How and Where to Share your Videos

How and where to share your videos

If you have invested time and resources into creating a compelling video for your business, knowing where and how to share your content is one of the most important elements of your content strategy. With video you have even less time to capture the interest of your audience than a normal text blog post, so how do you get people to actually watch the videos that you have spent so much time working on? There are many websites that you can upload your video to in order to maximise engagement and reach. YouTube is one of the best ways that you can increase views and shares of your content but it’s not the only place where you can share your video content.

YouTube

After Google, YouTube is the second largest search engine, with an endless amount of searches carried out on this platform everyday. People are searching for content so uploading your video on this website is absolutely essential. In particular, your video will do well on YouTube if it is informational in nature such as a tutorial, how to guide or product demonstration. However, there are millions of other videos on YouTube and getting your content seen can be very difficult. There are some techniques and strategies that you can use to increase your chances of your video being listed, found and watched on this platform. Complete the title and description of your video as fully as possible and incorporate some key search terms and words and phrases that will be picked up by search engines. Search Engine Optimisation is an effective strategy. If you have a channel on YouTube, arrange your videos into playlists with clearly defined themes so they are easy to locate and view.

Vimeo

Although Vimeo doesn’t have the same audience as YouTube, Vimeo is the place to be if you want to create a higher quality viewing experience for your audience. With Vimeo, create a tailored thumbnail image for your video which encourages people to click on your content and watch your video.

Your Own Website

There are a few ways that you can incorporate video content in your own website. You can embed them from a platform such as YouTube or Vimeo or host them on your own domain. If you do place your video on a page, make sure that it is above the fold to maximise the chances of it been seen and watched. Some businesses will write a blog post about their video and then include the video too which helps with SEO.  If you do place your video on your website, be mindful of auto play. It’s always best to switch this off.

Social Media

There are plenty of social platforms that you can use to share your video content including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ to name a few. To maximise reach and engagement with your video, post it to as many platforms as you can and frequently. Not everyone will see your video the first time that you publish it. For example, if you publish your video on Twitter, the pace of the Twitter feed moves so quickly that your video can soon disappear in an endless stream of tweets. If you can upload the video to the platform rather than including a link to a third party site such as YouTube. This is because some social platforms give greater priority to videos that are uploaded. You could also create different versions of your video content for different social media websites. Again, tailor your video content to suit your audience. You might for example, want to publish a short section of your video to Instagram as a story or publish a longer version of your content to Facebook.

Newsletters and Email Lists

When creating a newsletter, add your video to the publication that you send out to clients. As they are already interested in your business, you are more likely to receive higher engagement with your content. Encourage your clients to like, comment and share your video content because this will increase your reach. Another effective way to promote your video content is to add a small statement at the bottom of your emails in the signature section. A line of text will suffice to encourage the recipient to click on the link and view the content.

Industry Blogs

Certain industry blogs will allow guest video blogging while certain industry partners may feature your video content on their various websites and social platforms. Good outreach is important here and if you are approaching influencers in your industry the content really does have to be exceptional. Avoid asking the blog or website owner to promote your content without offering something in exchange such as promoting a piece of their content.

Community Websites

Many industries have communities or groups of websites that are designed to help each other. As an example, there may be local business communities and if your video is a good fit you can reach out to some of these website owners to see if they will post or share your video. The most important thing to remember when reaching out to any industry or community websites is to ensure that your content is valuable to the target audience.

Conferences

If you are attending a conference, event or trade show, use your video and play it during the event. At trade shows or other events, it can be helpful to create your video with subtitles, so people can stand and watch without having to listen to what is being said.

There are many more places where you can promote your video content, but this guide has provided an overview of some of the main platforms and websites in addition to YouTube. One of the great things about video is that you can create once piece of content and publish it in multiple places. Blog posts are restrictive in this way because you have to create unique content to publish on the various websites and platforms. The methods that you use to promote your video and the strategies you apply will very much depend on the type of business you have and the specific content that you have to promote. Not every video will be suitable for every platform.