Photo from Unsplash

Originally Posted On: https://kaptiv8marketing.com/2013/02/the-rise-of-youtube/

In the eight years since its inception, YouTube has become a household name. ”YouTube it” has become a perfectly acceptable and understood phrase by people all over the world. It can be used to share and watch virtually any video from your child’s first steps to the presidential inauguration. YouTube has risen to the status of being the second most used search engine after Google. For example, now when one is searching for a recipe instead of going straight to Google, they are searching for a “how-to” video on YouTube.

YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005 by early employees of PayPal. It was bought out the next year by Google for $1.65 billion. The site gained much popularity through various viral videos uploaded to the site and shared between millions of people.

On YouTube, everyone is a creator. Anyone is able to make a YouTube account and easily create and share video content in a matter of seconds.YouTube incentivizes its users to create plenty of interesting content by allowing them to monetize their views from advertisements. Their advertising platform, TruView, allows advertisers to post ads on virtually any video on YouTube as long as the user posting the video opts into the program. The users then receive an amount of money depending on the number of views on their videos. Advertisers can use these videos to target specific market segments, even down to small local markets.

With YouTube having over 800 million unique user visits each month, marketers have the advantage. They can reach viewers in a matter of seconds all over the world with a simple click. This is important in today’s fast-paced environment because consumers want information to be direct and easily accessible. This is exactly what YouTube provides – the perfect platform!