Investigating YouTube using MEP (Media Efficiency Panel)

GfK‘s Jon Davies looks at some of the figures underpinning the success of online video site YouTube.

YouTube, founded early in 2005 and bought by Google at the end of 2006 has, in a short time, become one of the internet’s largest UGC sites, alongside Facebook, MySpace and Wikipedia, with 25 hours of content uploaded every minute on average.

Just under a quarter of the online population access it each week.

GfK is taking this opportunity to share some of its findings made through its MEP (a single source panel, simultaneously tracking online and purchasing behaviour).

Demographics

Through the technology employed in its MEP study, GfK has been monitoring online activity in the UK from the beginning of 2010.

Predictably, YouTube has a consistently and markedly higher penetration among younger online users (16-24), but there is gradual rather than sudden tailing-off up to 55, with a sudden drop in level of usage above that age.

There are no particular biases in usage owing to gender.

Changes over time

Although monitoring has been for the period from the start of 2010 onwards, this snapshot suggests that we see YouTube at a mature point in its growth, with a steady penetration week by week and month by month.

Major Events

Despite YouTube carrying content from large broadcasters like the BBC, users do not look to it for breaking events as there is no streamed content.

So there are no peaks in reach of YouTube at times of heightened media interest for instance around the recent General Election, remaining steady, from week to week at around a fifth of the online population.

Journeys

Looking at data collected in April through the MEP project, about 80% of page impressions in YouTube are from users already on the YouTube website; and of the onward traffic from YouTube, around the same proportion are to YouTube, indicating the site is engaging and keeps users stuck to the site.

Among browsers coming to the site from outside YouTube, around 25% of traffic comes from Google (.com or .co.uk) and 20% from Facebook.

There is a long tail after that, although a small proportion do seem to access it directly as they start browsing.

The patterns are similar as people browse away from YouTube, many returning to Facebook and Google with roughly similar frequency to their arriving there.