Photo by Szabo Viktor on Unsplash
As PR professionals, we need to be able to adapt to the development of communication technology, which affects the way our target audience consumes information. Such adaptation can also determine our success to effectively communicate with our intended audience. Over the past couple of decades, communication technology development has paved the way for the rise of different social media platforms.
Each social media platform is known for certain types of activities, for example, Twitter is known for sharing short-form text, Instagram for sharing photos and videos, TikTok for creating and sharing short videos, and Facebook seems to be doing a combination of all of the above. However, this article is written specifically to explain to you why YouTube, the uber-popular social media platform that currently houses millions of user-generated videos, should be on the top of every PR professional's mind when it comes to communicating with the public as we dive deeper into 2021. And, here are several reasons why PR professionals should either continue or start to invest their time and effort in YouTube this year:
- Pandemic boosts the number of YouTube’s users
A lot of people are required to stay at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Accordingly, they are required to do most of their daily activities from home. When it comes to entertainment, more people have been using video sharing platforms like YouTube to entertain themselves. According to ComScore VMX data, there were 93 million active YouTube unique users aged 18 and older in 2020.
In Indonesia, Similarweb reported that YouTube, who is now owned by Google, became the second most visited site after Google in 2020 with 651 million monthly traffic. However, compared to Google who has 1,7 billion monthly traffic, people stay on YouTube longer with 26 minutes 17 seconds/visit than Google with 8 minutes 3 seconds/visit. With these types of numbers, there is a huge opportunity for your brand to engage your target audience via YouTube.
- The long-form video has yet to fail
Short video platforms such as TikTok, Likee, and Snack Video are gaining popularity among millennials and younger generations. However, this does not mean that they stop going to YouTube as a different form of entertainment. Moreover, YouTube can be a great place for people to search and find information that they need; this includes finding information about products and services that they are interested in. Of course short video platforms can be used for the same purpose,
A video can give a thorough explanation because of the combination of visual and audio. This is an opportunity for you to introduce and promote your brands and products and connect with your audience.
- Optimize brands’ SEO
YouTube can be beneficial for brands if they use it correctly because it can help the brand to improve their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as well as the brand presence in digital platforms. The usage of right and specific words in the title and description on YouTube can make your video easy to find.
As mentioned before, YouTube is now part of Google, so when people search for something on Google, they often find video recommendations from YouTube on the top of their search results. So, it’s like killing two birds with one stone. When you invest time and effort to produce YouTube content for your brand that are relevant to the brand’s target audience, you are actually making your brand more accessible to more people on the two most visited websites in Indonesia: Google and YouTube.
- The latest YouTube algorithm might help you
Social media updates their algorithm regularly to engage with more audiences to make the advertising work well. The same goes with YouTube. Currently, YouTube algorithm actually favors new channels that are still struggling to get viewers as an incentive for them to continue to produce content on the platform.
The algorithm works based on three things, which are video metadata, click-through rate (CTR) number, and watch time. Firstly, YouTube will recommend videos with title and description that are relevant to the viewing audience. Also, YouTube likes videos that generate a lot of clicks from organic search and videos that can make viewers stay and watch longer. Obviously, to generate more clicks and longer watch time, you need a video that is really creative and attractive. The algorithm seems really tricky, but if you fulfill the three important criteria, YouTube will gladly help you to boost your video.
