How Useful Are Video Hosting Services & Why You Should Be Using Them

If you stay up to date with the latest trends in the world of marketing, you must be making good use of videos to promote your business. And do you know what is absolutely essential when you are using videos for marketing?

Using a good video hosting service!

There is no doubt that videos are an amazing way of promoting your business. In fact, viewers have claimed that they retain 95% of the information conveyed when they watch it in a video.

Sounds like an amazing way to make a lasting impression, right?

But one significant dilemma that a lot of businesses face when they first start out with video marketing is about whether to choose a video hosting platform or not.

The short answer to that question? Definitely! Using a video hosting service is one of the best ways to ensure that your video marketing efforts are carried out smoothly and yield the best results. 

But if you are still on the fence about whether to use a video hosting service or not, we have got you covered with everything that you need to know to make the right decision.

As the name suggests, video hosting is the process of hosting your videos. It involves the complete procedure of creating your videos, storing them in the right format at the right place, and then distributing them to the relevant audience.

Video hosting can be done either by yourself or using an external hosting platform.

Self-hosting your videos means uploading them to your website’s server just like any other media file. In this case, you are completely responsible for making sure that your videos are well-made, reaching the right audience, and meeting all the innumerable conditions that make a video a hit.

External hosting platforms take away the efforts of self-hosting from you by providing you with software where you can customize your videos, store them in the right format, make sure that they are well-optimized, and push them to the right audience.

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Hosting your first video does not have to be difficult at all! We know it might feel intimidating to some considering the number of options you can choose from. 

However, here’s a brief rundown on how to go about hosting your first video so that you have better clarity:

• The first step of hosting your videos is to create them well and to store them at the right place in the right format such that they are accessible to the relevant audience.
• Depending on whether you are self-hosting your videos or using an external platform, your videos can be stored in your website’s server or in the server of the video hosting platform. 
• There are innumerable benefits associated with using a video hosting platform, the most important of which is the availability of a large enough server with good bandwidth that would not restrict the streaming of your videos and frustrate your viewers.
• When a viewer clicks on a video to stream and watches it, an HTTPS request is generated to pull out the video from the server where it is stored. 
• Making the video available for the viewer involves breaking it up into small packets of data that would contain elements such as the video, audio, etc. separately.
• Video hosting platforms make sure that each video wanting to be viewed is optimized and reaches the right content distribution network in the right format so that the viewers have a hassle-free viewing experience.

Believe it or not, there is more to video hosting services than simply storing and distributing your videos. Yes, these two are the primary reasons why people choose these services but there are tons of other ways in which you can use your video hosting service to improve and optimize your videos.

6 important uses of video hosting services are:

1. Improving Audience Engagement

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There is no doubt that videos in general are one of the best ways to keep your audience engaged. Their visual nature appeals to the human mind so much that 68% of people prefer videos for understanding a product as compared to blogs or infographics.

Video hosting services boost this engagement even further by providing a smooth, hassle-free user experience to the viewers. They provide unlimited server space and bandwidth that spares viewers the frustration of buffering and slow page loading speed.

2. Making Video Creation Process Highly Customizable

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One of the biggest advantages of video hosting platforms, more particularly for the paid ones, is the option to make videos highly customizable.

While completely free platforms or free versions of platforms (such as YouTube and Vimeo) do not offer this advantage, and even watermark your content with their logo, the same is not true for paid platforms.

Paid platforms allow you to white-label your content such that you can align the visuals and aesthetics of the video and its player with your brand.

This might seem like a very small step but goes a long way in creating the proper impact through your video content and leaving a lasting impression on your audience’s minds.

3. Tracking Analytics

Another way in which video hosting platforms help you is by allowing you to track your analytics.

According to Hubspot, 75% of marketers admit that tracking and reporting analytics of their marketing efforts is a major practice carried out by them. It allows them to measure the performance of their campaigns, identify and address loopholes, and optimize their processes.

Video marketing is no different. The only way you can reap maximum rewards from your video marketing process is by keeping track of your analytics. This allows you to measure the ROI on your video in quantitative terms, optimize different aspects of it that may need improvement, and get good results. 

4. Increasing Video Responsiveness

Responsiveness or mobile-friendliness is another important aspect that is coming into the limelight in recent years. With 52.2% of the world’s internet traffic being generated from mobile devices, it is essential that your video can be watched with ease on mobile devices.

Responsiveness has also become a key SEO metric considered by the Google algorithm when ranking your website. In fact, Google has been experimenting with mobile-first indexing since 2016.

This means that the mobile version of any web page would be considered its default version and be given more weightage when analyzing its quality. Google’s practice of mobile-first indexing applies to your video’s landing page too which is why ensuring responsiveness is a necessity for your videos to do well.

