11 Reasons your Business Needs to be on YouTube

Founded in 2005, YouTube has become an online behemoth with over one-third of the World’s population using the site. On average over 1 billion hours of YouTube is consumed globally every day, yet despite this, few businesses use the site to its full potential. Business owners tend to be more swayed by the ‘easier’ and less time consuming digital marketing methods, whether that’s Facebook or more recently Instagram. As a global digital marketing agency; Crowd believe that YouTube is a crucial channel for any business.

Here are 11 reasons YouTube could be great for your business.

1) First and foremost YouTube's user base is huge! As mentioned, over 1 billion people regularly stream content through YouTube. No matter how niche your product or service is, your audience is bound to spend some time on the site.

2) The demographic. Research has shown most YouTube viewers fall into the 18-34 age bracket. For many businesses, this is the golden age group, populated full of young professionals getting their first taste of money… and spending it accordingly.

3) The search engine. After Google, YouTube is the most used search engine in the World. People search for anything, from movie reviews to travel inspiration, DIY tutorials to Justin Bieber’s latest songs. Some of these people could be searching for your product or service.

4) Speaking of Google... Your SEO rank will improve. Due to Google's universal search system, the algorithm blends all forms of content, therefore a successful YouTube channel may earn you an improved PageRank.

5) Video is king. Google, Facebook and Instagram are prioritising video as the best form of content, this has been a trend for a number of months now, but there is no real sign of it slowing down.

6) Social integration. You can very easily embed YouTube videos in social channels, this means you won’t only pick up on the YouTube audience, but you may be seen across a plethora of mediums.

7) Low cost. YouTube in comparison with some marketing methods is cheap. On average it costs just $7.60 to reach 1000 people, so if you target well and execute with good content then you can land yourself a very cheap CPC and a very good ROI.

8) Targeting. Google AdWords allows you to fine tune your targeting so as the most relevant people are seeing your video. The best bit about AdWords for YouTube is the capability to only pay for ‘engaged views’, i.e. people that have watched your ad for at least 30 seconds! A lifetime to get your pitch across…

9) Website traffic. You can add a call to action at the end of your video to get the traffic from YouTube to your website. So if you’re selling the latest e-bike you could show all the product benefits on YouTube, link back to your site and (BOOM), you've got yourself a sale.

10) More sales. Research shows that if you provide a quality video explaining your product/service it can dramatically increase trust in the business. Increased trust with a brand usually leads to not only increased sales but all kinds of benefits e.g. Word-of-Mouth marketing.

11) You could go viral. the things that go viral on YouTube are bewildering, from ‘Charlie bit my finger’ to PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’, it is incredible the variety of viral potential. So if you nail your product, add a unique style and upload a quality video you could be the next viral YouTube superstar.

So there you go, that’s just 11 reasons why you need to be using YouTube today. If you would like to know more about how YouTube or any other social channel could be used as a marketing platform for your business then get in touch!

Psy's 'Gangnam Style' was a viral hit and has received over 2.9 billion views