It’s obvious that YouTube is the front-runner when it comes to showcasing video platforms. However, YouTube, just like anything else, has it’s pros and cons. Google, the number one search engine in the world, acquired YouTube back in 2006 and more than 1 billion unique viewers visit YouTube each month (King).
The amount of traffic on YouTube can act as both a beneficial element and a hindering one to any business. Why? Because YouTube has high video traffic, the quality of the videos that are “similar” to ones your business may be posting is not guaranteed. Sprout Social says:
With over 100 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, it’s safe to assume that not all of it is going to be the best quality. If you’re attempting to position yourself as a professional product or brand, having spammy or offensive content appearing next your videos could hurt you (King).
Posting on YouTube can also allow room for conflicting goals between your consumer and the video platforms itself.
Where a brand is more likely to want users to click through to their site, YouTube wants users to stay on the platform. That’s why YouTube will often show videos related to yours in order to get the audience to keep perusing. Sometimes YouTube will even put a competitor’s video in the related section (King).
So, how do you avoid these negative aspects when posting a video? Simple. Work on customizing your YouTube channel as much as possible. Tag each video you post with the proper keywords in order to ensure the best search result. The same goes for transcriptions. Remember, every word in a transcription acts as a keyword when using search engines to locate your video.
Properly optimizing each video on your channel will help ensure quality and credibility. Credibility is huge with your viewers—they want to feel like they can not only be engaged by the products and brand you are showcasing through video platforms, but also trust your company enough purchase that product or brand.
Vimeo is another video platform that is on the rise, and guess what? Vimeo does not run any advertisements on the videos you upload. Vimeo’s layout is much cleaner and less polluted with advertisements and poor quality videos. This alone captures the attention of businessmen and women who want to showcase a professional, quality video. So, when matching up Vimeo to YouTube, you could say that Vimeo wins the quality over quantity award.
Aesthetically pleasing to the eye, Vimeo’s video player is a bit larger than YouTube’s as well. However, it is YouTube’s audience that overpowers Vimeo and makes YouTube the clear choice when choosing a platform to market your brand. YouTube’s advertising, not to mention great SEO (thanks to Google) makes YouTube almost unbeatable.
So, you shouldn’t discount other video hosting sites when deciding where and how to marketing your videos. In fact, why not use multiple video platforms? By doing so, the videos you create to feature products and your brand will be more accessible to potential consumers. And Vimeo and YouTube are just two of the largest of several video-hosting sites. The key is to ensure that your videos are searchable in order to capture your audience’s attention!