5. Allowing Control Over Ads

Again, this is not usually available for free or free versions of video hosting platforms. For instance, you will have no control over what ads YouTube shows to a viewer watching your video uploaded on the website.

However, in the case of paid video hosting platforms, you can have a large degree of, if not complete, control over your ads.

While this might not seem like a big deal at first, you should definitely not underestimate its importance. When you have no control over your ads, you cannot do anything if the platform shows ads of brands you most certainly disagree with.

Ads of brands that you would never want to be associated with can be played during your video and you will have no way of changing that. If you are suffering from really bad luck, your viewer might actually be shown ads of your competitors during your video!

With paid video hosting platforms, you do not have to worry about any of this ever again.

6. Aid in Creation of Complementary Content

With video hosting platforms, you do not have to take any efforts while creating complementary content.

For instance, if you choose to self-host your videos, there are tons of steps you need to be careful about. You need to compress your video files so that they do not bring down your website’s loading speed. You also need to upload them in different sizes and formats to make sure that they are available for viewers watching from all types of devices.

Whether you are adding the video on your landing page or a blog post, all these things would add more steps to your content creation process.

With video hosting platforms, you can save all this hassle. These video hosting platforms allow you to embed your video on any web page, whether it is a landing page or a blog post, using a simple link or a few lines of basic code.

When there is a choice between self-hosting your videos or going for a video hosting service, we would always encourage you to choose the latter.

There are innumerable added benefits of video hosting services that can save you a lot of time and money. Moreover, these services make it easier for you to carry out the entire process of hosting your videos as they require minimal technical expertise.

If you are not convinced about the many advantages of video hosting services, the following 10 major benefits might change your mind:

1. Prevent Video Piracy

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The biggest advantage of video hosting platforms is the prevention of piracy. Hosting platforms have a variety of measures in place to secure your videos from getting pirated.

The most common security measure offered by any decent video hosting platform would be password protected. Apart from this, video hosting platforms also take various measures to ensure that your video file’s .mp4 version is not available in the web page’s source.

Hence, you have to worry about piracy a lot less when it comes to video hosting services.

2. Bring Down Hosting Expenses

If you choose to self-host your videos, you are going to incur a tremendous amount of hosting expenses.

Most web hosting services provide a shared server which means that your website most probably does not have enough resources allotted to it in order to stream a video. These resources include both in terms of server space and bandwidth availability.

The only way to make sure that your website has enough resources in case you are not using a video hosting platform is to buy a better web hosting plan. 

By using a video hosting platform, you avoid all these expenses since the platform will provide you with ample resources to host a video.

3. Save Your Time

Self-hosting your videos will take up a lot more time. It might seem easy on paper since you would only have to upload the video file like a regular media file on your website’s media library.

However, there is much more to it that requires heavy investment in terms of time.

If you self-host your videos, you have to make sure that it is uploaded to your website’s server in different formats and sizes so that the video plays on all types of devices. This would require an extensive amount of conversions and compressions which take up a lot of time.

With a video hosting platform, you don’t have to worry about these tasks since the platform would automatically carry them out for you with minimal investment in terms of time and technical expertise.

4. Aid in Video Marketing

Using a video hosting platform is the best way to aid your video marketing efforts. And why not? These platforms provide you with everything you need to launch and run a successful video marketing campaign.

These platforms allow you to track analytics in-depth so that you can measure and optimize the performance of your video marketing efforts. They also allow you to white-label the video player so that you create a better impact on your viewers leading to a better ROI.

Video hosting platforms are also amazing for video marketing because you can control which and how many people find your video.

5. Improved Video Quality

There is no doubt that video hosting platforms are the ultimate solution if you want your target audience to watch a high-quality video that conveys your brand in an effective manner.

Video marketing platforms allow your videos to be available to your viewers at different picture quality levels based on how they want to watch them and what picture definition their internet can handle.

These platforms also allow different settings such as slowing down or speeding up the video and watching it with subtitles so that your audience is ensured a highly personalized and customizable viewing experience.

6. Give A Boost to SEO

If you choose to self-hosting your videos, you will have to take care of a lot of factors in order to ensure that your website’s SEO is not affected.

You will have to make sure that your server and bandwidth can handle your video so that your website does not become sluggish. Slow loading speed means a poor user experience and a lower degree of search engine optimization.

You would also have to extensively compress and convert your video files so that your website can be viewed from different types of devices. After all, mobile-friendliness is such an important factor in SEO.

With a video hosting platform, you won’t have to worry about any of this as the platform will help you optimize your videos without any hassles.

7. Avoid Bandwidth Restrictions

There is a limit to the amount of data that can be transferred by your web server for the purpose of browsing your website. This limit is your website’s bandwidth and can significantly impact your video watchers’ viewing experience.

Considering how videos are made up of large files, fewer people will be able to watch the video at a given point of time without feeling the effects of the bandwidth restriction on the website’s and video’s loading speed.

