The digital marketing and communication landscape is changing rapidly. The role of video hosting platforms for business is set to undergo significant changes in 2024. It is vital for businesses to stay up-to-date regarding emerging trends when it comes to videos and video platforms. Choosing the right video hosting platform will play a role in helping them to stay ahead of the competition in the future. It will offer them the security, marketing tools, analytics, and more to optimize their video content strategies.
Evolving trends in video consumption
Video consumption keeps increasing and business brands have to produce videos for all kinds of purposes today if they hope to remain competitive.
- Brand marketing videos: Consumers expect brands to create video content such as behind-the-scenes videos, how-to videos, and much more. They prefer these types of videos to be authentic and relatable rather than perfectly polished.
- Short videos: In 2023, people are increasingly watching short-form videos on their mobile phones. Short-form videos on TikTok and reels on platforms like Instagram are some of the most popular forms of content.
- Entertainment and humor: Consumers watch videos to be entertained. Businesses creating marketing videos need to keep this in mind. They are increasingly experimenting with adding fun elements to their videos. Animated videos provide a popular way to add entertainment and simplify complex concepts.
- Educational value: Viewers are constantly consuming videos to help them learn. These videos usually relate to their interests, passions, hobbies, or social causes. Businesses can make use of this desire for good instructional content in their marketing strategies.
- Production quality: Consumers don’t want to watch low-quality videos. Fortunately, there are many ways to produce quality videos without the need for expensive equipment. The value of the video lies in the content and using fancy equipment won’t redeem inferior content.
- Interactive video content: Businesses are making their videos more interactive and this leads to higher engagement. Interactive video tools such as polls, surveys, quizzes, etc. allow them to get valuable feedback from consumers. This enables them to create videos that are more appealing to them.
- Live streaming: This is becoming very popular and is one of the ways businesses can make stronger connections with their audiences. They can offer useful information, ask and answer questions, and build a sense of community. It is also easy to save and live stream, enhance it, and use it as video on demand.Real-time features like comments, polls, and quizzes increase audience engagement and build a sense of community. This not only sustains viewership but also fosters trust, making viewers more likely to become buyers. Therefore, incorporating such interactive elements can effectively transform passive viewers into active consumers.
The impact of video hosting on customer engagement
Why shouldn’t businesses host all their videos on their own site? One of the reasons is that video files are large and hosting them can slow it down. Most businesses don’t have the capital for the type of infrastructure and technology that paid video hosting platforms use. They are able to streamline the whole process from creating and hosting to distributing videos.
- A centralized platform: Video hosting platforms help with storing all videos in a centralized location. When video on demand videos are well organized in a video library, they are easier to access. Using video galleries can help to further organize videos so employees can easily find the right ones to show to customers.
- Compress and encode videos: Video hosting services automate many processes related to hosting and sharing videos. They will compress videos and automatically encode them so that they are viewable across all devices and screens.
- Use of a CDN: A video hosting platform like Cincopa has a content delivery network (CDN). This means it can deliver a video to a customer from the nearest server in its network of distributed servers. Customers receive quality videos without any buffering or freezing no matter where they are located.
- Customization options: Customizing videos creates a better experience for customers. When hosting video on YouTube, customization options are limited. Using a video platform like Cincopa offers many customization options. Businesses can customize video players to suit their brand image with their logo and brand colors. This helps them to create a consistent brand experience for customers when viewing their videos.
- Personalizing video content: Video hosting for websites offers users the option of personalizing video content. RecTrace from Cincopa provides a great tool for creating personalized videos. It’s a Chrome extension that allows users to screen record videos with face cam and voiceovers. Users can choose to capture a browser tab, record an entire screen, or focus solely on the camera to create a Talking Head video. They can share a video directly with prospects from a Cincopa account.
- Powerful on-video features: Various powerful features help businesses to further personalize videos. Some of these features are annotations, video chaptering, calls-to-action, and the use of subtitles or closed captions.
- Annotations offer users engaging information without taking their attention away from the video. Video chaptering divides videos into segments that users can access individually. Using tools such as CTAs on videos helps to drive customers from a video to a landing or purchase page. Subtitles offer wider access to videos for foreign language speakers and those with hearing difficulties.
- Ad free video hosting: When uploading videos to a free video hosting platform like YouTube, viewers have to watch ads if they want to watch videos for free. This disrupts the flow of the videos for viewers. Ad free video hosting means an audience can watch videos without the disruption of ads.
Integration of e-commerce and video hosting
Many of the benefits of videos when it comes to marketing are even more apparent when using them strategically in e-commerce. An Instagram survey shows that 44% of Instagram users will use the platform to shop on a weekly basis. Videos on social media platforms can help to introduce a brand story to prospects, build the loyalty of existing customers and much more.
