YouTube is an American video-sharing platform which was developed in California in 2005, which was later acquired by Google in 2006 and now operates under Google. It has grown since its launch and today millions of people around the world have access to YouTube through which they are able to share their content to people around the world and view their content as well. As of 2017, YouTube is ranked as second most popular website around the world, with millions of people adding their content every day.
YouTube focuses on the producers of content mainly because they think that they will act as a driving force to attract more users on their website. Since its launch, YouTube has been encouraging the producers of content to share their videos on their platform and later developed a share button so that these producers share their videos on other platform and drive traffic towards their videos and eventually towards YouTube. YouTube also shares ad revenue with a few video content producers to encourage them. In this way, by focusing on the producers and providing incentives to them, YouTube has been able to develop a strategy that acts as their competitive advantage in the market.
With a lot of competitors following the same business model and with the launch of Amazon Video Direct, it was expected that YouTube may face immense competition but with such intense competition in the industry, YouTube has still been able to survive and shine among these competitors. One of the reasons for this is the fact that YouTube has developed its own brand name and eventually influence other brands. People and brands are able to influence their viewers and then monetize on their own content. YouTube provides this platform to users to produce content that can influence people around the world as well as make money for themselves. A lot of competitors follow the same strategy but YouTube still remains in pioneer and first choice for producers to create influence through their content.
It is a considerable fact that YouTube faces a huge competition from Facebook, with it allowing sharing of video content and Facebook Live videos and the video views on Facebook may decrease the views on YouTube. Despite this strong competition, YouTube has the advantage of exclusively being a video content site with millions of loyal content creators and content viewers. It is also a fact that these loyal users will always consider YouTube as their first choice when it comes to searching the library of videos. Moreover, it has loyal partnerships as well very strong distribution channels. All these factors add on to the competitive advantage of YouTube and make it grow every year, despite so many competitors entering the industry.
References
About Youtube. Retrieved December 27, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/
Ingham, E. (2015, August 13). Facebook’s Battle For Supremacy With YouTube Is Frustrating, But It’s A Golden Opportunity For Brands. Retrieved December 27, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/edmundingham/2015/08/12/heres-whats-so-frustrating-about-facebook-vs-youtube-and-heres-how-your-brand-can-take-advantage/#4f9d5b85fabc
Leonard, T. J. (2016, June 9). Amazon vs. YouTube: Why the content creator is the ultimate winner. Retrieved December 27, 2017, from https://www.recode.net/2016/6/9/11886568/video-platforms-amazon-youtube-content-creator-video-direct
Vimeo vs. MegaUpload vs. YouTube: Contrasting Strategies Of Competing Platforms. Retrieved December 27, 2017, from http://platformed.info/vimeo-megaupload-youtube-online-video-platforms/