Okay, you’ve got a video about your business or organization, but what do you do with it now?

Essentially, you need to find a video host and server that can handle the file sizes, the access, a larger potential audience and the ability/bandwidth to accommodate multiple viewers. Just putting it on your business website will limit all of those things. You aren’t really in the business of being a video distributor. That’s where a video hosting service comes in.

“The big three services specifically tailored to video hosting are YouTube, Vimeo and Wistia,” said Jeston Cole Lewis, Argos Productions’ Managing Director. “Another thing you might consider is posting directly to Facebook, because these videos will automatically play, unlike videos uploaded to another service.”

YouTube, of course, is the largest video platform in the world. The first video was uploaded to YouTube in April of 2005. Today, more than 300 hours of video are uploaded every single minute, and almost 5 billion videos are watched daily. But know this — approximately 20 percent of the people who start your video will leave after the first 10 seconds. So, you better make sure your intro is darn compelling. BTW, 9 percent of businesses use YouTube.

YouTube is right for you if…

• You have a high volume of content
• You have a small budget and don’t need the extra features other services offer.

Like most things from Google, YouTube is free, and the advertising potential is limitless (assuming you have limitless amounts of money). “The issue I find is if you’re going to use it to embed videos on your website, there’s a potential for the suggestions at the end of the video to lead people away from your messaging,” Jeston said.

Vimeo is a service geared more towards filmmakers and content creators. In fact, it was started by a group of filmmakers back in 2004. It boasts more than 80 million creators and features a lot of serious film, animation, music and other art-related videos as a platform to promote and share their work. Vimeo is also ad-free, but does have a membership platform that ranges from $7 to $75 a month (billed annually), depending on your needs. It has a very clean and easy-to-use interface with multiple tiers of service depending on your upload needs. 

“It also has a bunch of tools focused on video companies working with clients,” Jeston said. “Vimeo’s integrations are excellent, and it offers publishing to several other services, like YouTube, Facebook, etc.”

Vime is right for you if…

• You are a marketing company looking for a smoother way of getting feedback from your clients on video projects.
• You are a filmmaker looking for a community of like-minded creators.

Wistia is the smallest hosting platform we’ll talk about today. It also has a very different feel as compared to YouTube or Vimeo. Wistia was founded in 2006 as a way for filmmakers to showcase their work and collaborate remotely. Today it is a video-hosting site with an emphasis on marketing data analytics for businesses. If you’re getting really serious and geeky about metrics, branding, marketing distribution and analytics, then spending your money for this service might be of help. Approximately 300,000 companies have found the site useful.

“It’s not trying to be a social media platform. It is a video marketing tool designed for businesses looking for lead generation and big-time analytics.”

Wistia is right for you if…

• You need deep, professional analytics
• You need lead generation

What works for us

Here at Argos, we use Vimeo for most of our hosting needs. The expense in minimal for the value we get. 

“Vimeo’s clean interface, the integration of Slack notifications, and the Review feature alone pays for itself,” Jeston said. “The analytics might not be as deep as Wistia, and the audience is not as large as YouTube, but its interface and tools are exactly what we need.”