Business videos can be great advertising opportunities for you and your business. Customers like being able to see what you have to offer, and a video is a good way to showcase this much more effectively that you would otherwise achieve via print ad. Whether you are selling a product, promoting a service, or just looking to raise awareness, these are the top 5 places to distribute your business videos online.
1. YouTube
YouTube is the largest video social media site in the world with over 1 billion users and subscribers. With such a large user base, it's pretty clear why any business would be wise to share business videos on this site and advertise to prompt new customer relationships. Best of all, it's free to post a video, and companies have the ability to apply for custom-branded YouTube pages to further show off your logo and promote your company's image.
2. Vimeo
Vimeo is a much smaller community than YouTube, but it does play host to a sizeable and engaged creative community. It was originally launched in 2004, and is home to around 170 million members. There are no advertisements on Vimeo so your video won't be overshadowed by a competitor's advertisement; this can also help to draw in customers who would normally be turned off by waiting for an advertisement to load. Vimeo is largely supported by WordPress themes, which makes it easy to share your video through these alternate resources.
3. Metacafe
Founded in 2003, Metacafe calls itself as the largest 'independent video site' on the Internet. Owner Arik Czerniak has made statements claiming that even though YouTube has the highest number of members using their service; Metacafe has the most views and more engaged members. They stand proudly behind their exclusivity and require a submission to be accepted prior to hosting the video to ensure quality. That means that they don't take personal home videos, but retain a professional environment for their viewers and video producers that can help your company.
4. Your Website
If you'd prefer to avoid the social media sites altogether and keep your video and its hosting within your control, you can choose to host it on your own website. In fact, I encourage you to put video on your own website. You will have to do a little bit of advertising and optimize the page to the leading SEO standards, but this will ensure that your video will never be deleted, and it will help drive traffic to your site itself. You can then turn to our next video distribution method to post the links and entice customers to head over to your site.
5. Social Media
Last but not least, make sure that you share your business videos over your social media channels. Update your friends and followers through social media by sharing the video with them. This will give them a chance to share and show their appreciation for the video to raise interest in whatever advertising campaign that you are trying to promote.
Pamela Wigglesworth, CSP, is an entrepreneurship and marketing consultant, international speaker and the author of three business books. A resident of Asia for over 20 years, she is the CEO of Experiential Hands-on Learning. She works with organizations across multiple industries to help them increase brand awareness, increase leads and ultimately increase sales.
To learn more about Pamela, visit the Experiential website at www.experiential.sg or email her at courses@experiential.sg