Video hosting platforms provide unlimited bandwidth that ensures such restrictions do not frustrate your viewers with constant buffering.

8. Prevent Issues with File Format

Unfortunately, there is no standard file format that can be played on all the different types of devices and browsers. This means that depending upon the device or browser that your viewer is using, they may be accessing the video in a different format.

The only way to handle such a situation is to make sure that your video is available in all the different file formats. This can prove to be extremely difficult because converting a video file to different formats takes a long time.

With a video hosting platform, you can rest assured that your video will be available in all the different formats so that your viewers can watch it without any issues.

9. Provide Technical Ease

All factors considered, there is no doubt that self-hosting your videos requires some major technical skills. You need to know a good amount of coding to be able to optimize your videos and keep them protected.

You also need to have a lot of knowledge and patience about video file conversions and suppressions as well as video player necessities.

With such things completely avoided, video hosting platforms definitely provide a great degree of technical ease that makes them an ideal choice for anyone out there.

10. Technical Support Available

Despite not requiring much (or any) technical expertise, there is a very good chance that you may hit bumps on the road.

You might not be able to understand how to use a certain feature of the platform. Or maybe you cannot figure out an integration. Maybe you are confused about a certain step of the process.

When you self-host your videos, you have no option but to handle all these issues on your own. With video hosting platforms, working becomes very easy as they provide a customer support team that is ready to take care of your doubts and issues.

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Different video hosting platforms provide a range of features and integrations depending upon their purpose and various plans offered. Considering the immense variety available in the market, we know that you might be feeling nervous about making the right choice.

If you are confused about which video platform to choose, here are 5 important questions you need to ask yourself so that you can make the right choice:

1. What is Your Purpose for Hosting the Video?

There are different metrics for measuring the performance of your video marketing efforts depending upon the purpose of your video.

Are you trying to generate more leads? Do you want to encourage your existing prospects to convert into sales? Are you trying to scale your revenue through sales or build your authority and leadership in the industry?

Different types of videos serve different purposes and require different hosting platforms for that reason. By choosing a video hosting platform based on your video’s purpose, you make sure that it aligns with your goals and provides you with the right tools and metrics to achieve the same.

2. Which Integrations & Features Are You Looking For?

Are you looking for a video hosting platform that allows you to completely white-label every aspect of your video’s landing page? Whether it is aligning the colors with your brand, adding watermarks, or coming up with a custom background— you need it all!

On the other hand, maybe you want a video hosting platform that will allow you a great degree of protection. It is a valuable marketing asset for your business and you only want select hands to be able to modify it. Does password-protected control access sound good to you?

You might want a Google Analytics integration. Or you could be looking for control over ads. Different platforms allow different integrations and features. Depending on what you are looking for, your ideal video hosting platform may be completely different from what most people choose.

3. What Extent of Tech Support Would You Need?

While video hosting platforms do make a world of difference in terms of the ease in streaming videos, it does not mean that you will not need any technical skills or support at all.

Depending on the help available internally within your organization and your own skills in understanding the nuances of video marketing, you may need varying degrees of tech support. 

Moreover, at times you may run into roadblocks and issues with the platform. In such cases, having someone from the platform help you out can be a major help.

When you are in need of any technical support, having to run after the help can be a huge hassle that can delay your work processes a lot. Making sure that your video hosting platform provides the level and quality of tech support that you would be needing is an important factor that needs to be considered.

4. Who is the Video Meant For?

Are you planning to distribute the video internally or externally? Depending on whether your video’s audience is from within your organization or outside, there can be a significant impact on which hosting platform would be ideal for you.

Distributing videos externally to a target audience is very easy since your video has to be available in the public domain. On the other hand, distributing a video internally is a lot more difficult because of the relatively confidential nature of the process. 

If you want to make sure that only people within your organization can watch the video, you have to make sure that the video hosting platform provides a secure channel of distribution and additional protection measures such as password access for safety.

5. What is Your Budget?

This might seem like the most obvious question to ask. Yet, it feels like a lot of businesses do not pay attention to this factor enough.

In the end, it is your budget that decides whether you can avail all the services you are desiring for. If you are looking for high-end video hosting services that allow a minute level of customization as well as extremely strict security, you will have to invest more.

On the other hand, if your budget is low, you may have to compromise on certain aspects such as password protection or a high degree of customization. 

1. Why should you pay attention to your videos?

It is 2021 and people’s attention spans are shorter than ever. In this era, videos are an emerging practice that is taking the world of marketing by storm.

The audio and visual components of videos ensure that they get their audience hooked faster and generate more engagement. Videos are an amazing way of compressing valuable information in an attractive manner.

In fact, 94% of marketers have agreed that videos have helped them generate more awareness and understanding of their product/service in the minds of their target audience. Hence, it is safe to assume that videos are an amazing marketing strategy that needs to be focused on.

