It’s been widely known that video is one of the most worthwhile ways to engage your audience.
The most sought-after video hosting site and video sharing platforms posts over a billion hours of video content daily.
As you would expect, if you want to scale your web presence, creating videos is something you should not skip.
Putting Videos On Your Website
In this time and age, small business owners and marketers have proven the good results in video marketing. A lot of people online use much of their time watching videos through online video sites like YouTube. That in itself shows the huge potential of videos to increase engagements and ultimately, conversions.
Why do most people like videos?
Among all other types of visual content, videos make the message you want to convey more attractive and easier to digest, making it the more user-friendly way to consume information than written content.
Whether you’re a cinematographer or a videographer wanting to make an online portfolio, or someone looking to build a music website to feature music videos, utilizing video hosting sites will be very helpful for you.
So today, I’m going to tell you about 4 of the most popular online video sites. For added perks, I’ll also tell you about 4 other premium video upload sites that would work well if you’re making videos for business.
Of course, before you can embed videos, you’ll need to create your website first. Here’s how you can make one.
Video Hosting Sites: Why Use Them?
If you noticed, I earlier said to embed videos to your site. I suggest you take this course instead of hosting your videos on the same server as your website.
Why?
Whatever the video format, videos tend to have large file sizes. Its size can affect your website’s loading speed which is not good if you want visitors to have a positive user experience.
What do you usually do when a website doesn’t load in under 30 seconds? You exit the page, right?
It goes to say if the website is heavy with videos (if you host them together), you’ll get a slow-loading website which increases bounce rates and in turn decreases your engagements.
If you think about it, it will be so ironic that in the first place you opted to use videos to engage more people yet ended with a website with no visitors.
So, take advantage of video hosting platforms instead.
Now that I’ve explained why you need video hosting sites, let’s now talk about the first four online video sites you can choose from.
1. YouTube
This is undoubtedly numbered one on the list, and for a couple of reasons. First off is, YouTube is the largest video hosting site to date having billions of hours of video published every day.
It’s where millions of content creators get their million views on a day to day basis. If you’re using this video hosting platform, there are more chances for your content to be seen if compared to other video hosting services, especially if you optimize it for search enough.
The second good thing about it is that, if you use it for your music video download site or anything that requires stats, YouTube gives in-depth analytics data on what sells to your audience and what doesn’t.
The third benefit of this site, which I particularly like is it works with partner programs so you can monetize your content with their ads.
There’s a downside though, for your audience that is, they’ll get a few minutes of interruption while watching your videos.
The fourth benefit is having no limit to bandwidth or data storage. You’re allowed to upload a video with a maximum file size of 128 gigabytes.
For the other side of the coin, if you’re a business website, you’ll be only limited to one iframe player to embed a video to your website.
And although it’s a very effective content marketing strategy, it’s not the best choice if you want a video hosting for testimonials or course videos.
Also, you can’t download many of the videos in this video hosting platform unless you use a third-party service.
This video hosting platform is good for:
· Content creators to build a following for their niche
· Businesses that want to drive traffic to their brand and tap to a larger audience network
2. Vimeo
Vimeo is YouTube’s close competitor however with a significantly less audience reach. It’s been said their target audience leans on creative and professional audiences.
You can get a free account on this video hosting site, but you’ll only get limited hosting space. If you opt for the paid version, you’ll enjoy unlimited bandwidth and ad-free content.
This video hosting platform is good for:
· Supplementary distribution channel for content creators
· Webmasters who want professional videos embedded
· Creative professionals whose goal is to market their service
3. Dailymotion
Like YouTube, Dailymotion is not ad-free, however, it’s less disruptive because the ads are placed at the end of the content. It’s also quite similar to Vimeo because you can choose between a free account and a paid account.
However, compared to the two video hosting sites mentioned, Dailymotion has fewer analytics data offered.
Dailymotion puts itself on par with YouTube when in terms of being a social video sharing platform claiming to have more than 300 million users.
What’s good about Dailymotion is it can host unlimited videos for free, you have the option to make your content private with an additional of making it password protected.
