Video content is becoming increasingly popular amongst consumers, with four times as many consumers preferring to watch a video of a product rather than read text.
If your business has picked up on this trend and has been creating marketing videos either by yourself or by an outsourced videographer it’s important that when it comes to sharing this video you choose the right video-sharing platform for your business.
The two main video-sharing and hosting platforms for businesses are Vimeo and YouTube, and there are a number of things you may want to consider before choosing which one of these is perfect for your business. For example, are you wanting to reach a large audience with your video, or a more niche target audience?
Both Vimeo and YouTube have their pros and cons, some of which we have discussed in this blog, to help you make sure you are reaching your desired audience and achieving the outcomes you have set for your video.
YouTube
Pros
YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world – hundreds of millions of consumers use YouTube every day to search for video content, including how-to videos, movie trailers, music etc. This figure makes YouTube the only platform that has more traffic than Google, which is what makes this platform a popular choice for business.
YouTube has a huge audience – YouTube has over 1 billion monthly users, which equates to ⅓ of the internet! With such a staggering number of users, this platform will certainly enable your business to reach a huge audience, if you use this platform in an effective way.
YouTube is a hit with Google – Did you know that YouTube is owned by Google? This fact means that Google favours YouTube videos over any other video platform. It is extremely rare for a Vimeo video to appear above YouTube videos when searching in Google.
YouTube is also a hit with mobile – YouTube have revealed that more than half of their users use the platform on either a tablet or a phone, and the average viewing session of these users is 40 minutes.
YouTube is free to use for all users, including for business – One great feature of YouTube is that it is completely free to use, even for business. Any business can create an account and begin sharing their videos, free of charge, whenever they want. The accounts also have unlimited storage capacity, so there’s no limit to the number of hours of content a business can upload or store.
YouTube can be used by businesses to run ad campaigns – Finally, YouTube also offers an advertisement feature, where a business can turn their videos into an advertisement campaign. Simply select the video you would like to advertise on, set a budget and target audience, fill out your payment information and boom – you are now running a video advertisement campaign.
Cons
YouTube is a competitive platform – As this platform is so popular, with so many users and being completely free to use, it has become very competitive. There are hundreds of millions of users releasing video content, which means that your high quality professional video could become easily swamped and lost in the vast sea of other videos posted on the platform.
YouTube advertising features can put some users off – Despite the advertising feature being a useful tool for businesses, it also forms a con of the platform. When a user clicks on a video with an ad, they are often able to skip the ad after 5 seconds, but some businesses make their ads mandatory to watch. This can put off the user from watching the video, as they will have to sit through the entire ad beforehand. Not only this, but businesses also have no control over the ads that other businesses may place on their video, which can create an issue especially if their competitor has added their ad to the video.
YouTube can block traffic to your website – Finally, YouTube can also block traffic going to your website from the videos that you release. Ultimately, YouTube wants to keep their users on the platform, which is why they have added features such as ‘suggested videos’, which often sucks the user into watching more videos after your video, and therefore staying on the platform. A call-to-action at the end of your video could help to prevent this.
Vimeo
Pros
Vimeo has no advertising feature – Unlike YouTube, Vimeo does not offer an advertising feature, so your business will not have to worry about losing viewers or having a competitor advertising on your video.
Vimeo offers higher quality content – Vimeo has a community that consists of documentarians, videographers and filmmakers, meaning that the content uploaded to this platform must be of a high quality. Although your business may have to invest more to create a professional video, the platform does reward those who have created great, through listing these videos on their homepage.
Vimeo has a niche community – The niche community of Vimeo means that your video will not be susceptible to unprofessional interactions such as spam and trolling messages – YouTube videos are susceptible to both of the above. The high quality of content and the type of users on the platform means that comments are almost always respectful or constructive at least.
Vimeo Pro allows complete customisation – Finally, the platform offers a Vimeo Pro feature. Although this feature is not free, it allows businesses to completely customise their video, such as adding their logo to the video player and add custom intros and outros.
Cons
Vimeo is not always free to use – Cost for the Vimeo Pro feature on the platform starts at around £130 a year for professionals and businesses.
Vimeo has a smaller audience – Despite the niche community on Vimeo offering a pro for business, this platform does have a much smaller number of monthly users than YouTube – this platform receives 170 million monthly users, compared to YouTube’s 1 billion monthly users.
Vimeo isn’t so much of a hit with Google – With Vimeo not being owned by Google, the platform is not favoured by this search engine platform. Therefore, a business may find it difficult to get their Vimeo video to appear in the first few pages of Google’s search results.
Vimeo presents restrictions for businesses – Finally, unlike YouTube this video platform limits the number of uploads a user can make and has a limited storage capacity. It actually costs for a user to increase the storage capacity of their account.
Ultimately, the platform that your business should choose will entirely depend on what your goals, objectives are and who your target audience are.