--- title: "Social Media Guide: YouTube" description: YouTube works as a social platform, with its video upload service, sharing options, search engine power and popularity with your audience. image: https://www.thriveability.co.uk/hubfs/Blog_Featured-Images/WOMAN-PHOTO-VIEW-IPHONE.jpg --- [![Thrive Logo](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/hubfs/thrive-logo-pink-1.svg)](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/) - [What We Do](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/what-we-do) - [About](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/about-us) - [Approach](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/approach) - [Work](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/work) - [Blog](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/blog) - [Contact](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/contact) Blog # Social Media Guide: YouTube November 17, 2014 7 Minute Read By Sarah Burns ## YouTube is essentially a video search engine. Founded nine years ago, it is now a Google subsidiary, having been sold by founders (and former PayPal employees), for $1.65bn (wowsers!). It is ranked as the third most popular website globally, with the average person spending 19.01 minutes on YouTube a day \[Source: [Alexa](http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/youtube.com)\].  Interestingly, it is only third to Google.com and Facebook.com (first and second, respectively). ![youtube-thrive](https://www.thriveability.co.uk/hs-fs/file-1962048496-png/Blog_Images/2015/content-imgs/youtube-thrive.png?width=1024&name=youtube-thrive.png)As a business, you may be wondering why YouTube is relevant to you (or even classed as a social media platform). We're here to tell you exactly why you should be using it - and, strangely, how you've probably got an account and aren't event aware of it. ### Quick Facts and Stats - 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube per minute. ([Source](http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-statistics-2014_b57746)) - Average YouTube mobile video views per day total 1 billion. ([Source](http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-media-statistics-2014_b57746)) ### The Power of Google Google itself is the first most popular website in the world. It has the choice of which websites are shown in what rank, based on your search results, thanks to its complex and undisclosed algorithm systems. It has many, many products and does a lot of research into you as a consumer, based on your searches and web use - that's how you sometimes get ads that eerily reflect the website you've just been on etc. Why might you already have a YouTube account? The good / bad (depends which way you look at it) thing about Google is once you have a log in, you have a log in for everything Google-related. Personal story: I made a YouTube account long before Google bought it. When Google bought it and I accepted their log in T&Cs I now have access to MANY things, without even, necessarily wanting them. Google's products form a lengthy list including, Blogger, Gmail, Adwords, Google+, Hangouts, Docs, Earth and Maps. **Did you know...?** Google Search receives over 3bn search queries PER DAY \[Source: [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products)\]  ### Using YouTube We could regurgitate what is already out there, but instead there is an excellent guide to [YouTube uploads, via Google, here](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/57407?hl=en). Additionally, there are [plenty of FAQs](https://support.google.com/youtube/?hl=en#topic=4355266) and the [YouTube Video Help Channel for additional tips and tricks](http://www.youtube.com/user/youtubehelp?sub_confirmation=1) that are worth your time.  ### Why? - Videos increases understanding of your product or service by 74%. - Multimedia is one of the fastest growing marketing methods. - It isn’t as expensive as people may think to produce video, but it does cost you in time and resources. #### Thrive says... Why worry yourself with video sharing and uploading, if there's already a platform - the third most popular website in the world - which allows you to do all of that and more?  Video creation doesn't have to be hard and with YouTube, hosting it certainly doesn't! **If you would like to know more about modern marketing and multimedia, get in touch with Thrive via [hello@thriveability.co.uk](mailto:hello@thriveability.co.uk).** #### Share this post... [mailto:?Subject=Check%20out%20this%20post&Body=https://www.thriveability.co.uk//blog/social-media-guide-youtube](mailto:?Subject=Check%20out%20this%20post&Body=https://www.thriveability.co.uk//blog/social-media-guide-youtube) Ready to talk? ## Whether you need a new website, a branding refresh, or a marketing strategy, the first step is a conversation. We'll give you an honest view of where you are and what's worth doing next. ## You may also like to read... 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