Most of my clients are quite ill-informed when I ask them, “What is the second most popular search engine, right behind Google?” They seem incredulous when I reply,” It’s YouTube.”

Here’s the first video ever posted on YouTube, seen more than 2.5  million times in 5 years.

Today, as a birthday salute, the BBC reports the following YouTube statistics…

• December 2005 8 million videos watched a day
• January 2008 10 hours of video uploaded every minute
• October 2009 1 billion views per day
• March 2010 24 hours of video uploaded every minute
• May 2010…

YouTube hits 2bn daily downloads reports the BBC’s Maggie Shiels. She explains that TV remains in comparatively good shape when you compare average time spent on YouTube at 15 minutes vs TV’s 5 hours per day.

But, 15 minutes a day spent on any one Web site is quite a different story, one only out-performed by Facebook, currently clocking in at 55 minutes of average user-time per day. There are a wealth of statistics that demonstrate that video improves conversion rates, decreases returns, improves search optimization and even increases open-rates when embedded in e-mail!

We incorporate video production into all of our current client’s Web-marketing campaigns and the proof keeps coming in that having a broad social footprint – one that includes video – is key to reaching your audience. Does your marketing plan include having a YouTube Channel?

Links:

eCommerce Video Drives Conversion, Sales and Traffic While Reducing Returns reports on a wealth of documentedc statistics like…
Internet Retailer reports that visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not, based on OnlineGolf.com results. (Internet Retailer, April 2010)

Videos embedded in email can grab attention or cause deliverability problems and rendering nightmares. Most marketers believe the latter, but a few say their data speak otherwise. See how in 2008, a marketer increased conversions more than 50% by embedding video in emails. Includes deliverability and subject line test data. Plus, what’s the best video length to use.

Justin in just 4 secs

In May, 2009, Particle, the San Francisco based start-up funded by Justin Timberlake, launched Robo.to – a 4-second video  application that allows mobile device or Web cam users to upload and simultaneously post video snippets to their social networks. Twitter, facebook, flickr and other useful sites are all in one place and you can publish to all of them at the same time.

Mobile robo.to users not only get to see the faces of all the people in their address books, they get a mini-video of what they are up to!

TechCrunch explains, “The site also prominently features a spot for a ‘video avatar’ – a brief video clip that’s meant to take the place of traditional emoticons or static photos, which you can broadcast to a number of popular online services. It’s a neat concept, reminiscent of the moving photographs from Harry Potter.”

The Robo.to Features Blog at: http://massive.ly provided the following means of adding an ever-changing video status widget to your site or blog: “Just cut and paste the embed code from your share ‘Share my Face‘ page and you’re done. It automatically displays updates to displaying your latest. If you dare, you can also make some tweaks to the code settings and customize it to your needs and desires.”