Last night, I had the pleasure of representing E-Web Marketing at a YouTube Techtalk hosted by the very cool people at Shoes of Prey. Suzie O’Carroll came to speak to us about YouTube’s impact on the social sphere and its increasing importance in Search Engine Optimisation and the creation of brand awareness.

Here’s what we learnt:

• 30% of online content is video.
• There are predicitions that within the next decade that figure will rise to 90%. With smartphones, improved mobile cameras and more enthusiasm towards sharing content, video will be the dominant form of social media.
• 10.5 million Australians watch video content online.
• 6pm-8pm on weekdays has the most traffic, with 8pm-11pm being the busiest period on the weekend. These are times that people would have been watching television. Now, they’re online for their video content needs.
• 1 in 4 YouTube videos are shared with friends in some form (through Facebook, Twitter, email and other networks).
• People don’t always want high video quality. You don’t need 1080p High Definition video to make someone giggle.
• 48 hours worth of video is uploaded onto YouTube EVERY MINUTE.
• 150 years worth of YouTube video is watched through Facebook.
• 400 tweets each minute contain a YouTube link.

What do these statistics tell us? The most obvious is that video content is highly engaging and an extremely viral form of content. There are indications that video content is the most engaging, especially with the introduction of interactive video content similar to the video campaign used by The Streets for their Computers and Blues film. This kind of content enables the user to participate in the direction of the video, creating an engaging experience that can be played through multiple times before they’ve gone through all the content.

YouTube in the Social Media Landscape & Increasing Brand Awareness

Judging from the statistics, and the number of YouTube video links I have sitting in my inbox, it’s quite clear that video content is highly shareable. With a prediction that video content will one day dominate the social space, it’s important that businesses jump on board now before they fall behind.

Due to its engaging and viral nature, video is a great form of media to increase brand awareness. Suzie drew our attention to the story of Orabrush, a great story with a humble beginning. After failing in all traditional models of product and brand awareness, the inventor of the Orabrush turned to YouTube as his last ditch effort to generate an interest in his product. It is now the second most subscribed to channel, with more subscriptions than Apple. How did they achieve this? Simple. Funny, enagaging and regularly updated video content which is centred on the brand and its products, but does not blatantly advertise them. Viewers are drawn to the channel by the parodies and weekly updates from the brand.

Suzie reported some interesting tips and figures:

• Many businesses are using the social space to decide which advertisements will be most effective to air on television. Three or four ads will be posted on YouTube and based on level of enagagement and interest from viewers, the most successful ad will be run on television to capture the rest of the audience that is not watching online.
• The first week of posting a video is the most important week. It is crucial that it is heavily promoted and carefully monitored in this period to improve success. I’m assuming this is because the audience, including myself, have very short attention spans. With so much content in our grasp, we tend to move through it all quite quickly.
• YouTube advertising is growing, with many brands using a 30 second window before the start of a popular video to advertise their product or brand. Advertising is extremely cheap, charged on a Pay Per View basis and ads are only charged when the entirety of the ad is watched by the user. Even if the entire ad is not watched, there is an opportunity here to leave an impression.

YouTube for Search Engine Optimisation & Increasing Traffic

YouTube content is playing a larger role in search engine ranking and has an increasing presence in search results. For a large number of searches, a YouTube result will be displayed among site and map listings. Part of any current SEO strategy should embrace video content, as well as social media in general, in order to promote awareness and improve rankings.

Video posts are a great way to link build, a great source for implementing keywords and links to business homepages or social media feeds. We heard from Suzie that by impression alone there is a 1.8x increase in brand awareness (i.e. simply by having a YouTube listing in search results, even when it is not clicked through to, an impression is made on the user, increasing brand awareness).

Video content can be easily tagged with keywords, driving traffic not only from search engine results, but also from being a suggested video to watch from similar videos on YouTube. Users tend to bunny hop through video content, going from one video to another, following the list of related videos prompted by YouTube.

Want to increase traffic to your website? Drop the URL in your video content. Suzie reported that 1 in 4 viewers follow through to a website when the URL is provided in the video. An even more interesting and successful strategy is to include a link to the URL of the product being advertised, reviewed or mentioned in the video. Buying a product has never been so engaging!

Social video content is a must for any online strategy. It is viral in nature, drastically cheaper than traditional television advertising and it’s a great way to engage your following, giving them some insight into your business’ creativity and journey. You don’t need to be a fantastic producer to make video content. They say the best camera is the one that you have with you, so a simple smartphone will be sufficient. Get started!

An enormous thank you to Suzie O’Carroll for the informative session (she’s a great entertainer too!), to YouTube for letting us borrow her for the night and to the hosts, Shoes of Prey, for the invitation, the beers and the enagaging conversation!

Follow the tweets of the night by searching #tubechat.