Thursday, February 6, 2014

YouTube vs. Vimeo



One of the most common questions I get asked in my profession is “what’s the difference between vimeo and YouTube?”  In fact, a gentleman I just met last week -PJ Dunn - asked me that very question at a network meeting we were attending.

I’ll try to cover the general differences and similarities between these two video hosting sites, their advantages and disadvantages, and which you should use.




Youtube


The king of all online video clearly is YouTube.  It is simply a staggeringly large resource of videos.  Here are some statistics straight from their own website:

More than 1 billion unique visitors per month

6 billion hours of video viewed per month

100 hours of video are uploaded every minute

And these numbers keep going up.  YouTube is the world’s video repository.  I challenge you to find something NOT on their site. 

We are all familiar with the site and each of us probably watch at least a video or two a day either directly or indirectly that is stored on their servers.

So what are the advantages of YouTube?


1.) It is huge.
    YouTube isn’t going away anytime soon.  In fact, if you upload something today, it will likely outlive you. 

2.) It is owned by Google
    The advantage is it is directly tied into Google’s search engines and other offerings.  This can help drive traffic to your business.

3.) It is easy to use.
    On the viewer side, YouTube is playable on all but the most anemic computer systems.  It usually works quite well.  On the creator side it is very simple to upload a video from your computer, smartphone, tablet, or even some video cameras.  Features such as closed captioning, ad placements, video effects, and even music make YouTube a simple tool to use.

4.) It’s free.

What are some disadvantages?


1.) It is huge.
    Videos can easily get lost in the shuffle on YouTube.  Once a video is uploaded, it is competing with thousands of videos at the same time.


2.) Everyone uses it. 
    Obviously, you can do searches for what you’re looking for, but along with your corporate video, you'll find a video about cats, sewing techniques, how to polish a boot, three guys dangling from a Russian skyscraper, the latest music video by the newest pop star, etc.

3.) It looks cluttered.
    When you watch a video on YouTube, you usually see a slew of other video thumbnails on the side - distracting you from what you’re watching.  People place ads before their videos.  Often, videos contain pop ups while you watch.


It's a little cluttered. 

Vimeo


You may not have even heard of vimeo - depending on how much time you spend online and what types of videos you watch.  In many ways, vimeo is the antithesis of YouTube.  Founded in 2004, the company began generating interest from filmmakers who wanted to share and showcase their professional work.  Though there are sometimes silly videos here, most of what you’ll find are higher quality videos produced by professionals and skilled amateurs.

So what are vimeo’s advantages?


1.)  It caters to a more serious viewer base.
    Since this is the site that countless professional film/video creatives use, it has a reputation of quality.  This is further cemented by the vimeo main page’s staff picks which curate the best of the best videos. 

2.)  It’s free-ish.
    You don’t have to pay to use the service and if you don’t plan to upload a lot of content, it is a good start.  They do have paid levels too which can be advantageous in many applications.

3.) The interface is clean
    You won’t find a lot of clutter on vimeo and even for unpaid subscriptions the advertising is not a nuisance.  If you have a paid subscription there are no ads at all.

Clean and streamlined.  Less clutter.


4.) It’s relatively small.
    Vimeo is much smaller than YouTube and that can be helpful when trying to stand out from the crowd.

5.) Privacy
    You can build private albums, host videos with password protection, and even tell vimeo only to show the video on approved sites.  Very handy if you don’t want the world to see your internal company message for example.


And disadvantages?


1.) You need to pay to take full advantage.
    Unlike Youtube, vimeo offers vimeo plus and vimeo pro, which cost money.  But these offerings do provide a lot of advantages.

2.) Less exposure
    Yes, vimeo is smaller so you won’t get the same exposure as you will on YouTube.  However, a properly optimized video on vimeo should yield great results for driving traffic back to you.


My Suggestion


So what do I recommend to my clients when they ask me this question?

Use both services.  Why?  More exposure for you. 

If you are planning to have a video on your website, use YouTube and/or vimeo instead of hosting it locally on your server.    As I said before, most computers can play videos hosted on YouTube or vimeo.  If you upload the video to your site and use some sort of encode and playback method that isn’t ubiquitous, you may lose customers who can’t see it.  Also, a video hosted by either of these services is much easier to share with customers and clients - and they can easily share the video too!

Additionally, both vimeo and Youtube are trackable by search engines which means that your video is another avenue customers can use to find you.

If you still have questions about either of these services, please drop me a line.
Here are the links to YouTube   and vimeo:

YouTube
vimeo

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