Why are videos important?

Videos are everywhere. In social networks, websites, blogs, it is basically impossible to browse the internet and not see a variety of them.

With 55% of people watching videos every day, this has become a communication tool hard to ignore.

To get an idea, only on Facebook one hundred million hours of video are consumed daily.

On YouTube, video hosting platform that remains as top preference of the public, more than 1 million hours of videos are watched every day.

Inbound Marketing tool of high value, understand why knowing where to publish your videos is as important as producing them.  

How to Choose the Right Video Hosting Platform

In order for you to choose a video hosting platform that meets your needs, let us first answer a few fundamental questions.

Why use video?

Before you start recording, it is important to define the purpose of your video marketing strategy.

– How to Sell Online Courses Using Video Marketing

Without this, you could end up spending a lot of time trying out a video hosting platform that will not help you achieve your goals.

You can use videos to educate your audience about an important topic, create tutorials, record lessons, talk about your services or products, conduct interviews, conduct online seminars, and more.

The possibilities are endless, just define what type of content best suits your goals.

How do your customers interact with video?

To answer this question you need to know your target audience.

Are your ideal customers more likely to watch a video if they can do it anytime they want, with no rush and commitment?

Or do they prefer to watch a live video to interact with others who are watching and asking questions?

Your audience preferences should dictate the chosen video hosting platform and its format.

How much time do you have?

Although you do not have to spend all day recording, it is important to understand how much time you have available in your calendar to consistently create video content.

If you think you have only four hours a month to devote to producing this material, make a planning of what you are going to address and divide the content into more than one video, leaving it ready for publication.

– Tips for using video lessons on your online course

No matter what your current schedule is, with dedication and planning there will be an opportunity to add video production in it.

What is your budget?

Fortunately, you can start making videos with little or no budget.

Some of the most popular YouTubers started with basic tools and still created fun and high quality content.

–  Learn How to Record Videos at Home

When you’re ready to invest, start by buying a good camera, tripod, microphone, headphones, and proper lighting to help your videos stand out in a positive way.

Top Free Video Hosting Platforms

Choosing a video hosting platform is one of the most important decisions you should take.

See below the pros and cons of the two most popular options that are freely available on the internet.

YouTube

Video hosting platform most widely used, YouTube has more than 1.5 billion active users a month.

Second largest search engine today, losing only to Google, the potential SEO value of optimized videos makes this platform extremely attractive.

Pros:

• Visibility: YouTube videos appear at the top of Google search results pages;
• Integration: You can easily embed YouTube videos on your website or landing page;
• Sharing: Easy sharing of video on other social media platforms;
• Community: YouTube has an integrated community where people can subscribe to your channel to receive updates.

Cons:

• Security: Be careful with possible copyright infringement with images, music, etc;
• Upload: Some videos take time to be stored or uploaded;
• Ads: The platform displays ads before uploading some videos.

In a general analysis, YouTube is quite simple to use, effective and reaches a large audience, which is perfect especially for beginner entrepreneurs.

For those who create online courses, this video hosting platform is an excellent solution to make classes, tutorials and other promotional videos available.

– How to Get More Views for Your Lessons on Youtube

Vimeo

If you want a more professional video hosting platform, Vimeo may be the best choice.

– Why Vimeo to Record Quality Videos

Although there are limits to the volume of video you can send, it is a candidate because of its powerful analysis, personalization and community tools.

Pros:

• Duration: Unlimited video duration on paid accounts, making it perfect for course creators or for holding conferences and online meetings;
• Quality: Better video delivery than YouTube and other platforms, especially full-screen;
• Ad free: there are no ads or pop-ups on Vimeo;
• Professionalism: Due to its quality of display, Vimeo has become quite popular among professionals of various specialties;
• Analytics: Advanced video analytics.

Cons:

• Visibility: Less traceability and exposure than YouTube;
• Investment: To take advantage of all the features of Vimeo, you must invest in a paid account with monthly fee;
• Limit: No package includes unlimited video uploads, so if you do not want file size limits, Vimeo is not for you.

Although there is Vimeo Basic, which is a free plan to use this video hosting platform, it does not include many features and offers maximum uploads of only 500MB/file.

However, if you want a better plan, the initial investment does not have to be that heavy.

The Plus account, for example, costs $ 7 per month and offers 5GB per week.

Top Social Media Video Hosting Platform

Although Youtube and Vimeo are great options for longer live broadcasts and pre recorded videos, social media allows you to connect with your audience more casually.

– 5 Tips for Selling Courses Using Social Networks

With the increase in videos recorded with smartphones, social networking has made video creation accessible to everyone.

See below for a summary of the most popular platforms.

Facebook Live

Facebook allows you to upload videos at any time for easy sharing.

If you want to stream live, Facebook Live makes it possible for you to talk to your followers live in a matter of seconds.

To optimize your results, you can create a custom video description and share a link on your page.

With so many people active on Facebook, this is an excellent hosting video platform on social media.

Instagram Live and Stories

Like Facebook Live, Instagram Live is a great way to engage your followers within the platform.

Remember that users are often too lazy to access external links when they are browsing a social network, so making videos available on the platform itself can bring better results.

In addition to Instagram Live, which shows videos made live for 24 hours before deleting them, another very popular feature is the Instagram Stories.

With Stories you create videos of up to ten seconds that are also available for only 24 hours.

The tool even allows you to insert filters, texts, gifs and images to make content more attractive and fun.

With this easy-to-use and affordable feature, business owners can create content quickly and personally, showing their audience a little more from their day to day.

This helps you create a connection and develop a relationship with your target audience, increasing their loyalty.

– How to Retain Customers

Instagram Live and Instagram Stories are great places for innovative ideas, so start thinking about how you can use these social media platforms for your business.

Snapchat

When it comes to Snapchat, the opinions and reactions are quite varied.

Application that was already successful due to its feature of disappearance of photos, now the Snapchat has turned into a video consumption hotspot.

So, there’s the question: is this video hosting platform good for your business?

Sixty percent of Snapchat users are under 25 years old, making it an obvious choice for brands that want to engage with younger audiences.

Snapchatters also watch more than 10 billion videos every day.

This social media became famous for its Stories feature (created before the Instagram Stories), and for comic-picture filters.

If your business caters to younger audiences and has a fun and playful tone, Snapchat can be a good communication channel.

If not, Instagram Stories or similar platforms may be a better option.

Best Video Hosting Platform for Online Courses

All video hosting platforms cited have their pros and cons and, most importantly, their ideal audience.

– Learn What Your Buyer Personas Want and Attract Leads

So before deciding which one to use, evaluate well your target audience profile to know where they are and what tool is most effective to reach them.

Producing videos is a perfect way to record more dynamic and interactive lessons for your online course.

Elearning platform (LMS), Coursify.me has all the necessary features for you to import and integrate content from video hosting platforms such as Vimeo and YouTube.

– Whats is a Learning Management System

Instructors can embed their hosted videos into any of these channels on their page on Coursify.me, leaving their lessons even better and more complete.

Visit our website and take advantage of all the features of our platform to create and sell quality online courses.

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