Your business has produced a stylish video that should get ahead of some of the billions of people who watch countless hours of online video every day. But which video sharing and hosting platform should you choose: Vimeo or YouTube?
Do you want to target the widest possible audience or a more niche community? Does your video promotion plan have a budget? Have you thought about SEO and visibility? These are things to keep in mind when weighing the pros and cons of both platforms.
Vimeo or YouTube for work
Benefits of YouTube
Has a large and growing audience. YouTube has over 1 billion users – almost a third of all people on the internet. Between 2015 and 2014, the number of people watching YouTube videos per day increased by 40 percent and the number of hours watched increased by 60 percent. Today, the platform reaches more 18- to 49-year-olds than any cable network in the US
YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world, by Alexa and other ranking sites. Hundreds of millions of people search YouTube every day for educational videos, new music, movie trailers, news clips, and yes, videos of people hurting themselves in a funny way. The only website with more search traffic than YouTube is Google, which of course owns the first. So if you want to create a shareable video that answers a question (“how-to”), for example, YouTube is a great channel for that.
Google prefers YouTube videos in search. Many search queries will include related video links. When was the last time you saw a Vimeo video rank higher on Google than a YouTube video? Internet marketing agency Seer Interactive reported in 2014 that Google was limiting video snippets on search engine results pages (SERPs), but YouTube snippets were unaffected. Need proof? Try any Google search that starts with “how to” and see how many video results end up on the first results page. Then note how many of them are not from YouTube (possibly zero).
big on mobile. More than half of all YouTube views are on a phone or tablet, and the average viewing session is more than 40 minutes. Does Vimeo have the same type of mobile audience? We don’t know because Vimeo has not disclosed this information. So why not try an informal survey instead of real data: How many of your friends and colleagues have the YouTube app on their phone? What about Vimeo? Definitely.
YouTube is free even for business. Accounts have unlimited storage capacity, which means you can upload as many hourly images as you want, whenever you want. Vimeo costs money for businesses to use, and there is a limit to the hours of video you can upload and store.
You can use it to generate income. A big advantage of YouTube is that it’s easy to turn your videos into effective ads. YouTube has huge customer conversion potential thanks to its huge audience. How to start your own advertising campaign? Choose the video you want to use, set your budget, target the right audience, enter your billing information and start that bad boy.
You can add an interactive call-to-action (CTA) to your video. Want to go further by using your videos to convert? YouTube provides the ability to add annotations or “clickable hotspots” on top of your video. Use this feature to give your viewers more information in text or headline form, link them back to a fundraising site, or force them to subscribe to your channel.
Disadvantages of YouTube
Your viewers may need to watch an ad before your video plays. The duration depends on the format, but most ads can be skipped after five seconds. The longest mandatory ad watch time is 30 seconds. The biggest concern here is whether the pre-roll ad is coming from one of your competitors or from another unsolicited source (for example, a controversial political ad). An ad can run in front of your video if it’s targeted at your audience’s characteristics: age, gender, location, interests, etc.
Your video must compete with hundreds of millions of people. YouTube is a public platform and anyone can upload any content that doesn’t violate their own policies. And there is nothing about quality standards in these policies. Your gem in a video can be lost in YouTube’s vast ocean of content. What you have to do is make sure your video gets in front of the right people. Use relevant tags, write a helpful description, and create a great headline.
You can cannibalize traffic to your website. You want viewers to visit your site, but YouTube wants them to stay where they are. And they are good at doing that. Who hasn’t fallen into the rabbit hole of suggested videos? Solution: Give viewers a persuasive speech to visit your site and consider using these clickable annotations.
Some companies restrict access to sites like YouTube. It’s a point to consider if you’re targeting an audience that will view your content in the office. A company that blocks YouTube would probably do the same to Vimeo.
Vimeo benefits
No pre-roll ads. So you don’t have to worry about impatient viewers clicking before your video plays. You can relax knowing your audience won’t have to sit around with a distracting or irrelevant ad.
High quality content. Vimeo refers to its users as “creative”. It is a community of independent filmmakers, documentarians and cameramen. Where the YouTube homepage shows you what’s popular, Vimeo only promotes “Staff Picks”, i.e. content selected for high production value. The most watched YouTube video of all time, this isn’t a music video, it’s a baby biting your brother’s finger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM
Vimeo’s most popular video ever is a dazzling piece of time and place.
supportive community. Because Vimeo is a niche community, the comment sections below videos are usually constructive. Trolls, spammers and vitriol are not. Here is a sample of the community guidelines: “We request, no – we insist! – We ask that you respect the people you meet and their videos while on Vimeo. You are free to disagree and/or provide critical feedback, but please be respectful.”
Customizable player and embedding options. With Vimeo Pro for Business, you can add your own logo to the video player, create a custom outro, and even use third-party players to view your work.
Disadvantages of Vimeo
Smaller, niche audience. It might be a more supportive community, but Vimeo’s 170 million monthly viewers account for less than 20 percent of YouTube’s over 1 billion monthly views. If you want to get your video in front of as many people as possible, you’ll need to do more legwork with Vimeo, such as more social media sharing.
Vimeo videos rank lower than YouTube videos in Google search. Worth repeating: Google prefers its own video platform. If you choose to post your video on Vimeo, you will have a hard time finding it on the first page of search results.
It takes money to use. Vimeo Pro for “professionals and businesses” starts at $170 per year.
Loads and storage capacity restriction. Even with a Vimeo Pro subscription, you can’t upload more than 20GB per week or 1TB per year. You can extend that up to 3TB per year, but this upgrade will cost you almost $400 per year.
Other considerations between Vimeo and YouTube
Privacy
When it comes to privacy, both YouTube and Vimeo give you the option to limit viewing access. The default setting on YouTube is public, but you can choose to keep your video unlisted or private.
An unlisted video will still give you an unprotected URL that you can share with anyone. A private video can be shared with up to 50 people with a YouTube account.
Vimeo has a wider range of privacy settings. Your video can be set to be viewable by anyone, only you or only people you follow. You can also password protect it or choose to hide it from Vimeo.com (it will still be on the web, but not searchable on Vimeo).
Analytical
Vimeo and YouTube offer a range of analytics. With YouTube, everything is free. Everything from the basics (views and likes) to more detailed data on audience demographics and play locations.
Fundamental analytics are available for all Vimeo users, and advanced stats are included in the price of Pro.
Playback and player capabilities
Both YouTube and Vimeo players support full HD videos (1080p) and Ultra HD 4K. If you’re wondering about the placement options, the player sizes and controls are customizable for both. But only Vimeo lets you choose your own logo and colors (with a paid Pro account).
Which platform should you choose?
The choice between Vimeo and YouTube depends on your business goals. If Vimeo’s community of niche filmmakers and creators is your target audience, posting on that platform may make the most sense. If you want to target the largest audience for maximum reach, YouTube’s 1 billion+ audience and proper Google rankings are what you want.
Ready to try YouTube? Moyens I/O gives you the power to upload, schedule, publish, share and watch your videos from one platform.
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