This guy left Youtube, should you follow him?

it's a good point to never just rely on one source of traffic for your business.

Good post, and interesting video. He's right, don't rely on one source of traffic. In my niche I've seen some great websites and they still host their videos on YouTube. I reckon that it takes away a bit of authority to do so.

Yes YouTube is monolithicly huge, but for me, hosting my own videos, playing through my own player is ( for me), the way to go.

Again, goid post. Thanks for the share

James

Google owns and advertises Youtube ... should be ok for a while.

I know of some people who relied on YouTube to build their business online. It has worked for them for years while they sat back and did not know what's coming their way.

Then one day, YouTube shut the doors on them and their 100's of videos. Their income went down the hill and their traffic stopped.

You can never rely on any ONE single strategy to bring you traffic for life. It's kind of like putting all your eggs into one basket and then that basket falls down and all your eggs break.

Same thing with SEO. People work their tail off thinking that this is the best way to go but what happens if Google slaps you one day and your site is no where to be seeing? Then what are you going to do?

You need to have multiple places bringing you daily traffic.

Wow! This is really a nice video....
Never depend on single source of traffic... use multiple source otherwise everything will washed away

Nice video, a fairly balanced argument and it's clearly been thought through well.

However to all the people saying "never depend on one source of traffic" it's not as easy as that when it comes to video marketing! Don't get me wrong I totally agree with you, diversifying your traffic sources is essential if you want to thrive in the long term. But in this specific case it's similar to saying "just don't sell on eBay, use your own ecommerce store". The advantage YouTube gives us (just like Google) is a captive and loyal flow of users. That is why the author/presenter of this video claims he'll still be using YouTube (but as a profit centre). Vimeo could never plug the hole that youtube would leave.

Using Vimeo PRO secures your embeds across the web and allows you to be content in what you show to people. But unlike youtube it does little to actually GENERATE interest, demand and leads.

Just my 2 cents.

Classic case of all your eggs in one basket... You should be SYNDICATING your content to youtube, not RELYING on youtube as a platform for your business.

Thousands of YouTube Partners alone make 6 figures per year in advertising and sponsorship, and although I don't condone relying on one source of traffic or income I still have the feeling it's pretty solid.

I love YouTube but I also use it to build my own blog and email list which I back up daily. I trust YouTube more than HostGator or any email marketing service.

It's always smart decision to promote your
online business on different places (sites).
I completely agree with you that YT shouldn't
be your only promotion channel.

But on the other hand I don't support leaving
YT, because it is a big traffic source.

It's always good to have a Plan B (and C and D).

However, Youtube gives opportunities to make money and increase reach and exposure you can't find anywhere else.

Yes, this is damn right. No one should rely on a one way traffic for always.

Relying on Google for anything is a very bad idea.

Just use them as the tool they are but never rely on them exclusively.

In their tug of war with stupid spammers a lot of innocent folks get the shaft.

I get the hosting part, but you still have to have videos on youtube to get youtube search traffic and would still be vulnerable to their policy. Isn't the benefit of youtube their search traffic?

Stopped reading when he said "We upload 60,000 billion videos every millisecond"

It's been about a year since this happened and I just wanted to give a quick update. I did not "leave" YouTube. But I did open a Vimeo Pro account and usually keep a copy of that week's video there just in case someone tries to take the YouTube version down.

As some have pointed out here, YouTube is too big to ignore, if only for discovery purposes. However, it will become less necessary to use it over time for business unless your business model relies on frequent turnover. In that case, you're bound to YouTube, which presents its own set of challenges.

Having a clear channel management policy is critical. In any business you cannot afford to put all your eggs in one basket.

Youtube is great for traffic but they will not listen to you if you cross the lines accidentaly or if someone does that to you. using multiple sources of traffic is advisable.

What's scary is how easy it would be for a bad guy to sabotage your Youtube videos with fake views. And, Youtube doesn't seem to really care if you're being sabotaged or not.