Video marketing strategy: to host or post video?
Monday, September 28th, 2009, 264 views
by Richard van den Boogaard
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Last Thursday, 24 September 2009, ReelSEO.com published my latest addition to the site: “Video Marketing Strategy: Hosted Versus Posted Video“. Judging from the response so far, the article struck a cord with both readers and video platform proponents.
The article provides an in-depth analysis of why brands should consider posting video to video sharing sites as opposed to *exclusively* hosting video themselves (or using a proprietary video platform). Based on 19 criteria, accompanied with my somewhat biased explanation, readers can create a balanced scoring card. By giving plusses (and perhaps some minuses) on either side of the table (hosting versus posting) readers can decide what best meets their needs.
The idea behind the article came to fruition after reading other posts on the topic of video marketing strategy. I noticed a tendency among video platform proponents to dismiss video sharing sites as “UGC-communities” and point brand owners to fears for advertising, image association, poor branding, loss of clip control, aggregate statistics, et cetera. Although some of these arguments do have some validity to them, many of these acclaimed negative features are in fact either outdated, exaggerated or simply untrue. Why video platform buffs employ such tactics in their sales-pitches is something that wonders me still. Now, at least, as a brand owner, you can make up your own mind.
Judging from the response, hosted versus posted video really is a key question to marketers. Thanks to Bit.ly (gotta love those open social statistics!), you can see that more than 500 have taken the time to click the link through Twitter, Twitter Apps or other social networks.
The ReTweets made it clear that the topic struck a cord with those involved in video marketing.
I am curious to learn how you feel about it. That’s why I created the following poll:
2 Comments
rella
November 5th, 2009
at 7:09am
My issue is finding affordable video hosting. I was planning on using YouTube or another shared video hosting service for a fundraising video. I was planning on embedding it on our yet-to-be launched website. I coordinate a group of parents of children with a chronic illness and we are trying to raise money for research — for a specific project where the money goes directly to the research institution. We collect no money for overhead, so everything comes out of pocket, leaving us with no real budget.
Our issue is that YouTube, Vimeo and all the other free services violate the terms of the music licenses we have for our video. Our music licenses also stipulate that we can only broadcast the video on our own website. I find that the paid video hosting services are all geared towards businesses and cost hundreds to thousands per month. Since we have no idea of what traffic will be, I have no idea what to do. YouTube isn’t even an option for us, though I’d happily use it if it were. We are ready to launch as soon as we solve the video hosting quandary.
Thanks for the article. It’s been very helpful to see these analyses.
Richard van den Boogaard
November 5th, 2009
at 10:50am
@rella: thanks for your comment and compliments.
Copyrights in general and specifically music always is a tricky matter. As the doctor always says, prevention is better than the cure.
So either you have to renegotiate the music licenses for your existing content or consider doing a re-edit with royalty free music (e.g. http://www.beatsuite.com has a nice collection at very affordable prices) in order to safely go the “posted” route. That way you’ll know you’re covered on that end and you can focus on maximizing distribution of your content – which is your key objective!
You can achieve this through syndication on multiple video sharing platforms or by seeding a single-source on other locations (blogs, social networks, etc.).
If re-negotiation of music licenses or re-editing of content is no option – and you’re stuck to hosting it yourself you can try the following: most any video hosting platform is a business – and most businesses want to be good citizens too. Since your content appears to be for a good (if not great) cause, try to approach them as a sponsor. Perhaps you can work out a deal that allows them to be associated with your cause (pre-roll, banner ads, co-ordinated joint PR efforts) in return for free and flexible hosting.
However, as I mentioned in the article, I am not a big fan of hosting unless you depend on monetization of your content. Your goals is to maximize distribution and to raise money as a result of that.
Good luck and keep me posted!