SmallBusinessNewz

Over the past year or two, online video has become a much more widely discussed topic for businesses and marketers, not to mention entertainment. There have been many strides made on a variety of different levels (many of them discussed here).

Here are some stats to chew on from a comScore report for July:

- 81% of the total US Internet audience viewed online video

- The average online video viewer watched 500 minutes of video, or 8.3 hours.

- 120.3 million viewers watched 8.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (74.1 videos per viewer).

- 48.2 million viewers watched 518.6 million videos on MySpace.com (10.8 videos per viewer).

- The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.

If those stats weren't enough, allow me to briefly discuss ten more reasons why you may want to consider implementing some kind of online video strategy.

1. YouTube has its own AdSense now.

Earlier this month, YouTube announced it would begin implementing an AdSense-like program, which would allow promoted videos to appear on watch pages throughout the site.

2. People are watching videos on Facebook.

Facebook is rivaling Google these days for where people are spending their time online. People are also frequently sharing videos on the popular social network, not to mention broadcasting them directly from it.

3. People are watching videos on Twitter.

Twitter doesn't exactly have the reach that Facebook does, but as you're probably well aware, Twitter awareness is growing rapidly, and there are ways to broadcast videos via Twitter.

4. People are watching videos on their phones

No matter what site they're coming from, people are watching more videos on their smartphones. This is a device that users have with them all day long. It is also a likely killer of time when users have said time to kill.

5. Online video drives user engagement

Studies show that online video is driving user engagement. This article discusses one in particular from Yahoo, Interpret, Havas Digital, Warner Bros., and PHD.

6. Rank in Google's Universal Search

Videos frequently appear in regular Google web search results, via Google's Universal Search. Google's Matt Cutts recently discussed factors to take into consideration with regards to this.

7. You can take your online videos to TV or your TV videos to online

There are ways to get the videos you create online to actual living room television sets. You're probably familiar with Google TV ads. If you're already advertising on TV, you can take these ads online as well. Look at what Mixpo and the NCC are doing.

8. Online video will keep growing like a weed

Online video will continue growing simply because the options are growing. And the eyeballs are already following this trend. Here are some more reasons why growth will continue.

9. Online video doesn't have to be expensive

Videos can get costly to produce when you start getting into effects, real picture quality, etc. That said, you probably have the ability to take video on your phone. That doesn't cost much and can be uploaded easily. If the content is there, it just may be quality enough.

10. Videos can help your overall search rankings

Online video can actually help your site rank in search engines. Read this and this for more on that.

Conclusion

There are a lot of different ways to use online video to your advantage, and a lot of things to take into consideration. If you're getting into video ads, you might want to check out these guidelines from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.