The Advantages and Disadvantages of YouTube

YouTube is a very popular social media platform nowadays. It’s excellent for personal use, but it can also be used by businesses to build a brand. The videos you upload will not only show up on YouTube but also in different search engines such as Google.

Are you thinking of using YouTube for either your personal use or business purposes? Do you want to know more about the good and bad sides? Make sure to keep reading, as we’ll be explaining both sides in this blog.

Advantages of YouTube

1. Free to use

Uploading and watching videos on YouTube is completely free. This gives you the opportunity to experiment and find out whether it works for you or not without worrying about the costs.

However, recently, YouTube has introduced YouTube Premium. YouTube Premium is a paid subscription that allows you to watch videos without ads, play videos in the background, and allows you to play videos when you’re offline. This also gives you access to YouTube Music Premium (this is a streaming platform) and allows you to watch YouTube original series and movies.

Whether you have a YouTube Premium or a free account, this doesn’t affect the way you can upload videos onto your account. 

 

2. Gives you the opportunity to earn money through your videos

With YouTube, you can earn money for your views. To earn money through your videos, you will have to have a Google AdSense account. Don’t have a Google AdSense account? You are able to create a new Google AdSense account with your YouTube channel.

Aside through Google AdSense, there are different ways you can earn money through YouTube. This can be done through:

• Affiliate Links
• Sponsorships
• Merch and Products
• Selling Digital Products
• Offer Services
• and much more

 

 

3. Easy to Use

YouTube is easy to use for everyone, even if you don’t have any computer skills. Still, don’t know how to use this social media platform? Don’t worry, there are many tutorials out there to show you how to upload a video and much more.

4. An Easy Way to Share Information

With YouTube, you can share a good amount of information to a lot of people in a short time. You can also share information in an entertaining way. This can be in the form of:

• Videos
• Music
• Comedy Sketch
• Video Animation

Like other social media platforms such as Instagram, you can now upload Youtube stories, polls or post updates which can help tremendously with engaging your audience. For example, you could do a poll on which topic your viewers would like to see next, which not only gets your audience involved but lets you understand what people want to see from your channel.

 

5. Backlinks Are Generated 

YouTube can help boost your SEO by creating backlinks. These backlinks can be created when adding your website link onto your profile page and/or within the descriptions of each video you post on your channel. By having your website link see throughout different areas of your channel, this will get the word out about your website, which will, therefore, increase the traffic to it. 

 

 

Disadvantages

1. Everything is Public

YouTube is a public social media platform. This means people don’t need to create an account to see any of your videos you publish on your channels. Also, anyone can post a video. This can cause copyright issues, and there could be issues with privacy invasion.

 

 

2. Many Rules

Like any other social media platform, YouTube has many rules which restrict what you can do within your channel. This can be through terms of optimisation, what things you can post on your channel and how your channel looks.

 

3. Your Account can be Disabled Without Any Reason

If you are in breach of the rules YouTube has, your account can be disabled. This can occur if:

• The content you are publishing is in breach of the Terms of Service and Community Guidelines that you need to agree to create a YouTube Channel.
• You continue to act in predatory behaviour towards other people. Examples of this behaviour are harassment, sexual comments, and spam.
• Your videos are repeatedly reported for claims of copyright infringement.

Your account can be disabled when copying someone’s video idea, or when making a video which doesn’t comply with the terms and conditions. YouTube has the right to delete or disable your channel without any reason provided.

 

 

4. Any advertiser can put an add on your video

This means that even your competitors can run an add on or near your video, which can hurt your brand.

There are many more advantages and disadvantages of YouTube, but these are the ones we think you should know about. It depends on your norms and values which advantage or disadvantage weighs the most for you. Of course, there is nothing wrong with trying out something new. Otherwise, you will never know whether it’s something for you!

 

If you require further help or enquiries regarding any of our services, don’t hesitate to contact Snob Monkey. We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Email: contactus@snobmonkey.com

Telephone: 0800 368 9336

Written by: Danique de Jong