All About You(Tube)

I recently read a chapter in one of my textbooks about the second greatest, in my opinion, video website: YouTube. I refer to it as the second greatest because I was a big Vine fan. Unfortunately for me though, YouTube has about 1.3 billion users while Vine only had around 40 million users. Good thing I don’t base my opinions on statistics!

Anyways, YouTube is the greatest resource when looking for a video because someone, somewhere uploaded the video of the puppy you are dying to watch again. You can search for key words to easily find a video; similar videos will also continue to play after you finish the one you initially searched for and clicked on. The disadvantage YouTube has compared to other platforms is the lack of its users to post anything other than videos. Twitter and Facebook users can post a variety of content, such as pictures, videos, paragraphs, etc.

YouTube is fairly easy to use. Using key words is the best way to search for a video and subscribing to channels creates a custom feed for your profile. Setting up a profile is also user-friendly. You must have a Google account to sign in with and access your channel. Once logged on, you create a new channel and start customizing it for yourself. You can write a description about yourself or you channel, include information on how to contact you or link other platforms to your channel. You can also add a “unsubscribed trailer” feature for users who are not subscribed to your channel. This feature is an introductory video about your channel to gain followers. When it comes to content, your videos should have a title, description, tags and a custom thumbnail. The title and description should use key words and be catchy to make it easily searchable; a description can also include a link to another platform if you desire. A video should have no more than five tags that consist relevant key words. You may choose to set videos as private, public or unlisted. A public video can be viewed by anyone, a private video is restricted and an unlisted video can only be viewed by a given link. It is important for videos to be good quality so that you can get a large quantity of views.

I probably search some of the most generic videos ever, but I really only use YouTube when I’m bored or looking specifically for something. I often use it to look up Vines because the application Vine has been shut down. I like to look at makeup tutorials and music videos often, which is what my search history mainly consists of. YouTube can be used recreationally or professionally for advertising and marketing, which makes is a great tool for businesses as well as the ordinary, everyday person. Videos can easily go viral on the internet and YouTube is more than likely where that viral video began. Some celebrities’ careers even began by posting videos to a YouTube that went viral. Whatever the use, YouTube is rightly a popular social media platform.