In the next 60 seconds, 300 hours of video will

In the next 60 seconds, 300 hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube

posted on December 2, 2014

youtube-upload-300x251YouTube’s stats page says that people are uploading 100 hours worth of new videos every minute. ReelSEO says they have it on good authority, that the number is now closer to 300 hours of new uploads every minute and I believe it.

I’ve developed the habit of watching videos every night before I go to bed. More often than not, there are so many new videos in my feed, I don’t have to look elsewhere for entertainment. Let me put this in perspective. I only follow 26 people and I get 3-5 new updates per day. The majority of the people I follow upload videos that are no less than 7 minutes and can be up to 40 minutes. That means, I’m seeing anywhere from an hour to 3 hours of new content per night.

Now multiply that times the millions of people who upload to the site and yes. . . it’s easy to see how we could hit 300 hours per minute.

That’s not to say it’s 300 hours of worthwhile content or even mildly watchable content. I’ve seen videos that are nothing more than 10 seconds of a camera pointed at a stationary object. But there are also thousands of people making good money with the content they upload to the site.

This is all good news for marketers, right? More videos means more opportunities to run ads that people will click on. Sure, but here’s the thing; ReelSEO did the math and it turns out that even though there’s been a 200% increase in video uploads, there’s only been a 32% increase in video ad views. So maybe there’s an over-supply of videos with little demand for ads? If there’s plenty of supply, prices will go down and YouTubers will have to create even more content just to make what they were making a year ago.

Here’s another thing, uploading more 30 second pre-roll ads to attach to all of those new videos might be good for vidders but not so good for marketers. A new study from Millward Brown shows that long-form ads and extremely short ads both perform better than the traditional 30 second ad. What they’re really talking about are stand-alone ads that look more like content than an advertisement. Get it right and the rewards are hugh:

GoPro HERO4: The Adventure of Life in 4K is a 4 minute, enthralling experience that now has over 18,205,000 views.

Just Dance Now with Coca-Cola and Les Twins is nearly 2 minutes long and has 11, 450,000 views.

These are two examples of ads that are thinly disguised as cool content. No pre-rolls here, just stand alone, shareable content.

On the other end, we have 15 second Vine videos that are viral hits.

And let’s not forget those glorious unboxing videos. Unboxing video views are up 57% over last year. Want a piece of that? Easy. Just create your own version or sign on with a vidder who is already celebrating your product as it comes out of the box.

Video is hot and getting hotter. If you’re not doing much in this space, put it on your To Do list for 2015. Forget traditional ads – it’s way past time to think outside of the 30-second pre-roll box.