YouTube turns five this month and to celebrate, Google (which owns the site) announced that the video-sharing site just exceeded 2 billion views a day for the first time. That’s nearly double the prime-time audience of the three major U.S. broadcast networks combined.

The YouTube player is embedded across tens of millions of websites (including ours and probably yours) and the average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube. Blue-chip companies understand the power of viral marketing (94 of Advertising Age’s 100 top advertisers run campaigns on YouTube) but even small auto dealerships can benefit.

Selling cars to younger buyers takes tech savvy (a basic web site and an ad in the phone book aren’t enough). To reach the new virtual tire kickers, dealers need to create inventory videos and distribute them on sites like YouTube.

In addition to engaging young buyers, utilizing social media sites is like making dozens of mini-websites that create a virtual trail of breadcrumbs that lead users to your dealership. YouTube has proven itself to be a low-cost, high-reward marketing tool (made even simpler with Dealer Impact’s social media network). Get started, or get left behind.