitter account with their YouTube account and gives a
video a thumbs up, an automatic tweet is generated to Twitter.
Why would Google make YouTube a social network when there are so many?
There are a couple of reasons that are really simple if you think about them.
Number one: social equals stick.
When you tune in to see the stuff that you’ve
subscribed to or commented on, or to see the community that you’re integrating
into - that is “stick.” You will stay longer and you will come back. Social is
stick.
According to YouTube.com, “Millions of subscriptions happen each day. The
number of people subscribing daily is up more than 3x since last year, and the
number of daily subscriptions is up more than 4x since last year.”
Social is stick
Stick is more money (for YouTube). The longer the people stay, the more ads
YouTube can put up. The more interactivity they can get, the bigger the
audience they can build. The more they have, the more things they can charge
more money for.
So social= stick and stick = more money.
YouTube is smart. Having a video replayed on a page in a network that isn’t
social is not going to bring them the revenue that they are looking for.
It’s not
going to put them in the strategic position that they are looking for. Remember,
YouTube/Google is doing all of this on purpose. Schmidt is not going to repeat
his biggest mistake.
So what are the action items? What do you do with this?
Number one: treat YouTube as the social network that it is. Make it as much a
part of your marketing efforts as is Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and anything
else you might be doing.
Number two: do things that will a bring more viewers as a result of social
networking and that will make YouTube more money. What do I mean by this?
YouTube makes more money the more subscribers you have, because they come
back and they see more videos (YouTube is social). The more money YouTube
makes, the more comments you get (the more social interactions that are made),
because viewers want to see if somebody commented on their comment
(YouTube is social).
The more interactivity, the more social networking inside
of YouTube, the more money YouTube makes.
In short, the more you do for YouTube, the more YouTube will do for you.
Number three: Get involved inside of Google+. YouTube will leverage the
integration to their advantage because… YouTube is social.
Thought Google+ Was Dead?
In short, Google+ has not gone as well for Google as they hope it would have.
There continues to be talk of Google “chopping it up” into different services, or
killing it all together.
What does this mean to YouTube and social? Really, nothing …
The Web is still very social and the Internet continues to go in a direction more
and more social than anything else. The future of Google+, whatever it may be,
has no effect on YouTube’s position as a social network of its own, greatly
influenced by the interplay of other social networks.
Continue to think social when you think YouTube and continue to integrate it
with whatever social network(s) your audience tends to be part of.
What About Social Video Network “X”?
Some of these social networks are including video elements designed,
specifically, to compete with YouTube. In some cases you’ll want to see your
video on these networks as well but there isn’t a social network coming that can
ever compete with the machine that is YouTube.
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