Hosting video content on your site is important.
But let’s face it. That’s not where most of your customers hang out.
This is why your online video distribution strategy matters so much.
In this post, we will advise you about video distribution so you can build an online presence and interact with your audience in a meaningful way.
So let’s dive in
Best video distribution options for businesses
Generally, you have these channels in online video marketing.
- Website
- Blogs
- Social media
- Video hosting services/video players
Because of how important social media has become in our lives, let’s take a look at some of the important social media platforms you can use for your business.
And the most popular video hosting service sites include:
- YouTube
- Wistia
- Vimeo
- Brightcove
- Dailymotion
Now, let’s go through each and every one of these platforms and see if you can find what will work best for you.
Website
Owning a website is one of the best ways of promoting your small business and reaching more customers.
When people land on your website, you need to present them with the information in an engaging and concise way.
Embedding videos on your website is a great way to communicate in a simple and effective way.
In fact, our recent video marketing statistics survey revealed that 62% of people find a landing page with video more interesting than one without.
On top of that, adding video also helps improve your site’s ranking on search engine result pages.
Plus, it also increases the amount of time people spend on your webpage (known as dwell time), which is an important factor in SEO.
To do this, you can embed videos on relevant pages like your homepage, About sections, product pages, pricing section, and support channels.
You can use video hosting services, discussed later in this post, to make embedding videos to your website easy.
Related: Tips for Creating a Successful Video Landing Page
Emails
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing tools for small businesses.
According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing on average sees a 4300 percent return on investment (ROI) for businesses in the United States.
This is because email marketing is easy to manage, gives you full control, and allows you to establish direct contact with your customers.
Furthermore, video email marketing has been increasing in popularity as an effective way to engage potential customers and drive clicks.
Video and email go together like fries and ice cream. Some people love it, while others are a bit confused by the concept.
If you’re looking to get out of your everyday marketing routine and spice things up, video distribution options outside of your YouTube channel and social media platforms may be just the way to do that.
Best practices for using videos in emails
Here we have pulled a few of our top favorite tips for email video marketing.
- Embed a thumbnail in your email
- Aim for a video that’s between 30 to 90 seconds for top-of-funnel (ToFu) campaigns.
- Leverage calls to action (CTAs) in your videos to encourage people to take a step. This can be viewing additional content, sharing the video on social media, filling out a form, etc.
- Use a marketing automation platform (MAP) to track and measure your email campaigns and how many video clicks you get.
Blogs
Another platform where you can use distribute videos to promote your business is your blog.
Videos on blogs function similarly to how videos function on websites: they keep visitors engaged and offer an alternative to people who don’t want to read your entire blog post.
Best practices for using videos in blogs
To help you market videos on your blog, here are some helpful tips.
- Make sure that you add appropriate keywords that best describe your videos.
- Embed videos from hosting services like YouTube or Vimeo in your blog posts instead of uploading video files directly.
- Share your posts with relevant, high-ranked businesses so that your video gets promoted.
- In addition, you can also incorporate your videos in press releases, partner blogs, sales assets, emails, etc.
Social media video distribution
Social networks are incredibly popular channels for video distribution.
And while YouTube might be the first thing that crosses your mind when you think of videos, other social media channels, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest can also prove to be great for marketing your business videos.
Facebook remains the best social network for distributing your business video and growing your audience.
Best practices for using videos on Facebook
- Share videos natively on your company’s page, or by running video ads.
- Use the Facebook retargeting feature that allows you to build retargeting lists of people who have watched your video for a certain time.
- Make sure your brand is visible and identifiable to your audience, and that the content is relevant to them.
- Make sure your videos are adaptable to different screen sizes
- Add captions and subtitles
While it’s always been feasible to post and share video links on LinkedIn, the platform’s algorithm has made it even more beneficial to share video content.
You can upload videos to LinkedIn natively or share video links from other sites. Uploading natively tends to get more exposure on the platform though.
Here’s an example from Wired’s Editor in Chief:
LinkedIn focuses on professional networking, so it is ideal to focus on your area of expertise when shooting and sharing your video.
On the platform, if you write long content on LinkedIn, consider inserting a video to keep readers hooked.
Depending on your objectives, you can also consider using LinkedIn video ads. Here’s how you can do so effectively.
If you have an interviewee in your video, be sure to tag them in your post.
And be certain to add topic hashtags, which will help your video content reach greater audience.
Best Practices for LinkedIn Video
- Ensure engagement of your audience in the first 10 seconds
- Focus on visual storytelling
- Optimize video for silent viewing
- Include subtitles or captions
- More viewers are interested in watching content that has humor, so don’t be afraid to be funny
Perhaps the most outstanding of all social networks, Instagram has long been a popular place for video.
Now, with over 1 billion active monthly users, it has become nearly impossible for marketers to ignore.
Though, there’s a 60-second maximum length for videos posted in feeds, users and brands alike have gotten creative with the medium.
Video marketing on Instagram is growing faster than any other type of content.
This cool promo ad by Montblanc has us mesmerized:
View this post on Instagram
When you scroll through your Instagram feed, the video plays automatically in silent mode.
Once a user turns on the sound, it remains on until they either turn it off again or leave the app.
Because of these settings, we recommend not including any audio key at the beginning of your video., but don’t expect it.
Best practices for Instagram video
Instagram feed video
- Use enticing visuals to encourage users to tap for sound
- Use different video patterns, filters, tags, and options to get creative
- You can upload a video of up to 60 minutes in length
- You also have a choice of adding a preview of 60 seconds
Instagram Live
- You can live stream the video for up to four hours
- Live videos can be shared for up to 30 days
- Engage with live comments, pin them, or use a keyword filter to moderate them
- Add tags for relevant products so they can appear at the bottom of the screen for shopping
Instagram Reels
- Record or upload 15-30 seconds of short clips
- Use vertical mode and 9:16 aspect ratio
- Add captions, filters, hashtags, and product tags
Read more: How to Get More Instagram Video Views
Facebook definitely has its advantages for video distribution but don’t forget Twitter.
