5 Companies Who Used YouTube to Dominate the Industry – TrackMaven

5 Companies Who Used YouTube to Dominate the Industry

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Thanks to today’s marketing tools, companies have unparalleled opportunities to launch their brands into the public eye.

No, YouTube isn’t necessarily a “new” tool, but it is one that we feel could be more widely utilized. Videos that go viral have the potential to put your business on the map.

Just take a quick look at some YouTube stats below. With more than one billion unique users across 56 countries, and six billion hours of total videos watched, it’s easy to see why YouTube is so influential.

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5 Companies Who Used YouTube to Dominate the Industry

The Benefits of Using Videos

Videos are powerful storytelling mediums that have a longer shelf life than other forms of marketing (like a tweet or a Facebook post).

Facebook posts spend an average of 22 hours in users’ newsfeeds and with the recent newsfeed algorithm change its lifespan is even shorter. YouTube videos? These have the potential to be epic. People are still talking about The Dollar Shave Club video, for instance.

YouTube video stats are pretty compelling. On average, 40% of total views happen within the first 3 weeks of a video being published. The next 30% happen between 4 and 12 weeks. The remaining 30% of views happen between 12 and 52 weeks.

There’s also a direct correlation with the number of videos you have, the total views, and your audience size:

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Seems like a no brainer, right? Well, now let’s analyze some YouTube legends:

1. Dove Real Beauty Sketches

Over the past few years, Dove’s Real Beauty campaign has touched many women. Dove found that only 4% of women actually think they are beautiful, and that their biggest hindrance is their own minds.

This year, Dove stepped up their game when they released a YouTube video called “Dove Real Beauty Sketches.” Dove’s goal of the video was to inspire the 96% of women who don’t find themselves beautiful. Women were asked to describe their features to a FBI-trained sketch artist, based on their own self-perception.

Then the artist drew a second sketch, but this sketch was given by a stranger of the woman.

What was crazy about the video was that the stranger’s descriptions were more attractive and similar to what the subjects actually looked like.

Dove’s video was was the most shared link in Mashable’s history with a total of 1.9 million Facebook shares. There is no question that Dove dominated YouTube in 2013.

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2. Redbull

Do you remember Red Bull’s Stratos Skydive? It set a record for the ‘live stream with the most concurrent views ever on YouTube’ — 8 million.

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Red Bull Stratos was a skydive where Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space, approximately 24 miles above earth. Yes, it was a crazy record breaking stunt.

The mission successfully got Baumgartner to the ground after he reached the speed of sound (833.9 miles per hour). He became the first skydiver to ever reach these speeds.

Red Bull heavily promoted this event across their social media and PR, and they knocked YouTube’s stats out of the universe (quite literally!), with an additional 3.1 million tweets that were sent about the event.

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Red Bull really set the bar with this stunt, and now they have thousands of followers who actively watch all of their various series that includes the best action clips on the web.

3. Old Spice

Recognize this guy?

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The Old Spice guy turned into an overnight internet sensation - all because one of the videos went viral. Until this marketing campaign, Old Spice was perceived as a static brand. Procter & Gamble gave the Old Spice persona a twist through this marketing campaign — the social media buzz really changed the way people looked at the brand, and YouTube.

Well, Old Spice kept their YouTube marketing strong with the introduction of a new character, Wolfdog. Who is Wolfdog? He’s the new Chief Director of Marketing to promote the Old Spice Wild Collection.

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What users love about the videos are their clever and hilarious style. With over 252 million total views, and over 320,000 subscribers, Old Spice has officially established itself as the King of Commercials.

4. The Home Depot

Another YouTube channel that sets the bar high is The Home Depot. The reason they stand out is because they do a seriously awesome job at creating content that is relevant to their users. By bringing real value to their customers and promoting specific products they sell, The Home Depot is winning at YouTube.

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The coolest part, at least in my opinion, is that the videos aren’t overdone. They are very simple, provide the steps for the project, and are always hosted with a Home Depot representative.

Hands down, the Home Depot wins for the home improvement projects.

5. Khush

Prerna Gupta, co-founder at mobile app developer Khush, just wrote an amazing story about her experience growing her company’s user base to more than 1 million users.

When pitching her “reverse karaoke” app LaDiDa, she used YouTube videos of the product in action:

These YouTube videos were ‘just okay,’ as she puts it. People liked the videos, but they weren’t viral.

“So, on the next iteration of the product, we added vocal effects that work alongside the reverse karaoke technology to “make bad singers sound good,” and my CTO started demoing the app instead of me, with videos of himself singing badly,” she writes.

Downloads started ramping up, and the app hit millions of installs.

Why?

Because Prerna and her CTO built the marketing into her company’s core product. The videos were just a storytelling tool to highlight the value that was already there.

“To make a product sell itself, you have to build marketing into the product,” she says.

Your Favorites?

So there you have it — our top list of companies who have been killing it on YouTube. What were some of your favorites in 2014? What companies do you think will be the big Hollywood successes of 2014? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Be real, be funny and be resourceful.

Owen Fuller founded Fit Marketing in 2009 and it has grown by over 100% each year. He is a Czech-speaking Alaskan who is determined to make Fit the best inbound marketing company in the world. You can request a consultation with Owen and his team at Fit Marketing.