2. What are the different types of video hosting?

Depending on whether the video is constantly accessible to viewers or can only be watched real-time, video hosting is of two types:

Live Video Streaming

Live video streaming involves real-time streaming of an event in video format. This allows the viewers to connect and be involved with the business in real-time, thus establishing a more intimate degree of connection.

The life-like connection provided by live video streaming is the main reason why live streaming is the go-to strategy for 53% of businesses.

Video on Demand

Video on demand provides a pre-recorded version of the content that can be watched by a viewer at any time of the day. While they might not provide a life-like experience to the audience, they have the advantage of easy accessibility as they can be watched at any time.

Videos on demand have become a very popular form of digital content in recent years. The most common example of videos on demand would be streaming platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime that allow you to watch a movie at any time you want.

As videos on demand continue to grow, 39.3 million people have canceled their cable subscriptions in favor of consuming digital content.

3. How should I choose between public and private video hosting services?

Both public and private video hosting services have their own pros and cons. Depending upon your needs, any one of them can be ideal for your situation.

Public video hosting services are the best solution if you want a cheaper option that provides a large reach. YouTube would be the best example of such a hosting service. Unfortunately, the biggest concern with such a service would be the lack of control over privacy and ads.

Private video hosting services are the best fit for you if you would like a higher degree of control over factors such as who watches your video, what and how many ads are shown during it, etc. However, these are usually more expensive options and do not have any free options.

4. How did the practice of video hosting begin?

Video hosting saw its discovery in 1991 at the University of Cambridge in England. With a group of engineers huddled in one room, a pot of coffee in the organization’s break room was a lifesaver for many.

Unfortunately, there would always be one disappointed engineer who would walk into the break room only to find the coffee maker empty because someone else already drank the coffee. This was naturally very frustrating for a caffeine-deprived engineer which is why they thought of an ingenious idea.

A camera was set up near the coffee maker to detect if it was in the process of making more coffee. The camera was connected to all the computers in the office and soon every engineer started getting alerted about whether there is a steaming hot cup of coffee available for them or not.

This was the birth of video hosting and streaming. Over the next few years, the practice of using videos only became more and more popular (with the media called GIF spreading rapidly) until YouTube was conceived on February 14, 2006.

Since then, there has been no looking back and videos have taken the world by storm.

5. Are there any additional costs associated with professional video hosting?

The most obvious additional cost associated with any sort of video would be the investment in equipment. You need good equipment that will allow you to shoot videos with good lighting and high-quality audio and video. You will also need software that will allow you to edit videos with ease. 

Apart from these, depending upon the number of videos you want to host and a variety of other factors, there can be certain additional costs associated with the video hosting platform you use.

For instance, if you are uploading too many videos that are very large files then you might have to pay for additional bandwidth. This is because depending on your plan, you might not be allowed unlimited bandwidth for streaming your videos.

Apart from this, you may also need to invest in an encoder if you want to use a video hosting platform for live streaming your videos. An encoder will convert your video into digital files that can be streamed easily through the internet.

6. What is the difference between a video hosting platform and a video marketing platform?

A video hosting platform and a video marketing platform are quite similar in several aspects. Both of these allow you to create, store and distribute a video for promotional purposes. However, you can consider a video marketing platform to be an extension of a video hosting platform.

While a video hosting platform provides you with an optimized method of uploading your video for getting viewed by your target audience, a video marketing platform goes much beyond that.

Though video hosting platforms might provide some amount of metrics, the most detailed analytics are only reflected by a proper video managing platform. These platforms suggest just how to reach the maximum number of people, generate more leads, and convert a higher number of sales.

7. Are there any disadvantages of video hosting services?

While the advantages of video hosting platforms very easily outweigh the disadvantages, it is still worth mentioning the cons so that you are well informed before you make a decision.

The biggest disadvantage that may be associated with a video hosting platform is SEO. When you upload a well-optimized video to a video hosting platform, all the traffic goes to that platform instead of your website.

However, this can easily be prevented by integrating your video player web page with your website.

Another disadvantage would be a loss of control. Even if you choose a video hosting platform that completely suits your needs, you are still at the mercy of the company.

If they choose to revise their policies about ads, video quality, server space, or bandwidth, you would be completely helpless about what to do. In such a case, the only solution you could take would be to find a new platform which could be a very lengthy and difficult process.

All things considered, we are pretty sure that you now understand just how extremely vital video hosting platforms are in your video marketing efforts. They are available in all different shapes and sizes, provide you with tons of features and integrations, and require minimal effort.

The uses of a video hosting platform are undoubtedly immense. With a video hosting platform, you can highly automate your video marketing process and provide your viewers’ a pleasant experience.

So considering just how perfect these platforms are for any business, have you decided to choose any one of them yet?