Happy 7th Birthday YouTube!

Wow, time flies…seems like just yesterday that YouTube was launched right?  Actually, no it doesn’t!  It doesn’t feel like yesterday and it certainly doesn’t feel like YouTube’s only been around for 7 years!  In fact, I find it difficult to remember what it was like pre-YouTube.  Come to think of it, where did America get its fill of funny pet videos before YouTube…like one of my favourites?

So what significance does the passing of YouTube’s 7^th birthday last week have?  Well for us at Amplomedia, it has a WHOLE lot of significance.  If it wasn’t for YouTube, we likely wouldn’t exist right now!  That’s right, the use of video in marketing may not have the same universal appeal it now has if the YouTubes (yes, we haven’t forgotten there are others) of the cyber-world didn’t exist.  YouTube has liberated marketers from the shackles of bland paper and online brochures and have inserted an element of fun and interest to digital marketing efforts.  But most importantly it has enabled audience engagement.  We at Amplomedia love landing on a new website and seeing a 2 minute explainer video.  We like the rest of you will watch a well choreographed video before reading a page of static text.  Video is the most powerful medium to communicate your message and YouTube was one of the pioneers in democratizing video so everyone, from entrepreneurs to corporations and teenagers to political activists, could tell their story.

We also love that YouTube, chose to use motion graphics to help tell their story.  Check it out for yourself:

To think three days worth of video is uploaded every single minute to YouTube completely blows our mind!  The question marketers now need to ask is not whether they should be incorporating video into their digital campaigns, but instead how will their videos compete with the thousands of videos uploaded every month?  We now know what YouTube chose…MOTION GRAPHICS!

Happy 7^th Birthday YouTube!