If you’re looking for a video hosting platform that limits user access, especially if you have paid courses, Dailymotion would be good for you.
Although you can expect less competition when you create content with this video sharing platform, your growth potential is limited by the far less audience count here.
This video hosting platform is good for:
· Supplementary distribution channel for content creators
4. Facebook
Facebook is well-known primarily for being a social networking site rather than a video hosting site. However, Facebook has expanded its horizons and now allows for videos to be hosted on this platform.
One upside of Facebook is that the maximum video length you can upload is up to 240 minutes.
The second benefit of using Facebook is the easy embedding of videos to your website. This way, you can build a following both on your website, and on a social network/ video hosting platform.
But there’s also a downside. Facebook’s embedded player option is available in static. There are no options for looping or autoplay.
This video hosting platform is good for:
· Content creators wanting to build a network from the bottom
· Marketers whose goal is brand awareness and build seed audiences
As promised, aside from the 4 widely used video hosting platforms, we’ll also share with you 4 premium video hosting sites dedicated mostly for business purposes.
1. Jetpack: WordPress Video Hosting
WordPress’s Jetpack plugin offers video hosting if you subscribe to the premium or professional plan. Jetpack’s premium plan costs $9 per month with a 2-terabyte soft limit on your storage.
Jetpack is a seamless way to integrate your videos into your website. It allows you to use an unbranded and customizable video player, and also allows for efficiency by giving you video analytics right on your WordPress dashboard.
However, analytics is very limited. You can’t edit videos, collect leads, and include a call to action.
Another good thing about using this plugin is it allows you to loop, mute, and autoplay your videos.
This video hosting platform is good for:
· Existing WordPress website owners who already subscribed to Jetpack premium plan.
2. Brightcove
Brightcove is a scalable solution mostly used by Fortune 500 companies and a most major publication. It’s an enterprise video hosting tool designed to focus on integrating with supplementary marketing automation tools.
It allows you to sell and manage ad inventory and live stream to your website.
The best-selling point of Brightcove is it allows server-side ad insertion together with its advanced automation integrations.
It’s quite costly though with plans starting at $199 per month.
This video hosting platform is good for:
· Businesses that want to primarily use videos in their marketing efforts
3. Wistia
Although Wistia can be considered as a video hosting platform, it can be described better as a digital marketing solution.
You can use it to upload and embed videos to your site, but its main selling point is features like lead capture forms and other call-to-action methods embedded in the video player.
This is great if you’re creating videos for business because your visitors won’t get side-tracked with other competitors. After all, there are no ads.
The embed player is also customizable, allows you to highlight other videos you also created, allows for custom branding, and custom audiences.
You can say this online video site is built mainly for digital experts because it focuses on providing CRM integrations.
However, like Brightcove, this video hosting tool is quite expensive. You have to pay $99 a month, and that’s just for ten videos.
This video hosting platform is good for:
· Data-driven digital marketers
· Lead-relying businesses
4. SproutVideo
SproutVideo allows for collaboration tools aside from audience building, built-in lead capture forms, and advanced video analytics.
What’s good with using SproutVideo is you can grant role-based permissions, keep track of edits made with the audit logs, and best of all in-depth insight from advanced video analytics.
The online video creator allows you to design unique video players so you can patter in more with your website’s branding. Other than this, you can also enjoy custom playlists for a better user experience.
Like the first three video hosting sites mentioned, SproutVideo is not a free video hosting site, but a relatively cheaper one at $25 per month.
This video hosting platform is good for:
· Data-driven digital marketers
· Lead-relying businesses
So What Video Hosting Should You Choose?
The video hosting platform you should choose is the one that fits well with your goals.
For the ad-free video for your WordPress site, you can use Jetpack or even Vimeo.
Do you want in-depth analytics and lead capture options? Go for SproutVideo or Wistia.
However, if you want huge audience potential for a wider market, especially if you’re a content creator, go for YouTube, and even Facebook as a supplementary choice.
The correct choice depends on what covers your needs.
