With all the options at your disposal, choosing the right avenue for your content can be tricky. Make the best use of your time and efforts with this guide.
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If you’re starting a business, establishing a media-based profile, or even just attempting to make a name for yourself, the biggest challenge can be knowing how to get started. Choosing the right outlet for your content, whether it’s for your company or your personal brand, can be a tricky first step. Since each type of business reaches different demographics, all your decisions must depend upon the nature of your audience. Who will be watching, listening, or consuming your content?
Let’s take a look at which video platforms you should use for different types of projects.
Video Platforms
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Different distribution and hosting avenues offer different benefits for your content. For example, it might be in your best interest to upload your video content to a platform like YouTube rather than Vimeo, or vice versa.
If you’re creating daily vlogs, which are generally long-form pieces of content that come out three to four times a week, you’ll want to use YouTube. If you’re trying to actively build an audience, YouTube helps you monitor your subscriber count and overall interaction numbers. This will also eventually help you monetize your content through word-of-mouth marketing.
Another option is self-distribution. Wistia is a perfectly viable option that allows businesses and websites to host their videos directly on their websites. That way, you can keep the traffic directly on your page and prevent outside elements from taking your video and re-uploading it as their own. However, this exclusivity does limit your overall reach.
Obviously, if you’re trying to build your voice or your brand, taking your efforts to various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are also viable options. With these, you can track your traffic from whichever site is hosting your video content.
If you’d like to know more, here is some of our past coverage on navigating YouTube and Vimeo.
- Perfecting the Call to Action on Your YouTube Channel
- YouTube SEO: 5 Tips for Boosting Rank Using Keywords
- How to Create Custom YouTube Thumbnails
Submitting Your Short Film
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If you’re trying to find a good venue for your short film or web series, the three options you could take are as follows:
- Submitting your work to festivals (traditional and online).
- Uploading to YouTube.
- Uploading to Vimeo.
If you’re serious about submitting your work to festivals, you might want to steer clear of online self-distribution — especially before you’ve heard back from the festivals. It’s a tricky area to navigate, especially if you’re paranoid about others seeing your work.
However, the best advice I can give is that if your content is longer than 10 minutes and meets the quality standards, upload to Vimeo.
Social Media
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Posting on social media can often yield great results, especially if you’re just starting out and you’ve either started your new account from your old account (with a built-in audience) or you’ve created a new profile entirely and are starting from scratch. It’s easy to promote your work on Facebook and Instagram based on the simple fact that these platforms allow you to pay for sponsorship. You can boost your content for a fee, and the website will distribute your creation to viewers you never would have reached otherwise.
Looking for a few more tips on online content? Check out some of our past coverage.
- Choosing the Right Camera for Your Corporate Video Gig
- Stock Footage: Every Filmmaker’s Secret Weapon
- Get the Most out of Your Footage with Standout Transitions
- Perfecting The Call to Action on Your YouTube Channel
- Video Editing 101: Pacing Your Film