If you want to upload a video online, the first thing that generally comes to mind is YouTube. It seems obvious as it’s the biggest video hosting platform and second largest search engine in the world, so what could be better? Actually, there are many better alternatives, and despite YouTube being the most popular video platform, it is far from the best.
Vimeo is more of an artsy alternative to YouTube. It may have a smaller community than YouTube, but you can watch high quality videos without any annoying, disruptive ads. As Vimeo’s audience consists of video producers, artists, graphic designers etc, your videos are less likely to get spammed, and more likely to receive positive and constructive feedback.
Vimeo is heavily focused on creating a simple, aesthetic layout, making it easy for people to navigate. Also as Vimeo doesn’t allow ads, the results page looks cleaner and allows room for a bigger video player.
Another thing that makes Vimeo so great is its privacy and security. It uses a feature that allows you to password-protect your videos and share them with individuals before releasing them publicly. This could be useful for getting a second opinion or to share with employees before publishing.
One of the reasons people often choose YouTube over Vimeo is because it’s free, but Vimeo’s pricing is affordable and you’re guaranteed receive a good ROI on your videos. They also have a free account option as well, but it is quite limited.
Wistia is a platform designed with businesses in mind, and we even use it ourselves. It has video SEO tools, customisation options and lets you view your engagement levels, where your viewers are coming from, how long they are watching for and also lets you AB test your videos.
If you are using WordPress, you can embed a video on your website simply by pasting it as raw html. It also has the ability to integrate with Mail Chimp, so you can actually embed the video itself in the email rather than just adding a link.
As Wistia is 100% business, you won’t see any related videos or ads at the end of your own. Unlike YouTube, it doesn’t try to direct your viewers elsewhere before the end of the video, instead it aims to keep them focused.
With YouTube and many other video platforms, there is always some of their branding in your video, whether its a small button at the bottom or an annotation that takes you back to their website. This is why Wistia are one of the best video hosting platforms. They don’t drop their name anywhere in your video. The only branding of theirs is the style video player, and in order to notice that you have to be familiar with Wistia anyway.
Wistia’s Free Plan includes easy embedding and sharing, basic analytics, room for 50 videos and global video delivery. Their pricing starts from as little as $25 (about £16), which is ideal for small businesses.
The main thing that makes Vidyard stand out is that is uses real-time analytics and is able to optimise the effectiveness of your videos.
Like Wistia, Vidyard provides detailed analytics software that allows you to see where your viewers are watching from, where they share your content and which individual video assets contribute to ROI. Vidyard can give you the information you need to create content that has the potential to increase conversions.
If the aim of your video campaign is to drive sales then Vidyard is an option worth considering. The only concern with Vidyard is that prices start from $79 a month (about £50), which is a lot to pay, especially for a small business.