YouTube has to be part of your media strategy

Since the Web first came out (in my world that happened when I bought my first copy of Adobe Pagemill in 1996), the field of communications has been in a continuous state of upheval. Now add the current economic crunch and anything can happen. And anything is happening. Newspapers, magazines and other media outlets are […]


December 19, 2008

Since the Web first came out (in my world that happened when I bought my first copy of Adobe Pagemill in 1996), the field of communications has been in a continuous state of upheval. Now add the current economic crunch and anything can happen.

And anything is happening. Newspapers, magazines and other media outlets are tightening their belts (and cutting a number of good people in the process, including my favorite interviewer, Alex Chadwick). The Detroit Free Press is giving up its daily circulation.

I firmly believe that newspapers (and NPR) will survive and continue to be important media resources. But the field is changing. Because in this time of tribulation, one media outlet is still growing. YouTube now accounts for 25% of all Google searches. Note the following from TechCrunch:

Video search on YouTube accounts for a quarter of all Google search queries in the U.S., according to the latest search engine numbers from comScore. Its monthly qSearch report, which was released on Thursday night, breaks out the number of searches conducted on YouTube. If it were a standalone site, YouTube would be the second largest search engine after Google. More searches are done through YouTube than through Yahoo, which has been the case for the past few months.

All of this this means that YouTube better factor into your communications strategy. We’ve only started to scratch the surface of how to work on this medium here at OSU, but the Web Communications office is ready to help you plan how to use this forum to reach your audience.

Even though NPR is cutting the venerable Alex Chadwick, they’ve also announced another departure: they’ve launched their own official YouTube channel. While this might seem like criminal behavior, when you note that YouTube accounts for a quarter of all Google searches, it also just makes sense. (But I’ll also suggest that NPR move Chadwick to YouTube…his 50 Cent Interviews are some pretty engaging Web video content.) NPR isn’t alone in moving to YouTube. Newspapers have been moving into the Web video space for a long time.  At the same time that writers and radio folks are being laid off, there is an insatiable demand for video content. What that means for us is that we have to learn to work in a new medium as well.

CATEGORIES: Multimedia


7 thoughts on “YouTube has to be part of your media strategy

  1. When it comes to content marketing, video is an up-and-comer, and it’s making a stir. According to the State of Inbound 2017 Report, video content is cited to be the top disruptor in the marketing world. More than ever, consumers want to learn and connect with brands through video content, and brands are listening.

    The results of video marketing are undeniable—52% of marketing professionals worldwide list video as the type of content with the best ROI. For many businesses, the easiest part about making a video is deciding where to post it. As the most popular video hosting website by far, choosing to upload your video to YouTube is an obvious choice.

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