YouTube is Rocking Your World | Digital Marketing Trends
YouTube views are up again and there seems to be no stopping the momentum.
YouTube now has more than 1 BILLION active users! That is a billion with 12 zeros.
YouTube views are up 60% year by year! This is a marketing phenomena with huge profits and success stories for those who embraced video in the last 7 years.
I don't believe it is too late if you have not jumped on this wave. You still have time depending on your niche and the saturation of markets. I have not seen any saturation in the real estate space at all. There is a lot more room in this space to grow and capitalize on this wave.
The biggest surprise announced in Google's quarterly market update was watch times are way up on YouTube. The stats on the YouTube page are not updated very often. So you can catch the latest stats from Google's market updates.
[ctt title=”Mobile Video Watch Time ” tweet=”Mobile watch time is HUGE! ” coverup=”le8fZ”]
The average MOBILE YouTube session is now 40 minutes!
Now before you start thinking about making super long videos, make sure your niche is involved in those 40 minute watches. My gut, instincts and experience in marketing tells me the 40 minute watch times are for classes, educational videos and watching YouTubers play games or applying makeup, etc.
I really don't see any data showing that these are listing videos 🚫.
As more and more channels start adding content to YouTube you will see that time increase. It is not slowing down any time soon. Be a part of the wave and this new media.
There are over 300 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube EVERY MINUTE!
More people enter YouTube from the YouTube home page than every before, in fact, the number has tripled this year over last.
We totally get this because we have a Generation Z son who is now 12 years old.
Generation Z loves YouTube, Twitch, Snapchat and Instagram. I wrote about taking our son to ArcadiaCon- a Minecraft convention here put on by young millionaire YouTubers. I learned so much more about digital marketing from these young people who learned how to build a community of raving fans around these fans watching them play video games.
Some of the young guys and gals we met make over 7 figures each year on ad share revenue! PewDiePie made $7 Million last year just from ad revenue sharing with YouTube. My son does not watch him because he uses bad language. He is not that kid friendly so if you have kids, you may want to be aware of that. My son likes Captain Sparkles and Bajan Canadian and other clean YouTubers who are very family G rated friendly.
This is so exciting! I am very excited to announce that the number of YouTube megastars earning 6 figures has increased by 50%. There is still room for more megastars.
YouTube advertisers have increased their ad spend by 60%. They certainly are not spending those dollars on ads that don't work. This is a new media as far as advertising goes. This is a great place for you to test your niche markets in and the cost of the ads is much lower than Google adwords.
YouTube has more 18-49 years olds watching than any U.S. cable network. Hmmm, maybe that is why the cable companies made those pesky nasty “little” deals with the government over so called net neutrality- you know the deal where they pretended to be against it? Perhaps they are really trying to figure out a way to recover from all those lost users on cable networks through regulatory measures.
We use Apple TV and Amazon Prime. We cut the cable ties several years ago and so happy we did. We can get YouTube right on our smart TVs. We can also watch movies from iTunes and Prime. There is no reason to pay the price of cable and waste time watching crap or the terribly untruthful media outlets these days. And we are not Generation Z. I think that the entire landscape of digital entertainment is changing and changing very fast.
The new roll out of YouTube ‘cards' is another way that marketers are looking to capitalize on YouTube. Check out the new cards on YouTube. This is a great way to add some more call to actions to your videos.
“How To…” videos are among the most watched videos. Think about ways that you can market to your niche with ‘How To' videos. Let your imagination come up with some how to videos your viewers would love to watch. There is no limit to what you can create in this area. How to searches are also among the most searched terms when doing YouTube searches.
Of course, with all things marketing and with all the data, make sure it matches your target audience before you jump on the bandwagon. But one thing is very clear- it is time to make videos attractive on all mobile devices.
While we are on the subject of video, don't forget about Facebook video, Vine and Instagram. And then there is Periscope.
Tip for using Periscope- on your iPhone when you download the app, open up your settings and click to add to iPhone library option. Then right when you start Periscoping, you will be prompted if you want to save to your phone. Click yes. You can always delete it later. When you save to your phone you can then upload your Periscope videos to your YouTube account. Then delete them from your phone. Otherwise, your livestreams will only save for 24 hours on the Periscope servers.
Tip for video editing if you are a beginner or just want to save time- there is no longer a need to have video editing software. Save the money and the learning curve. Edit right in the improved YouTube editor. We have macs and still love to work in our favorite app, Screenflow for mac. YouTube editor is so simple to use. You can add your captions, call to actions, link to your other videos, add your cards, add still shots and video… then choose music right from the YouTube music library so you don't get any Copyright flags.
Oh yes, be careful when you are Periscoping live events. Think twice before saving those to share on your YouTube channels. We Periscoped our Wellington Fireworks event for Independence Day and Wellington city played a bunch of music during the fireworks. I shared it and boom! Got 12 or more Copyright notices in less than 5 hours!!! You know, you don't think about the music when you are Periscoping because you are not the one playing the music. So be careful about that.
You should also set your account on YouTube to notify you of any alerts. That is how I found out so quickly. In this instance, I can leave it alone because I am not doing anything with the video. But there have been times when I have used our Apple Photo library slideshow music which we have permission to use and Apple owns the rights to. I get a notice and in those situations I appeal the violation because we do have permission to use the music, I win every time I appeal. So don't be afraid to appeal if you get flagged for music that you do have permission to use.
To get started making videos set aside time each week to do so. The fastest way to do video is to choose a day each week where you go out to take video. You can most likely get enough video shot for an entire month of short 60 second videos. Taking all your videos on one day will save you a lot of time.
Then choose another day to edit your videos. Choose another day to upload them. Then the next day you can do your SEO for your videos. Publish about 2 to 3 videos a week and you should be set.
Then you can take those 60 second videos and create shorts from them to upload to Vine and Instagram.
Strive over time for excellence but drop the perfection disorder at the door. Good is good enough!
Take action now. Start making videos!