Well, I’ve done Facebook, so might as well move onto YouTube right? Facebook of course has video, and who will win the YouTube vs. Facebook video showdown is very much up for debate. Due to the tech of both of the platforms being at the top of their game, and the user community of YouTube being just as atrocious as the Facebook there aren’t many surface level differences. So what distinguishes YouTube from Facebook?
How to Videos:
YouTube has always been a great channel for getting to how to videos. Everything from car repairs to software programming videos are on the site. Does the same content exist on Facebook? Let’s see…
Comparing the two, YouTube looks much cleaner, and more to the point. I don’t see a “Trending” bar on the right side of the screen, or my Facebook friend’s post as the first result. This may be due to YouTube being owned by Google, but the search results are much cleaner and to the point.
Subscriptions:
In my Facebook post, I mentioned the low quality of content on the Facebook professional groups. With YouTube, the focus isn’t on the social aspect. When subscribing to a channel, all that is presented to the viewer is content from the channel. Due to this, the potential effect that the vapid user base of YouTube could have on getting to the content is minimized. Facebook puts the user community interactions front and center, while YouTube makes you dig to the comments section to interact with the fellow users.
I subscribed to three channels, The Economist, Fizzle, and TedxTalks in order to explore a range of topics applicable to my career. While the focus of each of these three channels is different, the general reasoning behind the selections is that I want resources centered around world events and trends, with Fizzle throwing in more specific information on marketing, entrepreneurship, and building a brand. Having targeted content at your fingertips is always a good thing in my book. The other big plus of YouTube? Whatever of these three channels that I navigate to on YouTube, the information is displayed efficiently and the noise present in Facebook is not present.
Establishing an Online Presence:
YouTube offers to host videos for free, so why not take advantage of this…
The other plus? My high school friends aren’t friends with me on YouTube, so this is totally green pasture. Hosting videos on YouTube seems to be yet another location that an online presence can be established that is professionally facing. Overall, YouTube is much more usable and useful for video sharing and sharing non-personal information. I much prefer the subscriptions and search engine of YouTube to Facebook’s clutter.
If you are trying to build a personal brand, or learn about…really anything I guess? YouTube is a great source. Find channels that would be helpful, subscribe, and watch the content in an incredible friendly user interface. Additionally, if the mood strikes, anyone can easily post an elevator pitch to add a more personal touch to their online presence. If I have anything technical to show, or how to videos that I’m going to do, they will be on YouTube. At this point, I’m fully content to be a watcher until I have content that will be enhanced by sharing through video.
Michael Greis 