Twitter only allows you to publish tweets of 280 characters only.
So, it can be tricky to convey your marketing message. This is why uploading video tweets can be a very effective alternative.
Not many brands share videos on the platform and so there’s less competition in the arena.
Twitter video campaigns also generally perform better because of this reason.
And there’s a lot more audience to target as it is widely used by academics, students, policymakers, politicians, and general public.
Best practices for Twitter video
- Upload videos on Twitter that are not longer than 140 seconds.
- You can retweet your videos for more visibility
- Always tag people who are featured in your videos
- Make sure your videos are adaptable to different screen sizes
- Create videos around trending topics or find a way to relate your videos to trends
Pinterest is a social network that allows users to visually share, and discover new interests by posting, known as “pinning”, on Pinterest.
Though it’s popular as an image-sharing platform, you can also share videos on it from other sites, such as YouTube.
If you take a closer look at this fast-growing social media site and try to understand how it works, you’ll see what all it can do for your business, regardless of the niche you may be operating in.
Best practices for Pinterest video
When you get to know just how Pinterest will help your business grow, a whole new world opens before you.
- Add videos that are up to a minute in length
- Videos are previewed without sound on, so use captions and text overlays
- Add a cover image that gives your viewers a clue of what your video is about
- Add up to 100 characters for a title, and 500 characters for a description to get discovered
Video Hosting Service Platforms
YouTube
YouTube is one of the most powerful video entertainment websites. You can easily upload videos in different categories.
As this video-sharing website has over 2 billion users, it is a sure-fire way to find your potential audience.
Best practices for YouTube video
YouTube works wonders if you keep the following best practices in mind.
- Use the right keywords for naming and describing your video, as people tend to get lost while going through other people’s recommended videos.
- Include a CTA
- Add links to other videos, websites, and social media for more engagement
- For YouTube ads, choose the most powerful ad format for your target audience and keep a cap on how many times a single person views your ad. This will ensure that people don’t get annoyed by incessant exposure.
Vimeo
If you want to keep the quality of your videos really high, go for Vimeo.
Vimeo offers plenty of features that are ideal for businesses. Also, it has
And the cherry on top of the cake is that there are no advertisements on the site!
To top it all off, Vimeo has better privacy controls.
Now, in order to get all that, there is a catch.
Vimeo is mostly free, but a lot of its great features are behind a paywall. Vimeo costs around $7 a month for their cheapest plan, and up to $75 a month for their enterprise solutions.
For businesses, it’s best to go with Vimeo Pro or higher. The features we mention here are related to the aforementioned paid plans.
If you want to dive in deeper into the ‘YouTube vs Vimeo’ debate for your business, then head over to Brighton West Video: YouTube or Vimeo for business.
Best practices for Vimeo video
- Update and replace videos without breaking links.
- Change any visual aspect of the player, the styling, logo, and also set up pre-sets.
- Upload videos at a higher bit rate (1080p to 8k with 60 fps) with little to no compression for a better visual appeal of your content.
- Use Showcase to highlight some of your best content
Wistia
Wistia has a bunch of good features that make it a great contender among video hosting giants.
Its paid plan for businesses starts at $99 and includes all of the advanced features.
Also, Wistia’s lead generation comes with every plan, including their free plan.
One of the things that make Wistia stand out is its advanced video analytics.
It comes with these appealing heat maps that show exactly which parts of your videos are watched, and re-watched.
Best practices for Wistia video
- Upload the right kind of product video
- Craft an appealing storyline to connect with your audience
- Use analytics to improve the performance of your video
- Use Wistia video embed for an ad-free experience
Read more: Vimeo Vs Wistia for Professionals
Brightcove
With Brightcove, you can track everything about your video from a single online location.
You can run your campaign, optimize your work across all screens and devices, and actualize social media distribution.
Now, it may seem that that’s what every other video hosting service here allows you to do when it comes to your business video distribution.
But this is where Brightcove adds its own unique flavor to it.
And that is Brightcove’s live streaming interface which is very user-friendly.
Plus, to catapult your video distribution and marketing campaign, it also allows you to schedule your videos so your customers get bite-sized chunks of your message periodically.
Also, when viewers watch your video, you can drive them back to your video portal, aka your video gallery, which you can customize to your hearts’ content as there are a lot of options available for that.
Best practices for Brightcove video
- Upload videos instantly through HTML5 players
- Use performance analytics to improve the video
- Engage with your audience directly via messages
Dailymotion
Dailymotion is rated as the second-largest platform for watching videos and video sharing online.
The maximum file size can be 4GB, whereas the maximum video run time duration is restricted to 60 minutes.
With over 300 million users, you can benefit from the reach of this powerful video-sharing website as a great alternative to YouTube.
Distributing your videos through digital and social channels is a great way to ensure that your customers get to see your content.
You can pick and choose an assortment of what works best for you and start spreading your videos to the right audience.
If you’d like to have a video made and want help with its marketing and distribution strategy, get in touch. We’d be happy to help.
Best practices for Dailymotion video
- Dailymotion supports a high frame rate, 360 views, and cross-device compatibility. So, you can upload high-quality videos.
- Since it offers support for multiple languages, make sure to add subtitles and captions
- Add branding to your videos
- Add up to 10 relevant videos in the queue to keep your audiences entertained
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