Whether you’re a content creator, marketer, or own your own business you are likely to be aware of the power of video. Businesses can’t afford not to use video today. You can use video to drive traffic, train employees, and offer better customer service. Your videos can demonstrate to potential customers how to use the products in your e-commerce store in real life. This can show their effectiveness in a way that text and images can’t. Videos are easily digestible and you can use them to create a more personal and engaging experience for viewers.
You invest time and money into creating videos that meet your brand standards and offer quality for viewers. Where you decide to host your videos may not be at the top of your mind. It is crucial to consider this aspect if you want to optimize your use of videos.
Why video hosting matters and what it can do for you
Using a video hosting platform can offer you numerous advantages. It will help you to easily manage your videos. They will be in a centralized hub where they are easy to find and use. You can use interactive video tools to enhance your videos. Security measures are available to keep them safe, and you can analyze their performance. However, the benefits you experience will depend on the nature of the video platform you use.
Disadvantages of using a free video hosting platform
Many individuals use YouTube for hosting their videos. The platform is designed to help content creators to monetize videos. What it isn’t designed for is to help you promote your own brand image, boost your SEO, and have the security you need when using videos for other purposes, such as internal communication. Here are some other reasons why YouTube may not be the best hosting option for you.
- Free video platforms like YouTube use ads that can distract viewers. Ad-free video hosting offers them a better experience.
- When hosting on a platform like YouTube, you don’t have full control over your video assets. You are subject to YouTube’s terms and conditions.
- YouTube offers recommendations for other videos that may distract viewers from your videos. The videos it suggests may even be created by your competitors. Its primary objective is to get viewers to its site and not to help you build your brand image.
- YouTube adds its logo to your videos and you have no way of removing it. It offers very limited customization options.
Why shouldn’t you host your own videos?
Hosting your own videos will give you more control over your video assets. However, there are various disadvantages to doing your own video hosting for websites.
Bandwidth: As video files are usually large they take up more bandwidth than many other files. You are likely to find that they use up too much bandwidth and purchasing more can be expensive.
Website speed: As your videos add to your server load, they can affect the speed of your website. If it is too slow it could affect your ranking in search engines. Slower sites also get fewer page views.
Different file formats: You may have to compress your videos and you will have to convert them into different formats for access on different devices and platforms. You will need to do this manually if you don’t have access to the automated tools video hosting platforms use to do this.
What do you do if you want to use videos on your website?
You are likely to want to use a wide variety of videos on your website. Perhaps you want to use them to demonstrate how to use the products in your ecommerce store. You may want to use them to create online courses or use them for marketing and sales purposes if you choose the right video hosting platform, it should be an easy process to embed videos on your website.
1. Online courses
A video hosting platform should allow you to easily create your own online courses. They should enable you to organize and secure your content so users have a seamless experience. When you embed online course videos on your website, this can help to boost your website SEO.
2. Marketing and sales
As a marketer or sales executive, you need access to a centralized and organized platform where you can store marketing and sales materials for easy access. A video library of on-demand video content allows you to easily select appropriate videos to offer viewers at each stage of the buyer journey.
Interactive video tools can help you to boost engagement. These on-video tools may include annotations, calls-to-action, subtitles, and contact forms. You can also use video chaptering so viewers can go straight to a specific chapter.
Integration with other software and tools can create more streamlined work processes. When doing email marketing or social media marketing it should be easy to incorporate videos.
3. Enterprises
Enterprises can benefit from using a video library for internal communication and external communication.
Video on demand hosting gives them the opportunity to share VOD content from a video library for a huge variety of purposes. For example, an employee video portal can contain the videos they need for ongoing training. They can easily access these videos in their own time and consume the content at their own pace.
A video hosting platform that offers both private and public video portals offers more security. A public video portal for external use could contain marketing and sales videos to offer potential customers for viewing only.
Some video hosting platforms only host on-demand video content and others only host live streams. It is best to choose a video hosting platform that can host both.
