Let’s start with a bit of trivia.
How much of the world’s Internet traffic will be on video in 2019?
According to IT and networking leader Cisco, 80 percent.
How about another fact? Studies show that four out of five people find retail videos helpful when making buying decisions.
But, with so many choices out there, what is the best bang for your buck?
I’m sure you know Google is so popular that it was even added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006. But do you know what the second most used search engine is?
Youtube.
In fact, America’s favorite video hosting site had more than 15.7 trillion visitors in the month of December in 2016. That’s even more than Google.com, according to The Telegraph.
It also boasts almost one-third of Internet users as members, and each day those visitors watch more than a billion hours of video.
And to add to that, as early as 2013, one in two YouTube users watched videos to make purchasing decisions. It has only grown since then. Among the up-and-coming generation, those 12 to 24 years old, nine out of 10 report watching Youtube daily.
But it’s not the only video hosting site out there.
If all those online advertisements cramp your style, perhaps Vimeo is more your speed.
For one, it is ad free. For another, it has a more mature community that, while smaller at 72 million, is much more feedback-driven. What’s the catch, you ask? Users pay for membership.
And for another, Vimeo focuses on high quality content. So, if you’re looking at customers that put a dollar value on quality content, Vimeo might be the right fit.
Finally, there is Wistia, which is more like the business-to-business platform.
According to the company, at its core Wistia was built for marketers with optimization for SEO and tracking. But it’s also ideal for companies that want to develop and work on video behind a pay wall (think online classes or sensitive corporate communications).
To be clear, it’s also a very different platform than the others. For example, Youtube is meant for content creators to have a place to upload content and make money off their videos, through the use of advertisements.
Wistia, on the other hand, is meant to drive users to your web site. There the site allows you to collect certain information about them, improve your SEO scores and track leads. It even shows you how users interact and engage with your video, allowing for better feedback.
No matter which platform you choose, it’s important to know the different strategies you can use for each one to help you sell, sell sell.
