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Why Video Marketing is NOT Just YouTube Marketing Anymore!

June 13, 2015

minutes read

Video Marketing

What is your biggest medium of Video Marketing?

And pat comes the answer – YouTube!

With an average of about 300 hours of videos being uploaded to YouTube, about 4 billion hours of videos being watched per month and a whopping 6 billion video views per day, it is no doubt the largest source of videos and the biggest platform for video marketing. But is it the only one?

Until about a year back, YouTube was the single option available to video marketers. There were other video hosting and sharing sites like Vimeo, Veoh, Dailymotion, Metacafe etc. But how many videos have you ever uploaded to these sites and how many of them do you see on Google?

Your answer is pretty much the verdict on how popular they are and how much would you prefer them as a video marketer.

The underlying concept behind video marketing is the virality of videos and the engagement that it gets from the viewers. But for both of these to happen, you need viewers. And the best way to get viewers is to publish it to a place where there is a lot of people searching for these videos like in YouTube or, get it ranked on the search engines, especially Google.

So, on that point imagine if you have the option of uploading videos to a site that is already known for its virality. You have a readymade pool of audience and it will be pretty easy to generate traffic to your videos.

Enter Facebook, Twitter and Vine!

Alternate Viral Video Marketing Options

We all knew video marketing as a process of uploading videos to Youtube and then sharing it across our social media channels. People would click on it and open it up on Youtube to watch it or, otherwise watch it in a player embedded on the Social Media site. But the end beneficiary was always Youtube.

With ad revenue playing one of the biggest role in the bottom-line of most of these sites, it was imperative for sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest to tap into the video uploading and sharing market. And that is what they did. With this they can keep the visitors on their site and also keep all the revenue with them.

Facebook Direct Video Upload

Facebook opened the video upload feature a few years back and today accounts for over 60% of the total video shares. It was just a matter of time that Mr.Zuckerberg did this, considering his aggressive strategy. He would have been taking note of the fact that all the clicks on these videos, from Facebook were going to Youtube, who was the beneficiary of all this traffic when it came to ad revenue generation.

Facebook direct uploads are slowly overtaking Youtube shares on the site, which speaks a lot about how people are consuming the video upload feature from Facebook.

Another encouraging aspect is that Facebook is continuously updating and upgrading the upload feature to give the user a better viewing experience. And in line with this they recently announced the playlist feature, just as in Youtube.

All this means that if you still not using this feature on Facebook, you better start it or, be left behind.

Facebook gives you a couple of notable features that can create a huge impact, if you are running a Facebook page for your business – These are the Featured Videos and the About Videos.

Featured Videos – Featured videos and About video are 2 things that you should definitely use if you have a business page. The about video shows up on the right hand sidebar of your page in the about section.

Uploading a video to Facebook to simple. You can use the Photo/Video option on your status update box to upload videos.

facebook video upload

Once you have uploaded a video, it is easy to set Featured videos and also to create playlists. Here is how you create featured videos for your page.

When you click on “more”, you will find an option for “Videos”. Click on that.

facebook featured video

You should be taken to the “videos” page and you will find something similar to the below image with 2 options – Featured video and Playlist.

featured video and playlist

You can now add a Featured Video here. When you click on the button, you will be shown all the videos you had uploaded to Facebook. You can then pick the one that you want to show up as a Featured video on your page.

Creating Playlists in Facebook – Creating playlists has a benefit. You will be able to group all your videos related to a particular topic into a single playlist. While there is little information on how the optimization for all of this works, you should be able to derive some benefit out of the title and description for the Playlists, when it comes to ranking these.

It is very easy to create a playlist. Follow the exact same process as in the “Featured Videos” above. Once you are on the “videos” page, click on the “Create Playlist” button as it appears in the above picture.

You should see a small pop-up just like in the below picture.

facebook video playlist

You can enter the title and description for your playlist in there. Once you click on “Next”, you will be taken to a screen from where you can choose the videos you want to add to this particular playlist. And that’s it.

Over the next few months I am planning to use Facebook videos a lot. From the little that I have used it on some of my pages, I were able to derive some nice attention.

I would recommend that you start using these so that you are able to get some early traction around it. You can visit the Facebook help section to know more about uploading and sharing videos to Facebook.

You can see how to add a featured Video to you Facebook page in the below video.

Twitter Videos

What according to you is Twitter’s biggest strength? It is the 140 characters that it allows. And what according to you is Twitter’s biggest limitation? It is the same 140 characters.

But we learned how to use these 140 characters to the maximum and derive the maximum benefits out of it. And all this to the extent that we even managed to embed our videos into the tweets.

twitter videos

Conventionally we would upload our videos to a video sharing site like Youtube and then use the URL to embed the video into the tweets. But now, with Twitter introducing the video uploading app, you can directly upload your videos to Twitter.

With Twitter the biggest drawback is that you can only upload these videos through their Twitterapp using either your iPhone or, an Android Phone. So that essentially means that you will have to add the videos you want to upload to your smartphone and then upload it using the Twitter App.

Another option from Twitter is the Periscope app. Periscope is a company that Twitter recently acquired. If you are broadcasting video, you can use the Periscope app to do that.

Vine, Instagram and Pinterest Videos

Instagram added video hosting somewhere in 2013. You can now upload videos and pictures, both to Instagram. If you are using Instagram, then you can take advantage of this option. I did not find too much of value in Instagram particularly, in the Internet Marketing niche. Niches like Foods and Recipes, Fashion etc. tend to do well on Instagram and if your niche is one of these, you can use the video upload feature to get even more attention.

Vine is another interesting option. Vine videos are unique because they are looping videos. The videos keep playing in a loop. While this can be limitation to many because of the fact that the videos have to be strategically made so that the looping does not look boring to a viewer, there are a lot of brands that are taking advantage of this option and uploading videos to Vine.

Though a lot of brands are finding goodness in marketing at Vine, I am yet to try them. If you are on Vine and would like to take advantage of your audience there, you might want to explore this option.

Instagram has also introduced the looping video option. So if you are planning to create looping videos for Vine, you can use those same videos on Instagram as well.

Though unconfirmed, I read some news about Pinterest working on a video hosting feature. Their introduction of “Cinematic Pins” as an option for advertisers using “Promoted Pins” might just be the beginning of this. Whatever it is, I think it is time that we gear up for options other than Youtube because Video Marketing is changing and it is no more just Youtube Marketing.

My Final Thoughts

If you are into video marketing, then I am sure you have been noticing how Youtube is changing. The competition is increasing everyday and it is becoming increasingly difficult to market on Youtube, though not impossible. It is hence that it is important that you find newer ways of video marketing. And with most other social media sites, particularly Facebook and Twitter opening up video hosting and sharing, it would be foolish on our part if we do not take advantage of this and jump in early before it peaks out.

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About the author 

Dilip Kumar  -  

My name is Dilip. I am a fan of the internet and love the many opportunities that the world wide web provides. If used constructively , the internet can give you an opportunity to lead a life free of the 9-5 treadmill and will be able to give more time to your family members.
Read about internet entrepreneurship at my blog.

My name is Dilip. I am a fan of the internet and love the many opportunities that the world wide web provides. If used constructively , the internet can give you an opportunity to lead a life free of the 9-5 treadmill and will be able to give more time to your family members. Read about internet entrepreneurship at my blog.

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