Choosing the right video hosting platform
What are the essential features you need to look for in a video hosting platform?
Ease of use: The dashboards of different video hosting platforms vary widely when it comes to user-friendliness and functionality. It should be easy to embed a video anywhere, build playlists, search for videos, and more.
Scalability: This is crucial as the quantity of videos you create keeps growing. A scalable and flexible hosting platform is necessary to ensure you can adapt to evolving needs.
Customization: Find out what level of customization a platform offers. Can you customize the video player and what options do you have for customizing and personalizing videos?
Security: Security is a very important consideration when choosing a video hosting platform. You need to know that your video content is protected from unauthorized access.
Analytics: Many video hosting platforms incorporate some analytics but you need to make sure you have access to in-depth analytics. You need real insights into how your videos perform if you want to improve them. If most viewers drop off at a certain point, this indicates you need to make some revisions.
Keeping your videos safe and sound
One of the significant benefits of using the right video hosting platform is the security it offers. A top video platform will use up-to-date security measures in order to offer secure video hosting.
If you want to monetize your video content, you don’t want another party to try and sell your content as their own. Security measures such as watermarks, domain locks, and email paygates can help you to protect your video content.
Encryption: Encryption of video files protects them against unauthorized access. AES encryption secures video streams by using special cryptographic keys. Viewers must have the digital key to view content.
HTTPS: This provides protection from middle man attacks. These attacks are usually associated with video streaming, especially when individuals use open networks at libraries or schools to access video content.
Password-protection video hosting: This will help to keep content out of the wrong hands. You can add a password to your online video player to restrict access from unauthorized viewers.
Role-based Access Control (RBAC): You can allot roles to all the users of your enterprise video platform. You will then assign them permissions according to their roles. This limits what actions they can perform. Viewers, contributors, managers, and administrators all have different levels of access. With access on a need-to-know basis, you can prevent unnecessary access to sensitive information.
Cincopa: Transforming your video hosting experience
Cincopa is one of the best video hosting platforms for business. It makes it easy to upload, manage, and embed your videos.
A Content Delivery Network (CDN): A network of servers uses complex load-balancing secure video streaming software. This supports delivery of your videos across the world quickly and securely.
SEO-friendly embed codes: With SEO-friendly, JSON-LD embed codes, you can increase organic traffic to your website and grow your audience.
Galleries and templates: Cincopa’s range of video players, galleries, slideshows, and portals offer viewers a great experience no matter what devices they use. Automatic transcoding converts video from one format to another.
As an online course creator, you can combine videos into a gallery to offer a systematic structure. The layout of the video course template allows users to consume your video content in a linear way.
Interactive video player features and other on-video tools: You can use your own logo and other brand elements on a video player so it doesn’t look out of place on your website. Interactive video tools allow you to add features such as contact forms, annotations, calls-to-action, and subtitles.
Live streaming and video on demand: Cincopa supports live streaming and video on demand. It autosaves your live stream to your Cincopa video library. There you are able to enhance it in various ways and use it as video on demand.
Multi-layer security features: You can create secure video galleries and enhance DRM protection with video encryption technology. Advanced encryption standards (AES) make the platform secure end-to-end. Other security features such as domain lock, password-protection, Single Sign-On (SSO), and right-click override add layers of security to your video content.
Advanced analytics: While many other video hosting platforms offer some form of analytics, Cincopa offers in-depth analytics. You can see where viewers come from, how they interact with content, and view detailed stats for every video asset. A video analytics dashboard offers quick statistics for all embedded videos within a selected timeframe. A video heatmap shows how engagement rates change as users view a video. You can also view all information about specific users from a user screen.
Conclusion
If you need an easy, cost-effective way to host and share your videos, then choosing the right video hosting platform can be the solution. Video hosting costs can vary widely depending on the capabilities and features you require. Start a free 30-day trial today at Cincopa and you have the opportunity to fully test out the platform and see if it works for your purposes.
