When Facebook reached 500 million active users, many made bets on whether or not a social network, alone, could reach one billion. And Facebook got it in September 2012. Now it seems that there are no new frontiers to reach, except perhaps that other networks reach the same level of popularity.

Meanwhile, and quietly, YouTube has reached an extension that does not seem to catch the attention of companies. News broke that YouTube had achieved the billionth of unique users accessing the network monthly, one in every two users on the Internet. But nevertheless, the interest in the users does not seem to correspond to the interest of the companies, that continue dedicating to Facebook and Twitter the majority of its budgets, and ignoring to YouTube.

IF we had to examine what is happening we could distinguish five reasons why companies are wrong to be leaving behind perhaps the most strategic channel on the net:

• Facebook has more than one billion active users a month.
• It is the second most used search engine, after Google and ahead of Bing or Yahoo!
• In 2012, according to SundaySky, the video was chosen by internet users as the preferred content.
• User communities on YouTube are very big and very enthusiastic. While in other social networks, as in the case of Facebook, people’s networks are built on personal knowledge, on YouTube communities are unknown, that instead of organizing around common connections, are organized around their passions, As religion, political affiliation, etc.
• As large companies start taking positions, most of our companies’ competition is not yet on YouTube, which is a major advantage for anyone who takes the necessary steps.

Other data reinforce this trend. For the third consecutive year, YouTube has been the channel that a large majority of companies indicate they will increase their investments in marketing and social media, according to the results of the survey conducted every year by the Social Media Examiner, entitled “Social Media Marketing Report.”

This year, 69% of respondents say they plan to increase their marketing efforts on YouTube in the near future to take full advantage of the potential and potential of online videos, while another 17% plan to maintain current levels of online video. investment. Only 13% say they have no plans to use the platform. Last year, the figures reflected a 76% increase in activity compared to 10% of those who did not intend to include YouTube in their marketing plans.

To highlight its relevance, we can highlight some interesting facts about this platform and its current impact on the internet.

• Receives more than  800 million unique visitors  to  month. Have you ever wondered what this means? More than the total population in Europe!
• Every minute  is up 72 hours of video to the Internet. More than a decade of daily content!
• Every day millions of people see  video clips, ads, tutorials and presentations.  We live in a world where are  200 billion online videos per month.
• 4 billion  hours of video  are seen  monthly. Over 450,000 years of video watched per month!
• Daily  they occur  million subscriptions. Through the subscriptions you can connect with other professionals, clients or with whom you are most interested.
• 25%  of the global video views take place on  mobile devices.
• More than  400 million mobile devices  have YouTube.
• More than 1 billion views on mobile phones take place on YouTube every day.

It is perhaps the time to start thinking not because, but when we are going to use YouTube.