GOOGLE PLUS + YOUTUBE INTEGRATION? THE NECESSARY EVIL...

Yep. Another one of these posts. 

I'm not going to go into some deep, depressing rant about this topic since MANY have already shared their views and updates regarding this social media integration but I will add myself to the list of thoughts and small talk.

How do you feel about the Youtube and Google Plus integration that's been happening? For those who aren't in business, it probably sucks and is beyond confusing, but for many marketers and biz owners, including myself, this is the perfect way to build our social influence and be recognized for it. Let me explain... 



Quick Facts:

• Youtube is the #3 largest, most interactive online community on the planet. Go figure... 
• Google+ comes in at #2, right behind social beast, Facebook.
• Google Search is still the world's most popular search engine to date. (I guess it pays to self-diagnose your symptoms after all right? Ha!)

Photo: Mashable

You may be one of those people who would hop on Youtube to checkout a few videos to share, find some new people to subscribe to, and so forth. You may also be someone who noticed that for the past few months, you've been suddenly prompted by that annoying notification to switch your Youtube name to your real name for some strange reason right? If you didn't do it right then, oh... they made no excuse to say "we'll ask again later". Later being 10 minutes later as you try to leave a comment on a video you found to be hilarious! You're not alone. 

For those of you who don't keep up with the world of social media, the relationship between both Google and Youtube is nothing short of old news. Did you know that Google acquired Youtube back in 2009 for a whopping $1.65 BILLION?! Mind you, Youtube launched in 2008 but of course, when it comes to money and a platform that was already dubbed as "one of the largest and fastest growing online video entertainment communities" in existence, you bet your Aunt Fanny that Google was all over it! 

Social media is forever changing so this didn't come as a surprise. Remember when I mentioned Instagram visual marketing being a big thing for major brands and campaigns? No surprise there either. 

There have been quite a few problems with the Youtube and Google Plus Integration though. For starters, if you didn't have a Youtube account before, you can't fully enjoy it now unless you create a Google Plus profile, which will automatically be synced to Youtube. No subscribing, liking, commenting, or sharing for you unless you do that. Bummer. I thought that fact was kind of unruly. You can't force someone to get another social platform if they didn't want it to begin with. 

Did they do enough when Gmail users all were given a G+ page with their email accounts? Makes you wonder if Youtube lost any users because of this? If I were to think Youtube was the biggest ponzi scheme in the nation (which I do. *cough*), I'd say, they won't lose much of anything. 

Even I revolve part of my social life around the video monster. It's like a school, lunch time, recess session, legal court, mall of America, and psychologist all in one and the tuition is free! Get it? 

On the upside, I thing the integration between Youtube and Google Plus is quite clever. I can get jiggy with it. After all, I have been working my way to increase usage and engagement on Google Plus. Here are a few things online marketers, promoters, content creators, and businesses should know:

1. For video, there is advanced annotations now that allow you to create direct connect annotations within your YouTube videos directly to your Google Plus account associated with your channel.
2. Google Hangouts On Air can be directly broadcast to your YouTube channel. As if you didn't know this already! I've been using it since last summer!
3. Could "possibly" improve your online ranking. Possibly being a major CAN. Creating a great video that is SEO-optimized to rank at the top of Google, now with comments being moderated by Google... I see great things in the future of rank and SEO.

Pretty cool for us peeps! Even though the Youtube and Google Plus integration was reallllly grinding my gears with the constant prompting me to switch, I finally did it! THAT created yet another page ...hooray *rolls eyes*! But no biggie, at least I can easily add new videos in relation to my design biz without creating an entirely new account from scratch!

Quick Fact:

"The number of Google+ users has risen to 359+ million active users, up from 269 million at the end of last June (2012), a 33% increase according to the GlobalWebIndex. Requiring, or at least making it somewhat difficult to register any new Google account, whether it be Gmail or otherwise without automatically being given a Google+ profile doesn’t hurt either considering the company’s dominance in that area." (Simon Search Marketing)

My conclusion. It may take some getting use to for those who only use it for leisure purposes and because I've seen the Youtube layout change numerous times within the last few months, I now have to get use to Youtube being fully integrated with Google Plus, why not make the best of it? I sure will! 

Share your thoughts in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you!

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