10 Reasons Why YouTube Shouldn’t Be Used as a Business or Public Organization’s Video Service
Here are ten key reasons why you shouldn’t rely on YouTube as your company’s or public organization’s primary video platform:
1
No Company or Public Organization Will Be Successful on YouTube
Yes, it’s well-known that YouTube is the world’s second-largest social media platform with 1.9 billion monthly users (as of January 2020).
Every minute, 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube, equating to 30,000 hours per hour and 720,000 hours of new content every day. If you’re an active video-producing company, and you publish, for example, 5 hours of branded video content per month, that’s just a tiny fraction—0.0000231% to be precise—of YouTube’s monthly content. So, getting attention for your content can be quite challenging. It’s often said that YouTube can feel like a graveyard for corporate videos.
On YouTube, the dominant content tends to be video blogs, music videos, gaming content, and show clips. Companies rarely find success on the platform. You can see this for yourself by checking out the data here.
2
YouTube’s Interests Are Different from Your Interests
YouTube and other social media platforms, like Facebook, prioritize their own interests over those of your business or organization. Their goal is not to ensure your clients or prospects are satisfied with your content; rather, they aim to keep users engaged on their platform. This is why they continuously recommend new content to users to maximize their time spent on the service.
3
Difficulty in Finding Reliable Information
YouTube is a massive search engine, but if you’re looking for specific information, like details about a city’s daycare services or a company’s offerings, you’re likely to go directly to that city’s or company’s website. YouTube’s vast array of content, including countless vlogs and opinions, can make it difficult to find reliable information from the right service provider. With anyone able to share their opinions, distinguishing credible sources from unreliable ones can be challenging, especially if the information comes from someone whose expertise you can’t verify.
In contrast, with your own video service, the content is entirely under your control. You can ensure that visitors receive accurate and verified information about your services, providing a trusted source for your audience.
4
People Have Shorter Attention Spans for Videos Than Ever Before!
Watching videos on social media has drastically changed over the years: people now spend only an average of 6 seconds on a single video! With the overwhelming amount of content and distractions, viewers’ attention spans have shrunk, making it hard to keep them engaged for long.
On your own video platform, you control what content is recommended and how it is presented. By designing a user-friendly experience and strategically guiding viewers, you can encourage them to watch more of your videos for longer periods.
5
You Do Not Know Who Is Watching or Where They Go
You won’t be able to see who’s watching your videos on platforms like YouTube, nor can you guide viewers to your other web content, collect their contact information, or convert them into customers. YouTube lacks the tools needed for effective lead generation and sales activation.
With your own video service, you have full control over where your videos are placed, which news and product documents are shown alongside them, and how to incorporate contact forms. You can also direct viewers from one video to another and from page to page. Our service provides you with all the call-to-action and lead-generation tools you need to maximize your sales potential!
6
The Same Service and Look Are Not Suitable for Everyone
YouTube provides a ‘one size fits all’ experience where everything appears uniform, and you can’t tailor the content visibility for different groups like your customers, partners, or employees.
With your own video service, you have the flexibility to customize content for specific audiences. For instance, you can offer product demos and webinars to customers, provide training and instructional videos for partners, and share internal communications or behind-the-scenes content with employees.
Best of all, everything in your own video environment reflects your business or organization’s unique branding and identity.
7
You Direct Your Leads to Your Competitors
In the worst-case scenario, redirecting a visitor from your website’s YouTube video player can lead them to watch your competitors’ videos, thanks to YouTube’s algorithms.
With your own video service, you maintain control over the content. Your viewers only see your videos—no competitor content, no cat videos, just what you choose to offer.
8
You Can’t Update Your Videos
You won’t be able to update YouTube videos when your service or product changes; instead, you’ll need to upload a new video with a new URL and new viewer information.
With your own video service, you can easily update product videos while maintaining the same link. Share the video with your partners and ensure they always have access to the latest, most up-to-date content every time you make a change.
9
You Lose Your Content Rights to YouTube and Other Users
Have you ever read the YouTube Terms of Service? By uploading videos to YouTube, you grant rights to your videos to YouTube and other users of YouTube for worldwide, non-exclusive, and free use of the content (including copying, distribution, editing, display, and presentation)
In your own video service, the rights to the video remain with you alone.
10
You Promote Other Brands for Free on Your Own Website
Using the YouTube video player on your own website can appear unprofessional. We’re well past the days of free web services cluttered with ads. If you’re creating branded web pages for your company, why promote a major American platform instead of using a video player that reflects your own brand?
It’s good to consider YouTube as one social media channel for videos for distributing some short teaser videos to lure people to visit your website, but it’s not a full video platform for professional users, businesses and public organizations.
If you only use YouTube, you will miss out on many of the opportunities in your video service to learn how to leverage and streamline your business’s training, marketing, sales, communications, recruitment and more.
So never redirect a visitor from your own website to YouTube or other services, but vice versa!
Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss this further!
Toni Leiponen
Managing Director
Icareus Ltd
Sähköposti: toni.leiponen[at]icareus.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonileiponen/
