Though YouTube is a vogue online platform, there remains a critical question: “Is YouTube social media?” The debate over whether the platform is social media has been pervasive since its genesis in 2005 as a video-sharing platform. It was further revolutionized after Google bought it in 2006.
From mobile apps and browser shortcuts to the main screen option in smart TVs, YouTube has penetrated almost every digital dimension.
Almost 2 decades after its release, the question about its existence as a social media remains intact. Taking cues from its basic characters, let’s understand its position in the realm of social media.
Firstly let’s understand what social media typically means. In fundamental terms, social media is defined as a digital platform that facilitates content development and sharing and boosts interaction between communities on the internet. YouTube has emerged as one of the most used online platforms for sharing digital content.
Initially launched as a video-sharing platform, it has grown to include shorts, community posts, live streams, broadcasts, and webinars, making relation-building more convenient. It provides an interface for sharing videos, community posts, and carousel photos along with features such as likes, dislikes, and comments to simplify public interaction.
All these points aggregate to depict YouTube as a social media platform.
Let’s get deeper into it and analyze it from every possible perspective.
The prime motive of YouTube was to create a platform for sharing videos. Besides, certain other noteworthy features make YouTube a distinguished online platform, but does YouTube count as social media?
Let’s go through the features that bring it into the domain of social media platforms.
YouTube is the most used video-sharing platform globally, with 2.4 bn active users. Earlier developed for video sharing, now it is admired for shorts. YouTube CEO Neil Mohan has also emphasized the role of shorts in his future strategy for YouTube. The video creation, sharing, and removal are open and free, with an upper limit of videos being 12 hours in length or 256 GB in size.
The features of creating accounts and channels, conducting live-streaming, and providing an interface for discussion help people engage in its content. Other audience-focused features such as views count, likes, dislikes, comments, likes and dislikes on comments, subscribing and unsubscribing the channel, conducting polls, sharing, saving, and downloading a video make YouTube exceptionally appealing.
Users can customize the verified accounts and channels as per their requirements. Video uploading and managing options such as upload limit, file format, video thumbnail, and scheduling a video upload make posting content on the channel easier. Furthermore, managing each video with a personalized setting, and making a playlist of correlated videos help keep the content segregated and representable to the netizens.
YouTube has gradually materialized to provide a podium for influencers to augment their reach. The podcasts and interviews have come as a breakthrough to make it a top choice for people. Mr. Beast, Pewdiepie, Coco Melon for Children, and scores of such viral channels with huge fan bases have stormed YouTube.
The monetization policy of YouTube further encourages the users to appear and share on it. The feature of running ads with the video helps it to expand its tentacles among the public. YouTube is also testing picture-in-picture ads and ad-blocking features to make it more user-friendly.
These factors expose the key features of YouTube to make it into the category of social media.
But in which category of social media does YouTube fit? Let’s explore.
Social media websites and apps have become our daily life virtual hangout spots. We interact with online communities through different social media platforms. Based on their purpose, social media platforms are segregated into certain categories. Let’s understand them through pictorial representation.
YouTube has many features that are consonant with most of the above-mentioned categories. Let’s take a look at how it is associated with different categories:
YouTube has turned up as a multifunctional platform, providing features congruent with other social media platforms. As it is largely considered a video-sharing platform, the question that still hovers is, is YouTube a social media? Let’s compare it one-on-one with other renowned social media platforms.
Continuing in the same direction, here is a tabulated comparison between YouTube and other social media platforms based on their contrasting features.
| Features\Social Media Platforms | YouTube | Reddit/Quora | X (Twitter) | ||
| Long Video sharing(Maximum Length) | ✅(12 hours) | ✅(4 hours) | ✅(In Feed Videos) (1 Hour) | ❌ | ❌ |
| Short Video Sharing(length of the video to be uploaded) | ✅SHORTS(15-60 seconds) | ✅STORIES(1- 120 seconds) | ✅REELS (15-90 Seconds) | ✅Up to 15 minutes | ✅(½ -140 Seconds) |
| Video Monetisation | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Pre-installed on SmartPhone | ✅ (Not in IOS) | ✅/❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Live Streaming | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ |
Being a platform with a huge content load and remarkable features of interaction, where does it stand in competition with other social media platforms? Let’s find out.
Out of all embedded apps pre-installed in a smartphone, YouTube has surpassed other apps in the frequency of usage, making it one of the most engaging and appealing social media platforms.
From the Datareportal Analysis (July 2024), the following insights have been deduced.
The cause of such popularity among its users has been due to the multiple purposes it serves. Let’s take a glance at its uses.
Though YouTube emerged as a video-sharing platform, it has propagated as a leading interface for virtual associations. This has made YouTube stand out to cater to certain intents.
Examining every locus associated with YouTube, is YouTube considered a social media? Some prominent opinions go against this perspective. What are they?
The question over the existence of YouTube as social media has a hind side, i.e. what makes it to be excluded from the fringes of a general social media platform?
While some people consider YouTube a social media site, others consider it a TV station stuffed with user-generated content. The live channels, podcasts, broadcasts, YouTube music, and being intrinsically embedded in smart TVs make it more like a telecasting medium than a social media.
Sometimes it is also categorized as a search engine for videos and similar content. Being the most used video-sharing platform, it is the prompt option for everyone to share their videos and the first choice to search for one when they desire. Being native to Google makes it a search domain for videos over Google search as well.
The feature of immortalized content on YouTube also makes some people call it a video storehouse. The digital content uploaded on YouTube remains intact until either the owner deletes it or YouTube takes it down for foiling its guidelines. This makes it a repository of videos, clips, and visual content.
After exploring all the facets of YouTube, it becomes tough to judge whether YouTube is considered social media or not, continuing the debate over its existence as a social media platform. But as billions of data spaces are used every day for sharing videos and shorts, which makes it more fascinating and instigates people’s engagement, it brings it into the periphery of social media.
YouTube CEO, NEIL MOHAN has outlined his strategy, encompassing its availability on all devices, coupling it with AI, and focusing on streaming services. This vision will further navigate, expand, and change the face of the social media landscape.
The attributes such as posting free content, responding to posts through comments, likes, dislikes, multiple options to share the content, and subscribe and unsubscribe features make it a potent social media platform.
Being preinstalled in smartphones (androids) and smart TVs, having Google as its parent site, and the feature of SHORTS make it the most admired social media platform.
As per Forbes, the minimum average cost of a sponsored YouTube video with 1 million views is $2,500.
The primary function of YouTube as a social media is to provide a platform for sharing videos and facilitating people’s interaction through features such as uploading a video, liking or disliking a video, sharing, commenting, and subscribing to the channels.
YouTube is considered a video-sharing social media platform that provides an interface to create and share videos, shorts, photos, and community posts to engage with people on YouTube.
An Internet platform that provides an interface for people’s engagement, content creation, sharing, and exchanging ideas, opinions, and information through virtual means. Some examples of popular social media are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
YouTube shorts (15-60-second clips) started in 2020, are a medium for sharing content over the internet. They are short and crisp extracts of a long video and thus are considered social media.
The primary function of YouTube is to create and share videos, which helps in instant and extended entertainment. Being preloaded on most smartphones and smart TVs makes it promptly available to the people making it more engaging. The emergence of shorts has further grabbed people’s attention.
