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May 27, 2008
Don’t fear the YouTube
I spoke at a conference last week, and one of the other speakers was asked whether her company is using social media as part of its employee communication program.
“Our CEO has a blog,” she replied. “And we thought about a YouTube-type site, but, quite frankly, we’re nervous about doing something like that.”
This is a typical reaction from my colleagues these days: Since a blog is fairly controllable, it seems like a safe way to dip your toe in the social media water. But You Tube? That’s the Wild West. Wide open. Lawless. Scary.
There’s no doubt that freedom can be risky. As evidence, check out Social Media Influence’s YouTube Corporate Top 10 list , which analyzes the most significant videos to impact top brands. Although some companies are successfully leveraging YouTube, there’s always a chance of getting stung (check out Disney’s worst nightmare, The Internet is for Porn).
Here’s the irony: It’s the edgy, subversive nature of YouTube that makes it so appealing. YouTube is the opposite of safe, boring, corporate. As a result, it gets billions of hits. According to comScore, a digital research firm, U.S. Internet users viewed 11.5 billion online videos during March, a 13 percent gain over the previous month and a 63 percent increase over March 2007. Thirty-eight percent of those views were on You Tube, with the others spread out among dozens of sites (including Fox, Yahoo! And Time Warner).
The bottom line? Unless your intranet site is getting this kind of traffic, you can’t ignore the YouTube phenomenon. (Don't fear . . .)
Posted by Alison Davis at May 27, 2008 10:49 AM