YouTube

Just last week, I added a video to YouTube for the company I work for, The Great Game of Business, so this is actually something I am beginning to experience. The decision to do this came after a discussion with my boss about the things we have discussed in this class thus far. A public relations person, such as myself, could use a video program like YouTube to promote their organization or event. YouTube is a program that is growing immensely and it is easy for viewers to get hooked. Promotion could be done by adding short clips from last year's event, or creating promotional videos based on various target audiences.

You Tube has many strengths. Obviously, by posting a video on YouTube rather than a company's website, a broader audience is more apt to see the video. Likewise, one of the big reasons we decided to post videos on YouTube was that by hosting it on YouTube rather than our Web site, we are able to decrease the load time for our Web site. Instead of having potential clients get frustrated with a slow load time, we are able to simply have a link to the video that opens in a new window, and the potential client never has to close out of our site. After viewing the video, they still have our site up to surf.

Another strength of the program is the ability to have people post comments about your video. This way, you can monitor what people are saying about your video. True, some of the comments may be negative and you do not want the public to see them, but YouTube gives you the ability to approve comments before they are posted (you just have to specify this on the settings). Also, a strength is the ability to see how many people have viewed your video and track how much it has spread from day to day.

However, there is a down-side to seeing the number of people who have viewed your video; you cannot see who those people are. One of the programs I use to send out our newsletter not only tells you how many people have clicked on a link, but also allows you to see the e-mail addresses of the people who have clicked on it. We use this information to find out what people are interested in, and contact them based on their interests. I would love to see a feature like this on YouTube.

Another negative aspect of the program is that videos can only be 10 minute clips. The video I uploaded was 14 minutes. Unfortunately, I had to chop the video into two parts so that I did not have to delete anything from the video. From checking the view number, I can tell that some people have watched one video and have not continued onto the second part. They may not have known that there was a second part, and thought that the video just ended abruptly. Or, someone may view part two, not realizing that there is a part one, and the video would not make sense. I believe this is a major weakness of YouTube. These are definitely ways that YouTube could hurt our company's image.

I think they primary public for a YouTube broadcast would consist of a demographic of late teenagers to young adults. These seem to be the people who would be more inclined to search YouTube for videos. To get this primary public to view the videos, it would be necessary to come up with keywords that both apply to the video and would appeal to the viewer so they have an interest in viewing your video. Hopefully after viewing the video, they will be inclined to go to the organizations Web site to find out more about the organization.