Online Marketing Blog from metrocafe311

Its official, we’ve all gone YouTube crazy. This Monday Mashable reported that YouTube now exceeds two billion video views everyday and is still growing. This means that almost one third of the world’s population are uploading and viewing content everyday. YouTube users also upload nearly 24 hours worth of content every minute so the two billion viewers will have plenty to keep themselves entertained. This news comes less than a month after YouTube celebrated its 5th birthday and really solidifies its place as a powerhouse in social media and an essential marketing tool for any brand serious about reaching its target demographic. YouTube has also announced that it will expand its reach to include Africa, meaning that it now has a home on six separate continents.

These facts were released as part of a bigger announcement that the Google owned company are to launch an initiative to document the history of YouTube and its growth to date. The social media site was launched in 2005 thanks to Sequoia Capita who injected $11.5 million into the company before it was bought by Google in November 2006 for $1.65 billion. Since then it has gone from strength to strength and this has culminated in the launch of the YouTube Five Year Channel which includes the “My YouTube Story” project. This project encourages users to upload videos to the channel telling stories of the impact YouTube has had on their lives.

This is happening just over a month after Twitter announced that it will work with The U.S Library of Congress to catalogue every tweet since its launch in 2006. Social media is making strides to become recognised as a legitimate medium in league with television, radio and printed press. YouTube in particular has emerged as the first port of call for cultures all around the world to document everything from civic unrest and political debates to a platform that may launch aspiring musicians. In fact, just last week a 12 year old boy from Oklahoma in America posted a video of himself covering the Lady Ga Ga hit Paparazzi. It has now received over 17 million views and caught the attention of chat show host Ellen DeGeneres who invited the boy onto her show.

Despite all these impressive statistics and everything YouTube has achieved in its five years of operation they insist this is just the beginning. The platform began using Adobe Flash Video technology and has evolved to support HD and 3D videos. And although Silicon Republic reports that YouTube receives almost double the prime time audience of all the U.S television networks combined viewers still only spend roughly 15 minutes a day browsing YouTube but a staggering 5 hours watching TV. Going forward YouTube intend to make the website easier to navigate so users can more easily find the videos that matter to them. This is great news for us here at metrocafe311 as we’ve been keeping a close a close eye on the websites steady progression. We also recommend it as an essential part of the social media strategy for many of our clients!

Watch the video that YouTube created to mark its fifth anniversary and below you can see an information graph tracking the websites most important landmarks. Check them out they’re really cool.