Where Should You Publish Your Video?

First off, create a solid piece of video marketing content that makes people pay attention to your brand. Maybe we’ll make it for you, or maybe you’ll make it for yourself. Regardless of how the video comes to fruition, when the video is prepped and ready to be released into the wilderness of the world wide web, you might find yourself asking the question, “Where and how should I publish this video?”

Spoiler alert: You should publish your video on the Internet.

Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook, and Wistia are some of our favorite options for publishing online content, but the beauty of it is that you don’t necessarily need to choose between multiple options. If the budget allows for it, you can post your video on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and/or host the video on your website with Wistia. In practice, this will increase your exposure, but it may have the effect of splitting the vote, so to speak, as your views will be spread out across different platforms. For instance, instead of having a video hit one million views on YouTube, you might have a video with 500,000 views on YouTube and 500,000 views on Vimeo. In short, if exposure is your goal, consider posting on multiple platforms. If you would rather rack up a high view count, post your video on one platform (i.e. YouTube), and watch the numbers go up!

Here’s a primer on the benefits and drawbacks of several popular video platforms:

As the reigning king of video content, YouTube is one of the biggest reasons that video marketing is so popular today. Some of YouTube’s benefits include ease of use, increased viewership/exposure, and a platform that is designed to facilitate searchability. One of the biggest benefits is this: because YouTube is owned by Google, search results for videos tend to favor YouTube over these other platforms.

There are several drawbacks, however. An inconvenient part of YouTube is that the site is so vast and saturated with content that it can be difficult to stand out in such a competitive market. Furthermore, YouTube is designed to keep the viewer on YouTube; there is not as much emphasis placed on the video itself. Examples of content your video will have to compete with includes pre-roll ads, “suggested videos” that autoplay after yours is finished, and a never-ending stream of advertisements and other videos that surround the video player.

As far as video quality goes, Vimeo is beloved by filmmakers and production companies alike because of its professional look and sleek, streamlined player. It is distinctly less corporate than YouTube, which has some benefits if you’re a company that is trying to reach your audience in a deeper way. As there are less distractions (i.e. advertisements), viewers are more likely to focus on your video instead of ads or other videos on the other side of the screen. One more thing: there are less pixelated cat videos on Vimeo. Take that as you will.

Facebook has been an integral part of our social lives for years now, and with the introduction of videos hosted directly on the site, marketers have gained a valuable new tool for reaching a new audience. As far as visibility goes, Facebook’s website is more popular than all of the other video hosting sites mentioned here, and because Facebook has access to a large amount of data, targeting potential customers has never been easier. Furthermore, the likelihood that a video is shared with other Facebook users is higher if the video is posted directly to Facebook. Though Facebook’s mobile reach is unparalleled, a potential downside of Facebook’s video player is searchability: in order to see the video, users must already be on Facebook. If you’re going to share your video on Facebook, it is best to embed it from another site (i.e. YouTube or Vimeo) so that all the views lead back to one place.

An alternative to the aforementioned websites is Wistia, a video hosting service that excels in analytics. Unlike Vimeo or YouTube, Wistia doesn’t have a large, searchable library of content. Wistia is also not a free service. Rather, Wistia is designed to help you customize the way your video is shared with the world, and the biggest benefit with using this platform is the extra-detailed analytics that Wistia provides. For instance, their data gives your company information that can tell you which parts of the video people like the most. You can see how people react to the video, and you can also see how many people made it to the end of the video, which can help your company analyze what does and doesn’t work about your videos, and in turn, your product or service.

In the end, take into consideration the goals of your video and make your decision based on the audience you want to reach. Though you can post your video on other platforms (or make your own video player, technically), these are the sites that we have found to be most popular with clients who are looking to increase their exposure via online video.

Go forth and conquer!

Drive Media House