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Believe it or not, we all are communicating with videos much more today than ever before. Many businesses are already inclined towards video marketing as it has become the most powerful way to connect with the audience.

When it comes to reaching a wider audience, most businesses often consider YouTube. Since it is a social media leader and the largest online video destination with over 1.9 billion active users monthly. At some point in time, even you should have considered YouTube as one of your marketing channels. Haven’t you?

Stats are surely intriguing to read. But, the number of users and statistics alone are no good reason, for a business to pounce on YouTube. Having that said, you should ask yourself a question – ‘Does YouTube help my business?’

Because as with any marketing decision, you need to be careful about the tool or platform you choose. If you are looking for a professional video platform to meet your business goals and generate leads, you must know YouTube doesn’t always work well and give you the best results. But don’t take my word for it!

Here are all the reasons why you should NOT use YouTube videos as a solution for your business:

7 reasons why businesses should not use YouTube

Reason #1 – The never-ending ‘Skip Ad’ game

YouTube Ads get on my nerves every time I watch a video. In fact, Ads appear even before I start to watch a video. As you know, there is not much we can do other than wait helplessly for the ‘Skip Ad’ to appear.

When a person clicks on your video, there’s a good chance they’ll come across a 15-second advertisement and lose interest before they dig into the actual video. This is why you must choose an ad-free viewing platform for your audience.

Reason #2 – YouTube is famous for entertainment based content

You can utilize YouTube to manage your content under multiple channels and to make your videos accessible. But, if you intend to use YouTube to build a video strategy, you need to rethink about your approach. Because YouTube users don’t care about business videos. It turns out, most of the people who come to YouTube are likely to watch a TV show, music videos, or a web series rather than business videos.

If you see the most viewed YouTube videos of all time, almost all the videos are related to entertainment-based content. Besides, the categories that YouTube offers are entertainment-based.

Reason #3 – YouTube doesn’t focus on the Target Audience

Are you able to reach your target audience with your YouTube videos?

Before you give an answer, do you know what is the ‘Percentage of US internet users aged 13-17 that use YouTube? It is 88%’. Yes, your videos are most likely watched by teens.

It might be tempting for you to choose YouTube when you see the number of video views. After all, YouTube is owned by Google. All YouTube videos will be listed on the top for every related search. A video ranking on the first page may get you more video views, but views alone won’t help business.

Reason #4 – The Risk of Alternate Suggestions

Once in a blue moon, even if you get your target audience to watch your video, YouTube directs them to other related content. Wait, are you helping your competitors? I must tell, you have a generous heart. It might help your viewers but not your business.

YouTube has a habit of suggesting similar videos. Once your video ends, YouTube drives all of your visitors from your site to similar websites or brands and businesses. This is a massive nosedive in your conversion funnel.

The image below displays a video from coca cola. If you notice the highlighted area in the below right-corner, Pepsi videos are suggested.

Reason #5 – Limited Brand Customization

YouTube does not provide any tools to customize the video page or player within their platform. When people watch your video, would you want them to remember and engage with your brand, or would you host your video on YouTube where they’d just watch your video alone? I’ll leave this to you.

But, to craft an amazing brand video, I would suggest you choose a video hosting platform that lets you customize your player as well as the page where you embed your video.

The image below is a video hosted on YouTube. The player will contain only a play button with no branding:

When it comes to a professional hosting platform, you can customize your player as well as the video page to match your brand.

Reason #6 – Insufficient Video Performance Reports

YouTube offers fundamental analytics from which you can know very little about your visitors’ behavior and interaction with your video. To craft videos that your audience expect, you must understand your viewer’s. Even though YouTube provides a good overall report, you can’t depend on that alone to understand your individual audience.

To gain detailed insights into your viewer’s behavior, you need a solid hosting platform. Individual viewer report helps you get a clear picture on how an individual is performing, what your viewers like the most in your video, the number of videos each viewer has watched, and most importantly, the actions they take on your videos.

Reason #7 – Poor Privacy & Support

As there are not a lot of security features available, your videos on YouTube can be downloaded anytime and anywhere. Your valuable video content is easy to steal and reuse. To protect your video content, choose a platform which offers features to guard your videos.

The image below displays the privacy options that Hippo Video offers:

And, when it comes to reaching their support center, well, I have tried to contact their team three to four times to be precise. I’m not at all surprised to not get any response from them. Just in case, if you ever have a problem using YouTube, just know that there would be no one from their side to guide you.

If any of these are your concerns, then you might want to consider a professional hosting provider instead of YouTube. Or, if you still think that YouTube will fit into your business marketing strategy, we would love to hear why in the comments below. Follow us on Twitter for more updates!