Why YouTube is the Best Social Media Platform

You can build deep connection and trust with YouTube audience. 

Short-form content has one purpose – make them watch till the end and even rewatch them several times. You need to provide this “wow effect”. 

Long-form content is more about providing value, sharing knowledge, creating this positive vibe that makes viewers feel comfortable, cozy, and reduce the level of loneliness. 

One long interview can close all these goals when the short-form clip out of this interview is just a chunk of information. Basically, short-form content is information on a surface level without depth.

Longer Video Duration

Old-fashioned long-form YouTube content is still huge and creators get millions of dollars, they get millions of views on any type of format. No matter if it’s a 10-minute video or a three-hour video. You will get your views.

But to make it work, you need to create a great content, with high CTR (click-through rate), average view duration and not only.  

Diverse Content Formats

Of course, you can create a lot of different short-form content in various styles and formats, but at the same time, you can’t compete with long-form YouTube videos when you can watch a 10-hour video with a view from space (and really like it!).

You can have different pacing and feelings inside storytelling inside only one video. But sometimes you don’t need to worry too much about quality of your video. If you provide value, people will watch you. Even if you just shoot videos with your iPhone.

Searchability and Education

This is one of the reasons why I hate short-form content. Short-form videos on all platforms are hardly discoverable. Probably, you won’t open Google to find this specific YouTube Shorts. 

YouTube is the second largest SEO platform in the world. The first one is Google. As you know YouTube is a part of Google. I’m a big fan of educational and educational videos, but Shorts are not designed for this.

Memorability

I can easily show you dozens of YouTubers that (literally) changed my life. 

Because of Ali Abdaal, I started making content in English.

Because of Matt D’Avella, Better Ideas, I learned a lot about self-development. 

Peter McKinnon, Matti Haapoja and other filmmaker-YouTubers improved my filmmaking and photo skills. 

At the same time, short-form content, well, it’s funny sometimes. Sometimes educational, sometimes emotional. But I can’t remember any cool Shorts which I want to rewatch. Short-form content is like stories on Instagram. Yeah, they are interesting, but useless.

Impact to the World

The next big point why I started making YouTube videos like 10 years ago is the impact on the world, solving different problems. And again, as I said, YouTube is a search-based platform. 

You can easily find how to fix any problem in the world. I use YouTube as a learning machine because I need to learn more about a specific topic. I open YouTube, not TikTok when I need to fix XYZ in my house. 

Yes, you can promote your business on TikTok and Instagram and get leads out of it. But it’s more about brand awareness than fixing the specific problem right here, right now to the specific audience. 

You can watch a cool TikTok tutorial, but will you really implement it in your life? Probably not. You will save it in infinite saved videos or share it with your friend. And that’s all. 

And forget about the video in three minutes after watching it.

But still I create Shorts. A lot of Shorts. Because it’s important for brand awareness and here’s an article how to create them fast.

The Biggest Problem of YouTube

YouTube is the hardest platform in the world compared with other socials. Just to produce a 10-minute YouTube video you need to know a lot of skills:

– how to operate your camera, 

– how to set up the lighting, 

– how to set up your microphone, 

– which app to use to edit your videos, 

– how to create a thumbnail, 

– how to read YouTube Analytics.

Even though it’s pretty simple to create content right now because we have smartphones. Even now, old-fashioned long-form YouTube content is the best option simply because it’s the hardest. 

There is still a market. There’s still demand for this content.

So that’s why my main platform during the last 10 years is YouTube. Of course, I am biased, but I’ve tried to make a lot of content on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitch. I had several podcasts. 

I grew bunch of YouTube-channels in various niches. And now I grow YouTube-channel for business owners and online experts.

After a lot of tries, a lot of failures, a lot of mistakes, I still think that YouTube is the best platform to grow and to make an impact. When I’m not creating YouTube content (like in six months of inactivity), I have this feeling: 

“Oh, I want to record a video.”

That’s really valuable feeling that I don’t want to lose.