YouTube, celebrated its 5^th birthday last month and earlier this week the power of video achieved yet another milestone as Mashable’s Ben Parr captured in his story, “YouTube Surpasses Two Billion Video Views Daily.” Keep in mind that this figure is nearly double the prime-time audience of all 3 major broadcast networks combined. Here are some more figures from Ben’s story to ponder… 

• 24-hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute and the average person now spends 15 minutes a day on the site
• 209.43 million – the number of times the most popular YouTube video, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” has been played
• More video has been uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 major broadcast networks created in 60 years

The stats speak volumes on their own but we as marketers we can’t ignore the fact that video must be a part of our communications solutions efforts ASAP. Here are 3 Reasons Marketers Can’t Ignore YouTube & Video:

1 – Consumers are lazy – I mean this will all due respect, but we are experiencing The Shift in the way we communicate with folks in this new world of ME Media. Consumers are in control and are demanding that video be a part of their “experience” with your brand and as a result, they can easily share with others via email, Facebook, etc. YouTube has become a force that dares any marketer to consider the full impact of the notion that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then moving pictures on YouTube are worth thousands if not millions of engaged viewers who virally share video content across their social networks.

2 – Making video doesn’t have to break the budget – The barriers to creating video have fallen so low in terms of cost and ease to produce that anyone anywhere with a $100 Flip Video Camera in their hands can create and share content worldwide within minutes. The reality that is hard for companies to embrace is letting go of the polished and professional-looking (expensive) videos and going with the more “raw” video files produced by Flip Video and others.

3 – Puts a human face on your brand – If done well video is an imprinting medium that will allow your company to put some human qualities around how you are solving problems for your customers and fans. People remember what they see and with the power of the camera you can put your organization’s story in the context you want your key audiences to view it in.

This list could have just as easily been 10 Reasons but I believe with this recent milestone from YouTube, the three listed above clearly spell out a case for the use of video by every marketer.

I’m anxious to hear your thoughts around this subject and how you are using video – Happy Friday!

Within the past 24 hours I’ve received 18 pieces of direct mail that quickly landed in my recycling, I fast-forwarded through several dozen ads via my DVR and quickly hung-up on 2 automated “marketing” calls on my cell phone…from companies I had never heard of before.

I’m sure you’ve continued to experience similar examples as marketers continue to speak to not with consumers. Today we live in a world where technology has enabled consumers to turn traditional marketing upside-down – a world of “Me Media.”

Never before has the phrase, “the customer comes first” been so incredibly true. Last week, Harish Kotadia had a smart post entitled, “How Customer Engagement will determine winning brands in Social Era.”  Within Harish’s post he talks about a study from ENGAGEMENTdb which ranks The Top 100 Global Brands. As Harish points out (as does Danny Brown in his post today entitled, “The Metrics of Social Media“) there are clear ways that companies are leveraging and measuring these new social technologies against the key business metric – sales.

Here are 3 Steps To Creating a “Customer Engagement” Program in this new world of “Me Media”:

1. Gather Data-Driven Customer Insights – If your company doesn’t have good customer data, engage with a company like Anthem Marketing Solutions or others that do an amazing job of becoming your customer insight engine. Without objective data points on your customer, you might be “assuming” more than you should about your customer or prospect.

2. Develop Customer-Driven Messaging – I’m always amazed at the number of companies that don’t have any messaging architecture in place and I’d estimate that 99% typically don’t have messaging that helps solve customer problems as discovered from their customer insights (see #1)…but instead tries to sell their product or service. If your goal is selling to a prospect, try speaking with them vs. at them.

3. Engage Your Customers In The Business - It’s one thing to be having conversations with your customers and prospects via social media, but it is another to actually engage them in the business. Many call this “crowdsourcing” as you empower your customers to help you make important business decisions. Earlier this week, USA Today talked about how several large brands like Papa John’s, Mountain Dew and American Express were using social media for this purpose.  

At the end of the day we need to ensure that our communications efforts are truly engaging our customers and prospects. If you do nothing else after reading this post, please spend a few minutes evaluating how your business is currently (or could be better) engaging with your customers and prospects.

Happy Thursday!