Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Social Media Platform: Youtube

Suppose that you are searching for a video online. Where would you begin? With over 6 billion hours of videos viewed each month, it may be safe to assume that Youtube would be your first point of reference. Even doing a Google search often times lead to a clip posted on Youtube.

It is difficult to predict the number of videos available through this platform, as it is changing everyone second. According to the organization, 100 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute.

Understanding the popularity of this platform provides insight of the potential that people and organizations have in sharing a message. By focusing on two examples, we can see what a powerful tool Youtube can be.

 Poo Pourri


Within one month of this video being released on Youtube, it had 13 million views. Though the company (created in 2007) was fairly well established, this video increased sales immensely

Dollar Shave Club

The Dollar Shave Club was founded by Mark Levine and Mark Dubin in 2011. In March 2012, the company launched their popular video, which won "Best Out-of-Nowhere Video Campaign" at AdAge Viral Video Awards. The video had 4 million views within its first month. Within the first hour of the video being released, the company's server crashed, due to high popularity. The success of the commercial could be seen immediately, with 12,000 orders during the first 48 hours. The CEO has chosen not to disclose the company's sales figures, but it is clear that they are doing extremely well. 

Youtube has changed advertising in the fact that consumers now have the capability of passing videos along to their friends and acquaintances. This platform of social media has not only transformed the companies mentioned above, but it has transformed the world of advertising. 

4 comments:

  1. These are two awesome examples about the impact that YouTube can have on businesses! The first time I saw the PooPourri video, I did not believe that it was a real product. So I checked out the website and found out that it was. Obviously I had to know if it worked, so I got it as a birthday present for my cousin. Seriously brilliant marketing strategies, advertising on YouTube. It gets so much traffic. No wonder these businesses boomed after they put out these videos.

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  2. I agree with you completely about the use of videos in advertising and that Youtube is the best social media platform to use for that purpose. I would be interested to hear your opinion of the effects Youtube has had on the music industry with the readily available music videos and countless covers of songs posted each day. What are your thoughts about that use of this social media platform?

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  3. It is amazing what a viral video can do for a company! Great post.

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  4. I love YouTube! It is no wonder why it was so wildly successful. Great clips too =)

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