Producing original and quality videos are expensive and time-consuming. Without the right video hosting strategy, it is not possible to get optimal results for all the effort put in creation. YouTube and Vimeo are popular options to share your video for your business on the internet. Here is why you shouldn’t do it.

  • You may reach a large audience instantly, but they are not your target audience.
  • Your business doesn’t receive any benefit when viewers share or embed your video.
  • Ads can appear anytime within your video – before, during, after – always without your permission. Ads displayed could also be for your competition and you have no control to remove it.

Having your own video hosting site like YouTube gives you complete control over your business. When you use video hosting for business, you can integrate videos with your website. It is also true that you can integrate your videos hosted on YouTube with your website using an embed code, but there are three major disadvantages to it.

  • Backlink to YouTube

When you embed your YouTube video on your website, and a viewer clicks on that link to view it, it links back to the YouTube site. So the viewers on your website are funneled back to YouTube domain. This ultimately means that maximum revenue generation for them and undercutting for your business.

  • Missed or no conversion

When people watch your business videos on YouTube, they generate revenue for YouTube and not for your business. This also means missing out on lead generation, minimal or no conversion on a third-party video hosting site.

  • No call-to-action option

YouTube allows for video description only while uploading a video. The sidebar of your business video will have related content, mostly from your competitors. You wouldn’t want a viewer to keep jumping over to other brands after looking at your video. Do you? But when you embed a video from a host on your website, it allows for tighter integration. Each of your videos can have a call-to-action in line with your business’ goals. Also, having your own video hosting server will ensure secure video hosting for your business.

Major benefits of a dedicated streaming video hosting service are:

Speed – By the use of Content delivery networks (CDN), you get global access rapidly.

Total control on customization – you can manage the configuration of the server and dictate how your server works to deliver optimal results for your business.

Power – many video streaming hosting service hosts provide encoding/transcoding services that utilize powerful servers for fast processing of your videos.

Security with private video hosting – no one else has access to your server except your company and the company that offers your dedicated server hosting and web hosting services.

video hosting service

Affordablebest video hosting service is made available at an affordable cost as video streaming business has become the main source of income for individuals and businesses alike.

Features provided by a video host:

  • Live streaming video uploading
  • Video portals
  • Monetization via subscriptions, pay-per-view model, and advertisements
  • White label solution for customized branding
  • Total control on your video hosting website
  • Integration with existing desktop, web and mobile apps as well as servers

Now that you know how “free” video hosting sites have been eating away your business which is why having your own video hosting site is important, here is how to choose a video hosting service.  

Steps to choose the right video hosting service:

Step 1: Define objective:

Brainstorm goals and write them down. Split them into low priority and high priority categories to simplify the process of defining objectives. In the process, remove any unimportant items, and, identify between one and four main goals for your video content. Ultimately it is these goals that will help you determine your specific needs and will guide you to choose a video platform to host.

Step 2: Evaluate requirements:

Assess the requirements to meet the specified goals/objectives. For instance, if your objective is to reach out to larger audience constantly, looking out for a service with Tier 1 CDN is going to be helpful so you can utilize the fastest speed globally.

If you are looking to create content and earn money through subscriptions, you can opt for video streaming providers who offer Netflix clone scripts. With this, you can opt for multiple monetization options like pay-per-view and subscriptions.

If you are looking for a secure platform to communicate about business matters, you need a platform with access control.

This explains how important it is to define objectives because essentially everything is going to be working to fulfill those objectives.

Step 3: Deciding on the content:

What kind of videos will meet your business goals? Is it through training, product demonstrations, meetings, advertisements, educational, funny, sports, meetings, live sessions with customers or something else? Whatever the kind of content you want to play in your videos, the video host you choose should be able to enhance the quality of it. For instance, sports videos usually need controls for pause, rewind and slow-motion, whereas, music videos require retro, cutting edge and grunge. All the video hosting providers will not provide all the options. So you will need to look specifically for the ones that will work for the kind of content that you will produce.

Step 4: Live vs on-demand video hosting:

Businesses can make use of live streaming for the webinar, workshop, events, training sessions etc. live streaming increases engagement with the audience as you, as a business can directly communicate with the viewers. Not to mention the amount of public attention that will be drawn to your business by such live streams. When you have planned for the live sessions, you can share the details of it with your clients, customers and business partners. You could also publicly announce it on social media platforms to garner attention. After all, it is most easy to spread a word via social media these days than any other medium of communication. Based on your products, services, and marketing goals, you can also do live product launches, new product creations, behind the scenes, conduct sessions with product creators. Individuals selling services online can conduct online training sessions to bring in leads, and make a mark for themselves in their respective industry or field of training.

Video on demand (VOD) is a subscription-based video hosting business where users can pay for the content they want to watch, and do so at their convenience. VOD works well for the entertainment industry. Also, it is suitable when live broadcasting is not mandatory. Not to forget that VOD gives us exact statistics and numbers that are difficult to comprehend in live streaming.

Live streaming and video on demand both serve different purposes and a business will need to use both in order to meet its business objectives. VOD is where you implement the kind of content you have planned for execution, and live streaming will be more of interacting with your target audience. However, when it comes to certain industries like event management, music, it could be a wise blend of live and VOD where equal weightage is given to both. News broadcasting companies will also be using both live and VOD wherein live videos are broken down by the news bits and saved for watch later as VOD. However, most of the news channels are not subscription-based yet, though digital magazines and newspapers have. With everything going online, we could expect many other business verticals that are offline, to go online soon.