I can’t even believe that it’s been only 5 years for YouTube. For me, it seems like this phenomenon has been for much much longer. Anyway, website monitoring has compiled some interesting facts and milestones during this 5 year journey from ZERO hits to more than TWO BILLION hits a day.

A much awaited feature from YouTube is finally here – videos that  can be shared ONLY with friends/family.  A new feature called “unlisted” videos is available for all YouTubers that allows themto share by sending link to the video. YouTube Help Center has more information and you can also read the post on the YouTube blog.

YouTube Privacy

There have been embarrassing videos that I wanted to share with friends only and now I have the option. On the flip side, it might affect the viral value of some videos….what do you think?

Video is widely used media, for purposes of entertainment, companies use it in marketing purposes, communications with the customers etc.

Here are some stats.

For example, according to information from ComScore Inc.in November 2009.  nearly 31 billion videos were viewed during the month in U.S., ( 39% were videos of Google Sites)

The most popular video site is YouTube but do not miss on other upcoming sites like Utterli, Qik etc.

Hulu is on the second place with 924 million videos viewed (3.0 percent).

Then follows Viacom Digital with 500 million (1.6 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 480 million (1.5 percent).

Videos offer many opportunities for promotion activities that social media, normally couldn’t perform and the greater area for promotion.

That’s why they need the „collaboration“ of videos and their help.

Video is becoming greater and greater part of social media system, and their marketing plans.

This tendency will inevitably continue.

First, video it’s easier to access. You don’t need to register, create a profile etc.

There is no checking, or self exposure, so it’s more suitable for the people who doesn’t like to be publicly exposed.

They can be used as an interactive tool by for example offering the video submission option on your web site and establish the video based communication with the customers.

That way customers can get  to know your company,product or services much better and get more informations about them.

By using video as an interactive tool you can, for example, demonstrate how your products or services work, and give important announcements to a much larger audience than  you can reach through social media.

So, we can give a conclusion tha t video can be great help in social media marketing campaign . This is a very large market we can reach through video.much larger than soacial medi ahas itself.

Video also has many opportunities as interactive tool which can be used in marketing strategy.