In this article let’s take a look at pros and cons of using YouTube for business and students, This is the most comprehensive article on this topic in internet.
All the benefits and drawbacks I mention about YouTube are backed by statistics and data so you can rely on the information I provided in this article.
Note: I used a TON of statistics and data to explain my points in this article and here are links to the sources of the statistics, Oberlo, invideo, hootsuite.
So without further ado let’s dive right in.
Pros and cons of YouTube for business and students
Pros of YouTube for business
Huge audience
One of the main advantages of using YouTube is that it has a large amount of audience.
As a matter of fact there are more than 2.6 billion people who use YouTube, India America and Indonesia are top countries in terms of YouTube user demographics, It is not just that YouTube is the second most popular social media platform after Facebook and search engine after Google.
And 79% of the internet users have YouTube account, It is present in more than 100 different countries and 80 different languages, and what is more amazing is the fact that, people watch more than 1 billion hours of videos content on YouTube everyday,
people spend more than 24 hours every month on YouTube, Which is approximately 50 minutes everyday. So using YouTube for your business can help you grow your audience not just local but worldwide
I think all of this statistics and data is good enough to understand that YouTube is one of the largest platforms online to publish video content for businesses and students.
Increase sales
Another benefit is that it can increase your sales of business a lot.
The data shows that 90% of the people have found a new product by watching a video on YouTube, 2 out of 3 buyers have said that they watch YouTube videos to get ideas and inspiration before making purchasing decisions
It is no surprise that, people read online reviews and articles and also watch product reviews on YouTube before making any purchase, for example if anyone wants to purchase any mobile phone or laptop they would search for the review of the brand and
product on YouTube to learn about the features and pros and cons before they can purchase it, so YouTube is one of the best platforms to increase sales for your business because people will always be looking for new products and reviews.
Less censorship
Another advantage is there is less censorship on YouTube.
For example you can publish videos on various topics like politics, any product or service, any type of educational content, any type of criticism, but as long as it is not hateful or violates the Google guidelines, You can use your creativity and move on.
Stay connected with audience & build your personal brand
Another advantage for both businesses and students is that you can stay connected with your audience and build your personal brand by making videos on YouTube.
The studies show that, 70% of teens trust influencers more than traditional celebrities, 49% of consumers depend on influencers’ recommendations, by regularly publishing and promoting videos on a particular topic on YouTube can help you establish credibility and expertise in the topic and you can build influence on a particular audience, they look at your opinion and recommendations and you can have a deeper connection with your audience.
Unlike social media platforms which have a average length of video around 30 to 60 seconds but in YouTube the average video length is around 7 or 9 minutes and you can have more chance of building the connection with the viewer by story telling and solving the problem of the viewer like how to do some stuff.
And you can also engage with your audience by answering to the replies in the comments, and slowly you can build your personal brand on YouTube and the fact is YouTube is the second most preferred platform for influencer marketing after Instagram for many brands so if you are a student then YouTube is a good platform to build your personal brand, and YouTube videos are also very easy to share on social media platforms.
Redirect your audience through links
Another advantage of using YouTube is especially for businesses is that they can link out to their product pages and website from the description of the YouTube.
This is a big benefit because you can redirect your YouTube audience and traffic to your website by leaving a short link of your website in the YouTube description or in the comment section, and this can act as a backlink to your website and more importantly as I mentioned earlier people will be looking for products and
reviews before purchasing them so after you review any product in your YouTube video you can ask your audience to click on your link to get the product with the discount to increase the sales and you can also capture your YouTube subscribers on social media platforms and on other channels like telegram so that you are not dependant on YouTube alone to interact with audience.
You can also add any sign up form or website landing page in YouTube description to capture the email address of your audience so that you can stay connected with them and do email marketing Which is also good for building better relationship with your audience.
Learn skills for free and educate yourself
Another advantage is that you can learn new skills for free if your student.
You should know that people use YouTube not just to watch entertainment and music videos but also to learn new things and also for educational content.
How to searches is top 4 categories of video content on YouTube and it is growing a lot every year.
