How To Host, Publish, And Promote Videos

You also understand the types of stories you can tell and the tools you need to make your videos look professional.

Now that you have shot, edited, and put together your footage, it's time to promote it! Share it on social media, post it on your website, and send it out in email campaigns in order to increase brand awareness and drive leads. So what to do next?

Making a good video is just the first step. You also need to have a plan for what to do with it once it's made. This includes hosting, publishing, and promoting your video.

Where To Host Your Videos

In order to publish and promote your video, you need to make it publicly available. There are several popular hosting sites that you can use, including:

YouTube is the largest and most popular video hosting website in the world. It is very easy to use. YouTube works well on different devices and at different internet speeds. This is because it is part of the Google network. You also have little control over what happens to your video after it is uploaded. However, you can customize your videos to some extent.

Wistia is a popular marketing tool that gives you more control over where and how your video is played. It's good for embedding on your website. Wistia offers robust analytics, including video heat maps and lead generation tools. However, some of the better features of Wistia come at a cost of about $100 a month.

Vimeo is a video platform that is popular with creative professionals. It has an attractive and user-friendly player, and the community is very active and helpful. However, Vimeo users often expect high production values, which may not be ideal for industrial companies.

Optimize Your Video Thumbnail

No matter which platform you choose, you want to pay careful attention to the thumbnail image of your video. 

The thumbnail is the image that people see when they are looking at videos on different websites. It is very important to make sure that the thumbnail is interesting so that people will be more likely to play the video. One of the greatest driving forces of using video marketing is to prove to your viewers that you’re more than just a corporate logo and add a human element.

When choosing an image for a thumbnail, it is important to remember that people are drawn to other people. We recommend making the thumbnail a smiling human looking directly into the viewer's eyes to increase the number of views your video will receive.

Where To Publish Your Videos

Where should you publish your videos? The better question is, where shouldn't you? You want to publish your videos in as many places as possible to reach the most people. Here are some ideas:

Create A Blog Post About It

Videos on blogs can help increase engagement and time on page. They are a good way to supplement written posts.

To make the most of this tool, be sure to post regularly. This will help you with your SEO efforts, as search engines tend to reward sites that publish fresh content often.

Post The Video On Social Media

You should use video on your social media channels as much as possible. Here are some reasons why:

A Facebook video receives 135% more organic reach than a Facebook photo

People more often retweeted video than photos on Twitter

Incorporate Videos In Your Email Marketing

Adding video to your emails can significantly increase their engagement. Wistia found that including a video thumbnail in an email instead of a plain image led to a 300% lift in click-through-rate.

Video can not only make your email marketing easier, but it can also give you enhanced visibility into your marketing efforts and audiences. You can use videos to gather metrics, learn viewer behavior data, and translate that information into lead scoring and workflows.

Promoting Your Videos

Buyers watch millions of hours of video every day. However, more and more companies are making videos too. That means you have some competition. You can't rely on organic views and engagement alone to get good results.

You can reach your target audience with social media video ads and YouTube advertising for just a few dollars a day. However, it is important to follow best practices so you don't spend too much money on these ads. This includes testing, targeting specific people, and knowing who your audience is.

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