From the course: SEO: Videos
The video marketing players
- [Instructor] At one time or another, we've all experienced the distraction of YouTube, as we went there to watch something specific and an hour later, we're watching fainting goats, or silly cat videos. We're all familiar with YouTube, yet the statistics continue to astound and amaze us. Simply for the sheer volume and visibility, YouTube is an obvious choice for most businesses and producers. For starters, YouTube boasts over one billion users. That's about a third of the internet. To accomplish this, YouTube is available in over 80 different languages in more than 100 countries. Over one billion hours are watched daily, a billion! That number in incomprehensible. If you were to watch a billion hours yourself, it would take you more than 100,000 years. More than 70% of that watch time is on mobile devices. Now, you can probably guess that 96% of young adults are YouTube users, but did you know that more than half of Americans age 65 and older are active YouTubers as well? But YouTube isn't the entire game. Based on your business, you may seek additional, or complimentary options. While YouTube has the numbers and the clout, Vimeo offers a more mature platform, with a dedicated video production community. In essence, Vimeo offers tools that YouTube creators would love, such as replacing a video without losing statistics, different payment tiers. However, Vimeo does not run ads. For businesses promoting their products, this is a great option. For creators, who want to monetize a channel, this isn't the option. Vimeo monetizes based on membership. Vimeo also provides privacy options that allows others to view the content, even without a Vimeo account. In addition to Vimeo, there is another powerhouse vying for dominance: Facebook. You can upload and host your videos on Facebook, which allows longer videos than any other competitor, and sharing is easy. Another big advantage is the ability to embed Facebook-hosted videos on websites and blogs. A lesser known video site called Daily Motion has free and paid accounts and is ad supported, but the ads only play at the end of the videos. File size and video length, and analytics are all limited by comparison. Another option is to self-host your videos. Players such as Wistia allow video hosting and video players that can be embedded on your own website. Not only that, but it integrates with other major platforms, such as HubSpot, Mailchimp, WordPress, and Marketo. The analytics capture and provide more in-depth analysis of user data than other platforms. There are many SEO benefits of hosting your own videos on your own website. And part of the advantage is that they will still be indexed and ranked in Google, but people will watch them on your site, and not YouTube. So it's really a choice of how you want to position your business within your marketing strategy. Take the time to investigate all of the options that are most important to you, before you make a decision. But the great thing is that you could always use a little of each option to accomplish your goals.
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