YouTube as Social Media?

I don't plan on making this post long because I don't really have all too much to say about YouTube. First of all, I never really considered YouTube as a form of social media. It was always just, the website with the funny animal videos to me, but thinking more about it, I guess that is social media and a lot of people do use YouTube as such. It is connected to other forms of social media which made me think of it as more of a tool of those platforms instead of a social media platform of its own. The Social Media Marketing Workbook we are reading in class says that "YouTube can provide a two-for-one punch to your social media marketing," which is absolutely true. I never thought about Youtube being a marketing tool (I guess I never really thought of YouTube being anything other than a bunch of random videos) but there are a lot of different company channels and organization videos on it. Like Buzzfeed and GoPro and Nintendo all use YouTube as a form of direct communication to their viewers and customers.

So, after thinking more about it, YouTube is one of the most pure forms of social media out there (in my opinion). It goes directly to the viewers without any real distractions, besides the occasional ads, and can be distributed through other forms of social media.