Record number of video views in April

YouTube viewing is up and that can only mean one thing - overall online video viewership is up, too. According to the latest numbers from metrics firm comScore, Americans watched nearly 17 billion video clips in April.

by Kristina Knight

That is a 16% increase over March viewing numbers, and is attributable to the increase in videos viewed at Google's YouTube hub. Researchers found that 6.8 video clips were watched through Google, of which 40% were watched on YouTube. Fox Interactive ranked second with 5.1 billion clips viewed, a 3% increase and relative newcomer Hulu ranked third with 3.9 billion clips, a 2.4% increase over March. Yahoo Sites (3.5 billion clips) and Viacom Digital (3.1 billion clips) rounded out the top five.

Although video has caught on with the viewing public, there is still room to grow for marketers. With the number of video advertising units available, some marketers still don't understand how to use the method correctly. Rather than developing online campaigns, some are still using television ads in the online space (mistake #1) or are not creating content that enhances the video product (mistake #2).

For better online video results, experts report that video has to be approached as a source of unique content. Using product demos is one way to add to the value of video on a website, but for sponsoring video content, a simple ad will likely do the trick.

Tags: comScore World Metrix, online video, video advertising, viral marketing