Might as well start with the one I hate. OK. A strong term and not quite true!
YouTube
Building a following on YouTube is a full time job. Just having a presence on YouTube is not enough. Using YouTube to host your videos and then embedding them on your website is not a good idea.
It’s a full time job building a YouTube channel and expensive. It’s full time because of the time, money and effort it takes to make things happen. Allied to this is the fact that to grow you’re going to have to collaborate with other ‘creators’ when you start. Which is time consuming. YouTube is not a place to dump videos for the sake of ticking a box.
Recommend Videos
You’ll notice that when a video ends YouTube provides thumbnails of recommended videos. These (because of the algorithm) could be competitors. At the very least it will create leakage as a visitor could click on one out of curiosity and BOOM! They’re gone off at a tangent, exposed to YouTube advertising.
Very clever for YouTube; very annoying for a business that uses the platform to host videos.
Collaboration works by the way. I’ve seen great uplift, 57% increase in minutes played.
Optimising YouTube Video Tips
Do put keywords in the filename and title. Do use tags and copy in the description. Do link to your website on every video. Do use notations and end screens.
Video Measurement
Don’t fixate on the number of plays for a video. A play is a matter of seconds. Instead note and track ‘minutes played.’ That means how many minutes a watcher has watched J. A much better measure of engagement as plays is the video just appearing in a browser.
YouTube stats are very useful for gaining knowledge of your demographics for the watchers.
Vimeo for Budget
I like Vimeo. It does what it says and unlike YouTube has no ads or recommended videos that can lead to leakage.
You can customise the player to a degree. The stats are easy to find and use. It’s easy to embed the videos and with the Business Plan you can trap email addresses.
Vimeo Pro starts is currently £16pm and gives you a good enough range of features including adding your own logo.
Wistia
When a client has the budget then I recommend Wisita. The platform has many features like trapping email; fully customisable player and best of all will optimise your video in the page automatically for search engines.
Being Realistic with Video
If and I mean ‘IF’ you get your video on YouTube you are more likely to have it appear in Google search, so good for SEO
BUT with Wistia you keep all your content on your domain and therefore you’ll be able to grow that domain’s authority.
Wistia is rather expensive these days. The website is great for tips on video creation. Currently $99pm for the Pro plan.
A Word About Facebook & Instagram
I’ve seen great traffic and sales come via Facebook video and Instagram.
Video Editing
If you are creating a lot of video then you need a good editor to create the short form video, in video ads on Facebook are ten seconds. You’ll also need an editor to fine tune your long term video, which Facebook says will get better reach.
Don’t use video for the sake of it. Test what works, for example snazzy stock footage with funky titles v people speaking to camera.
Thumbnails and Titles
These are your hooks. Remember the majority of people will be viewing on mobile devices so the thumbnail will be small so it better be eye catching AND best to be in a contrasting colour to the platform eg Facebook is mostly blue, so a yellow or orange colour is going to stand out.
Captions
Do get your captions done. These help with search but remember the majority of people will be watching with sound off. I recommend rev.com. Quick, cheap and usually very accurate (they even use English spelling unlike Wistia).
Measure Success
As mentioned look at minutes played and track that. Also keep an eye on the drop off, which is the percentage played. All of these platforms will show you the drop off (depending on the plan with Vimeo and Wistia).
I remember a video for a client where the drop off for all plays was the same point. It was a video about making brownies. The drop off was exactly the moment the recipe showed the main ingredient (avocado), well it was a vegan recipe. O’ I tried the brownies, they were delicious!
With this knowledge you can edit your videos down and or rethink the content of your videos.
So, really it is a blend of video type and length you’re going to need therefore a decent editor is a must.
About Conversion Detectives
Conversion Detectives is a full online marketing agency in Hertfordshire.
We find the best quality traffic for your website and convert more of that traffic into sales or sales leads.
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