Videos help to establish an emotional connection with customers and create a more personal experience for them. Whether this is showcasing how to use a product or broadcasting a live shopping event, video helps to break down barriers in a way that a text or an image can’t. An on-demand video library allows users to access product videos and truly experience a product before making a purchase.
Optimal functioning of an e-commerce store
For marketers to make the most of their e-commerce videos, they need to think carefully about how they will host them. An e-commerce store must function optimally to offer customers a good experience. A large quantity of product videos and images can take up a great deal of storage space. They can also influence how quickly a site loads.
- Bandwidth and file storage: E-commerce stores must have the bandwidth to support all their product videos and images. This is where using a paid video hosting site gives them an advantage. These video hosting sites have the infrastructure and technology in place to cope with the demands of hosting, storing, and distributing numerous videos.
- Scalable hosting: Ecommerce stores must be able to adjust their resources based on demand. For this a flexible hosting infrastructure is necessary. Cloud hosting is best for e-commerce stores as this allows for more flexibility when it comes to scaling.
- Integration: Businesses should be able to connect to a video library and publish videos directly to an e-commerce store. Integration with other software a business uses allows for the optimal use of videos in various different forms of marketing, such as email, social media marketing.
- Backups: A web host for an e-commerce store must offer fully automated data backups on a daily basis. Losing data such as customer transactions or sales reports can be a big problem for an e-commerce store. It also takes a great deal of effort to create an e-commerce store and having backups can prevent having to do it all over again.
- Technical support: The availability of technical support on a 24/7 basis means technical problems can be quickly sorted. This can prevent a loss of business due to technical problems.
- Security: Security is a major priority for any web hosting platform, including a b2b video platform. Cyber threats are increasing and e-commerce stores need to make sure customer information is protected. Secure video hosting entails using security measures such as encryption and password protection. Password-protected video hosting allows businesses to add a password to an online video player to restrict unauthorized viewers from gaining access. Domain lock, single sign-on, and restricting right-click access are other security measures in use.
- SEO benefits: Using a video hosting platform like Cincopa offers SEO benefits. Videos play an important role in SEO. When using a platform like YouTube to host videos, Google indexes the YouTube URL and not the site URL. Cincopa makes it easy to embed videos on a business website and receive the full SEO benefit of them. It uses JSON-LD, an SEO-friendly embed code standard that quickly loads a video on a website and helps search bots to scan it. This can help an online store to get more traction in the search results.
Analytics and data
When creating videos it is vital to access analytics to see how they perform. Video hosting for websites on YouTube doesn’t offer the depth of data and analytics businesses need. Businesses can get analytics from social media platforms but they can dive deeper into performance metrics when using the native analytics on video hosting programs. HR can see from data if prospects are showing interest in recruitment videos. Marketing departments need data to determine which videos are engaging customers most. Sales departments need insights from analytics to see whether prospects are converting.
Cincopa offers advanced analytics that includes the use of heatmaps to get a visual understanding of customer behavior when watching videos. This gives the type of insights businesses need to optimize their videos. They can see whether viewers watch the whole video or skip certain parts. They may rewatch certain sections which could indicate the content is not clear.
The future of corporate communication
Video hosting platforms are playing a pivotal role in corporate communication today. YouTube is not designed for this purpose but rather to support content creators who want to monetize their videos. Paid video hosting platforms not only help businesses with marketing tools but also facilitate internal communication and collaboration.
Internal communication is a priority for businesses today and is helping to shape business strategies and influence decision-making. Communication within businesses is essential to help them adjust to change and adapt to new market realities. In a climate where misinformation and distrust are common, communication can be crucial in helping to establish trust.
Cincopa offers an innovative way to facilitate corporate communication. Its videotube called CincoTube allows users to create both private and public video channels that operate in a similar way to YouTube channels. Users have the opportunity to comment, like, and share videos in the same way as they do on YouTube. However, this type of videotube is created with businesses and their confidential information in mind. There are secure ways to use CincoTube without leaking company secrets.
Creating a private video portal allows employees to communicate on specific channels or workspaces. They can centralize and organize their communication. This helps to break down barriers between departments and facilitate collaboration on projects.
User permissions on a video portal allow users to control who can view which videos. Confidential videos on an employee portal may only be meant for certain viewers with higher-level positions. It is possible to set user permissions to keep these videos private. Employees are permitted to watch what they need to perform their jobs and no more.
Conclusion
Video hosting platforms are likely to play an increasing role in 2024. The best video hosting platforms for businesses will offer them a comprehensive platform that streamlines every aspect of managing and distributing videos. A free 30-day trial of the Cincopa video hosting platform is available. It allows users to fully experience the platform and come to understand its many benefits.
