It may not be in our Social Media Madness championship round, but YouTube has what it takes to get brand content in front of the right audiences.
Brackets are busted, upsets have surprised us and the madness continues. Some of our #socialmarchmadness contenders have already been knocked out of the official tournament, but we still wanted to share their insights about why each network provides the best marketing ROI.
It may not be headed for the championship round, but read this post to find out why YouTube can help brands create and share viral content. 

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the market, and it’s changing the way that users discover new information. Every minute, 100 hours of original content is uploaded to the network, 6 billion of which are viewed on a monthly basis. Let’s not bypass the fact that the network is owned by Google which, understandably, treats its own resources favorably in search results. With the latest update to Google’s algorithms, brands that are seeking higher search rankings now need to find alternative measures to do so – rather than relying on keywords. Capitalizing on YouTube’s favorability can help brands garner the attention they are striving to attain.

The one thing almost every marketing manager wants to do is get content to go viral. 

Let’s face it – in today’s world, the one thing almost every marketing manager wants to do is get content to go viral. While other networks may propagate shares and likes, the network that fosters viral marketing material is, and for the foreseeable future, will remain to be YouTube.

The network’s immense assortment of niche content attracts users from every end of the social spectrum. This is exactly why you should be flocking to the network in an attempt to capitalize on its potential to build brand awareness, improve user engagement and buzz generation among other things.

YouTube campaigns make brand content go viral

Pitch Perfect is an example of how brands can advertise their companies on YouTube.

An excellent example of a successful YouTube campaign is the one produced with YouTube celebrity, Mike Tompkins, for the movie Pitch Perfect. Tompkins teamed up with the film’s producer, Jason Moore, and the media company that represents him, Maker Studios, for a user-generated content YouTube campaign promoting the release of the film. The resulting product was an acapella compilation featuring a mash-up of the movie’s stars and YouTube users to Nicki Minaj’s Starships.

The project received over 600 user submissions in 10 days, a testament to the network’s buzz-generating potential. The end product hit over 1,000,000 sets of eyes in the first two weeks alone. The campaign went on to win both an ADDY and Telly award, furthering it’s success and reach.

Aside from original content submitted as part of contests on the network, you also have potential to reach their audiences in the ad slots before content plays. As mentioned in a previous post, YouTube is the only network that offers non-skippable ads, guaranteeing your audience sees your message. You can put the benefit of YouTube advertisements into perspective by arguing their affordability. The ads have no minimum ad buy amount and with views starting at $0.10 per view, you can reach 1,000 people in their target audience for a guaranteed 30 seconds at just $100.

Benchmarks for better results

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, YouTube marketing has the added benefit of performance insights via YouTube Analytics. As you can imagine, these are in-depth analytics reports that give marketing campaign results. YouTube Analytics provides detailed information on things like:

  • What you earned from a campaign
  • How the audience engaged with ads
  • How much traffic then clicked through back to the website

These analytics reports help you evaluate campaigns on a variety of benchmarks. So, if you want to see how your campaign did in March of 2011 in Brazil (or another country), you can. This also gives you insight into what types of content are performing the best and information that can then be used for future content generation.

Here’s a recap about why YouTube is the network you need to be on if you want to make a lasting impression on customers with viral content:

  • Few other social networks offer the variety of benefits that YouTube does in regards to audience engagement
  • It can help with search engine rankings and brand awareness
  • There is ad space before YouTube content for affordable reach and guaranteed visibility
  • YouTube Analytics offer deep insights into audience engagement and campaign performance
Kyle is the Marketing Manager at Brafton. He is a Rhode Island native with a love for marketing, food, the ocean, music, dogs & naming things he loves.