For example if you want to learn coding or Python or programming then you would have to spend some money purchasing any course on Udemy or Coursera but if you do some research then you can find many YouTube channels which provide free YouTube videos training the audience around programming, for example
you can follow academind, CS Dojo, Derek Banas, free code camp, LevelUpTuts, etc and all of this channels have millions of subscribers and legit people, similarly you can follow Neil Patel, ahrefs, Semrush, backlinko, Adam enfroy, digital marketing institute, etc if you want to learn digital marketing, etc.
Just like this you can find hundreds of YouTube channels on various different topics like self improvement, mindset and fitness, physics and astronomy, education and career, jobs and dating advice, relationships, news, etc
And what is more amazing is you do not have to pay a single penny to get access to all these knowledge and learn skills as compared to getting a course online which is expensive.
Make passive income
Another advantage of using YouTube for both businesses and students is that you can make money not just selling products of your own but also of other companies products by doing affiliate marketing.
And YouTube is a great platform to build passive income, for example the lifespan of a social media post of Twitter is around 18 minutes which means after 18 minutes or half an hour, your Twitter post will be dead, whereas Facebook post has six hours of lifespan, Instagram has 48 hours, linkedin post has 24 hours of lifespan and YouTube has 30 days and more.
Which means the video that you publish today, You can make money after 30 days also from that video through ads, sponsorships and affiliate marketing, people will still watch your content, Apart from that, YouTube videos also rank on search engine like Google for example if you search anything related to how to do something then
you will most probably find a YouTube video ranking on top of Google search results so you can also get traffic to your YouTube video and also new people watch your videos through Google not just YouTube so YouTube is a great platform to make money for students and it is also good for businesses because they can get new customers and people interacting with their brand.
And you can also convert your YouTube videos into articles and podcasts which is called repurposing of content and also publish on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn which allow you to publish long videos so you can diversify it on various platforms and make money,
Neil Patel who is the top digital marketer in the world is a good example of this, he has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube, he publishes videos regularly on his channel, and he also repurposes the video content on other social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn and also on his website.
Great analytics
Another advantage of using YouTube for businesses is that you can get great amount of analytics and data regarding who watch your videos and many other things like,
- Demographics, gender, traffic sources, age of your audience
- Click through rate of your videos
- You can check your views, subscribers and watch time
You can get all of this data and numbers about your YouTube channel which can help you understand your target audience better if you are starting an online business so that you can create better product and optimise your videos better.
Free to use and upload videos
Another advantage is that it is free to use and also to upload videos on YouTube and you won’t be charged any fee which is a great benefit for many businesses who have limited budget for marketing because making videos is not very expensive task and you can promote those videos on YouTube for free.
The thing is you will have to get verified from YouTube which is very easy task and after getting verification, you can upload videos longer than 15 minutes, like You can make your videos as long as 12 hours or 128 GB for free and add custom thumbnails on your YouTube videos to attract viewers to watch your video.
Run ads on YouTube at affordable prices
Another advantage of using YouTube is that you can run advertisements at very affordable price.
YouTube is one of the best options for creating a cost-effective advertising campaign: Average CPV: $0.026. Average view rate: 31.9%
YouTube ads also are great way to increase your reach and grow your subscribers if you don’t want the organic method because it is time consuming, click here to learn more about YouTube ads.
Good entertainment source
Another benefit of using YouTube for students is that it is a great source of entertainment and relax your mind for students who are tired and stressed out studying for the exam or any other thing.
There are numerous channels you can follow on YouTube related to entertainment, movies, ASMR and music which can help you relax your mind and unlike television you can watch YouTube videos whenever and wherever you want on your phone. 47% YouTube users said that watching online videos helped them cope with ongoing problems in their lives
These are all the advantages of using YouTube for both businesses and students now let’s take a look at the disadvantages.
Cons of YouTube
Channels can get hacked
One of the main disadvantages of using YouTube for both businesses and students is that channels can get hacked.
There are several YouTube channels have been hacked in the past, some will get recovered successfully and others can lose a lot of video content on their YouTube channel.
