In the age of internet marketing, it is imperative that a marketing professional understands how to distribute marketing content effectively. Too often, a marketer will invest in the development of an excellent, concise explainer video that stands to engage viewers and energise sales, then make costly mistakes in the distribution of that content. Below, we outline the key steps to take when preparing to publish your video.
Choose your platform.
There is a veritable cornucopia of options to pick from when considering which hosting service and media platform to use. The most important takeaway, if you learn nothing else from this blog, is that you must try to avoid posting to separate video hosting services. It’s a common misconception that the spreading of your content will increase your exposure and viewership. The reality is that it undermines your data collection and can also cause difficulty developing enough viewership for proper search engine indexing and suggestions. Instead, opt to use the hosting service that best suits your goals for your content.
So which platform should you pick? Each hosting service offers unique benefits. As such, your evaluation of each one’s offerings depends on your goals. Below I’ve outlined some of the key strengths and weaknesses of each service.
Youtube is the king of discoverability. As a member of the Alphabet (recently Google) family, it offers a search engine function that is unparalleled in terms of accuracy and power. It also facilitates discovery of your content through a suggested videos function that leverages data from the massive viewership base that regularly visits the site. With playlists, info cards, and your channel page you have the opportunity to directly influence your viewership and engage them. The analytics function is a powerful tool, but does not integrate with other services and does not have the same deep-dive capabilities as some premium hosting services. Finally, Youtube is free to use, and if you are interested in generating some advertising revenue from your videos, it’s as easy as switching on ads.
Vimeo is an excellent value option for corporate video. This service is centred around catering your content beautifully to your viewer. As such, premium users can dictate how the videos will appear on the viewer’s screen, with control over such aspects as minimum quality and watermarking. Vimeo also makes it very easy to embed the player into your website by providing you with the links and hypertext language necessary. However, Vimeo does not have a powerful search function and no suggestions to viewers. Thus, it makes a great showcase for content creation companies. In the end, Vimeo is best as a low-cost hosting service for embedding videos into your website.
Premium Sites like Wistia and Vidyard are considerably less popular than the other two platforms mentioned here simply thanks to their considerable price point. That being said, the offerings that they present are impressive. Features such as integration with Salesforce, Pardot, and Hubspot, a customisable player, and deep-dive analytics with IP address exclusion make these players powerful tools that could help you to fully leverage your video content online. So long as you’re willing to pay for the service, that is.
Social Media sites (particularly Facebook) will host your video directly. This may sound appealing, but the lack of control that you have over how the content is presented is a huge detriment to this option. I think it’s safe to say you don’t want your video playing back at 240p. Furthermore, the data that social platforms provide you on viewership are laughable. Viewership counts are inaccurate, and your best measure of anything are “likes” or the equivalent. Using a different hosting platform will still allow you to share your video on social, with thumbnails and embedded players automatically generated. There is no reason to host your video on social media besides maybe a slight added level of convenience.
Pick a thumbnail
Especially when the goals for your video include discovery by the masses, thumbnails have the potential to engage your viewers and pique interest in your video. This feature is particularly important on Youtube, where viewers have a wealth of content served to them, and your task is to try to capture their interest. Your thumbnail can do this by accurately representing the video itself and engaging the viewer. Here are some important considerations when choosing a thumbnail video.
Your player may serve up some potential options for your thumbnail. Youtube and Vimeo do a great job of automatically identifying some frames from your video that would work. However, you are not limited to these options! If you have a particular frame in mind from the video, it’s easy enough to upload an image to serve as your thumbnail. Just be certain that it’s representative of your video. Your viewers will not appreciate being “tricked”.
Human faces are always a good bet for your thumbnail. Viewers are impulsively engaged by the image of a human face. This is the basis of the wild success of vlogs online. This tendency is an easy one to capitalise on and drive up viewership.
Text is a no-go. Even if your video is an explainer featuring lots of kinetic type, text in the thumbnail should be avoided. This is because if the viewer cannot identify what the thumbnail image is, they will be far less engaged when scrolling past your video. Since viewers these days are looking at content on everything from a 4 inch phone screen to a 50 inch smart television, there is no way to ensure that text will be legible on all devices and platforms.
Title, tag, and describe
A video title teams up with the thumbnail to make a case to your viewer that your video is worth viewing. As such, it is an integral part of your distribution plan. Likewise, tags and a description drive video discovery and accurate indexing for suggestions and SEO. Different platforms do place varying importance on these different factors. For example, YouTube places an outsize amount of emphasis on the video description (be sure to put your company’s website url in the first two lines). Whichever platform you choose, be sure to do some research about what that platform’s unique process is. In general, you will be punished if you partake in “tag stuffing” – adding too many irrelevant tags to your video. Information on these subjects are usually not a matter of public knowledge, as player platforms know that if they divulge that vital information, it will be taken advantage of. In general, just ensure that your information is accurate, engaging, and relatively concise.
Leverage social media
Social media is a laughably easy way to reach your fans with your new content. It truly is as simple as writing an engaging tag line and then linking your video. As mentioned above, Facebook will even automatically generate an embedded player for most platforms. Automation services like Spredfast and Hootsuite allow you to schedule your posts and reposts and support easily posting to all of your social properties. That being said, the key to effectively leveraging social to get value from your video is engagement. Liking, commenting, and sharing incorporate your viewership. They feel like they are playing a part in your success, which excites them, and represents a powerful level of engagement. In addition, take the time to reply to comments that viewers leave on your video. This will ensure that they will continue to do so in the future, habitualising their engagement.
What are some of your best practices for distributing video marketing content? Let us know in the comments below!
