Using YouTube in Conjunction with an OVP for Your Videos As businesses work on building a video library, the online video service they select to “host” their videos will vary depending on underlying business and video strategies. Are optimal video views the key to your objective? Or are you looking for optimal business results? To determine which online video service is right for you, we suggest you start by doing a little research. As you sift through the Web for online video resources, you will notice there are conflicting views when it comes to using YouTube. But what is critical for you to keep in mind that there are no set boundaries in the realm of video. For some businesses, the key to video and business success is using a combination of video services like YouTube and an online video platform (OVP), like Viddler. Additionally, through the use of an OVP, you can set video permalinks, which is the URL the viewer will be directed to when they click on the video player. Ideally, you want this click‐ through traffic to stay on your website to continue interacting with your content (where in YouTube, a videos permalink directs viewers to URLs that advertise similar video content, like your competitors’). USING AN ONLINE VIDEO PLATFORM An OVP gives you control of the many aspects surrounding a video, such as how, when and where the video will be viewed. Depending on the type of content in your videos, with an OVP you can opt to restrict certain domains from accessing your content. You also have the ability to select if viewers can embed your video elsewhere for sharing purposes, or if you want to prohibit that all together. Using an OVP to host your video content provides you with the opportunity to continue the process of branding your business by implementing your color scheme and logo within the video player (where with YouTube, you will be given a basic player with YouTube’s color scheme and logo). OVPs offer detailed video analytics so you can better understand what your viewers are paying attention to. Some even promote the sense of community with features such as in‐line commenting and tagging, which are available with Viddler’s service. The bottom line: Using an OVP for your videos brings visitors to your website and keeps them there, without being subject to auto‐populating advertisements, competitors or other related video content, which is common with the use of YouTube. PAGE 1 content. But if you have great stuff that you want people talking about, it’s not harmful, per say, to place the videos on YouTube. As far as OVPs are concerned, they charge for their services. But placing your videos on an OVP enables you to fully control the intended message, purpose and feel behind your content. USING YOUTUBE YouTube, on the other hand, is a channel. It is the second largest search engine in the world with over four billion hours of videos viewed every month. So, what does that mean? YouTube reaches more people, which can get your videos more views. With a search engine of this caliber comes a lot of clutter. 72 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. Among all of this video are your competitor’s videos—and more detrimentally to you, among it are the videos that interest your customers based on videos they more frequently watch on YouTube. If you can break through this noise YouTube tends to create, you will inevitably get more eyeballs on yours videos. COMBINATION IS KEY So, back to the “key” … It happens to be taking the opportunity to use both YouTube and an OVP for your video content. Why? Let’s start with cost and visits. … YouTube is free, and receives over 800 million unique visitors to the site every month. Why wouldn’t you use this channel to try to broadcast your videos to as many of your consumers as possible? Well, that answer can depend upon the underlying strategy behind your video Using both YouTube and an OVP might not work every time, but it’s up to you determine what you’re looking to get out of each of your videos. 1. Views—views—views You’ll get that from YouTube. 2. Control—control—control You’ll only get that from an OVP (like Viddler). 3. Or how about views, control, brand recognition, interaction, analytics, and all of the other good video stuff? You’ll get that from using YouTube along with an OVP. For more information, contact us at: (888) 444-1119 ● [email protected] PAGE 2