Hackers often target YouTube accounts by using phishing attacks to try and obtain profile passwords. They can then get into an account and view bank data associated with a channel or business, so taking right security measures is very important from the start, if you become ignorant or careless about the YouTube security then it can get your channel hacked.
Strict rules of the platform
Another disadvantage is there are very strict rules on YouTube, You need to follow certain rules and regulations and stop creating videos on topics that violate community guidelines.
You also need to get permission of the creator if you want to take some of his work and use it in your video if not you can get copyright claim and strike because you have used it without the permission of the creator and three consecutive copyright strikes on your channel can get your channel to be suspended and deleted.
So you should be very careful regarding using YouTube because the rules are very strict and several YouTube channels were deleted because of this in the past.
Less chance to go viral
Another disadvantage is that there is less chance of going viral on YouTube As compared to other platforms.
And this also noted that certain categories of content like music videos comedy sketches film trailers ASMR and pet videos are types of content which have more chances of getting viral as compared to others so if you are a student or a business who is promoting some product or providing some information and solving some problem to the viewer then most likely you will not get a chance to go viral because of obviously competition and your niche.
Negative comments & hate
Another disadvantage is negative comments and hate of your channel on the platform.
For example if you are local business and you want to promote your business and product online on YouTube then you can face many negative comments by random people watching your video and many other creators on YouTube also publish videos criticising your business and product which can negatively impact your business and you can also get a lot of hate and troll.
So you should be very careful regarding negative publicity on YouTube.
Growing competition
Another disadvantage is growing competition on YouTube.
Even though only 9% of the small businesses use YouTube but still there are many companies and people are leveraging YouTube to grow.
There are 38 million active channels on YouTube of which 15 million are content creators and 22,000 of them have crossed 1 million subscribers, 500 hours of content is uploaded every minute.
So there is a growing competition as more number of people are creating videos on YouTube because they know the power of YouTube, so if you are a businessman then you might have to compete with other businesses to get attention and eyeballs of people in the process,
you might lose some of the customers to other businesses who do better marketing and create better videos then you might have to spend a lot of money in improving the quality of videos and getting a better camera which can be quite expensive sometimes.
Marketing is KEY
Another disadvantage of using YouTube is marketing and promotion of your videos is very important especially in the early stage of publishing the video because in YouTube, if you want your videos to reach to a broader audience then you must promote your videos to the right audience as soon as You publish the video on the platform unlike blogging where you can promote your YouTube videos whenever you want.
YouTube algorithm works in a way that It tries to promote your audience to a broader audience which is relevant to the niche, You should know that any social media platform is built to maximise the retention of user on the platform,
and YouTube algorithm works for the similar purpose which is to maximise the retention of the user on the platform so that YouTube can make more money through ads, if you are not good at marketing and promotion then you should learn it and check out this article on how to promote YouTube videos.
Less control over the algorithm and platform
Another disadvantage is that you can have less control over the algorithm and the platform.
You should know that more than 70% of all the views of the videos come from recommendations of the videos on YouTube not on search, but you cannot control what kind of videos will be recommended after completion of your videos on your channel and
sometimes YouTube recommendations go very far that it recommends irrelevant videos for you which can lead users to bounce away from the platform so it is highly recommended that you create a playlist of videos that you want your users to watch after completion of the videos to stay connected with your channel.
Regularly upload videos to maintain engagement
Another disadvantage is that you need to regularly upload videos on YouTube to maintain engagement and make your channel alive and stay relevant on YouTube.
You should know that personal brand is a continuous on going process, As long as you are creating and promoting interesting and high quality videos on YouTube, You will stay relevant and the moment you stop creating videos, people will not remember you and your engagement like views, watch time and subscribers will also decrease so does your personal brand and influence on the audience so YouTube is still a very active thing.
These are all the advantages and disadvantages of using YouTube for marketing business and students.
With that said let’s end the article.
Conclusion
These are all the things you need to know about using YouTube for your business and for students.
Do comment on what are your thoughts about choosing YouTube in the comment section below and share the article subscribe to my blog to receive notifications as whenever I publish a new article about any other platform or business.