July 27, 2023

How to choose a video hosting platform

Dailymotion

Unlock the power of videos and watch your business soar to new heights! But hold on – before you hit that record button, you need to choose the right video hosting platforms. With an array of options competing for your attention, finding a suitable platform can feel like navigating a maze. Don’t worry! In this article, we’ll be your compass and guide you through the web of choices. Get ready to discover the secrets of choosing the right platform that can boost your creativity, engage your audience, and drive your business towards success, as we go through the basics of a video hosting platform and a step-by-step guide that can make your video journey a breeze! 

What is a video hosting platform? 

A video hosting platform is an online service that allows users to upload, store, and share videos on the Internet. It provides the necessary infrastructure and tools to manage, stream, and distribute videos effectively.  

Many video hosting platforms offer the following features and functionalities: 

• Video Upload and Encoding: Users can upload videos in various formats. The platform then automatically encodes these videos into different resolutions and formats to ensure compatibility and optimal streaming quality. 
• Video Management and Organization: Platforms provide tools to manage and organize video libraries effectively. Users can also add metadata, tags, and descriptions to videos to improve searchability, as well as categorize videos and create playlists for easy navigation.  
• Video Playback and Streaming: Video hosting platforms ensure smooth and seamless video playback, and optimize video delivery using adaptive streaming technologies. 
• Customization and Branding: Platforms often provide options to customize the appearance and branding of your video player, including customizing colors, logos, and thumbnails, and adding overlays or watermarks. This customization helps maintain a consistent brand identity across your videos. 
• Livestreaming: Many video hosting platforms support live streaming capabilities, enabling users to broadcast real-time events, webinars, or live performances. They provide features like chat functionality, audience interaction tools, and recording options for future playback. 
• Monetization: Some platforms enable users to monetize their videos and generate revenue through ads, sponsorships, subscriptions, pay-per-view, or integrated e-commerce solutions. 
• Analytics and Insights: Platforms offer detailed analytics and reporting tools to track video performance, including metrics like views, watch time, engagement, retention rates, and audience demographics and behavior. These insights help users understand their viewers, measure video effectiveness, and make evidence-informed decisions.  
• Security and Content Protection: Video hosting platforms implement robust security measures to protect user content from unauthorized access and piracy. Features may include password protection, domain restrictions, content encryption, digital rights management (DRM), and watermarking. 
• Integration with Other Platforms: Platforms often integrate with other tools, services, or platforms, such as social media, content management systems, email marketing services, advertising networks, or learning management systems. This offers seamless workflows and significantly enhances user experience.  

Why are video hosting platforms important to businesses?  

Given the aforementioned features and functions, video hosting platforms are crucial for businesses to succeed in the digital landscape, as they help business owners with the following, amongst other added benefits: 

• Brand Visibility: Video hosting platforms allow businesses to showcase their brand identity. Through compelling and appealing videos, combined with consistent branding enabled by customizable video players, businesses can effectively increase their brand visibility, which in turn enhances brand awareness, drives sales, and strengthens customer loyalty. 
• Audience Reach: Video hosting platforms have a vast user base and offer built-in discovery mechanisms, allowing businesses to reach a broader audience, including potential customers than they would through traditional marketing channels.  
• Increased Engagement: As platforms allow businesses to communicate more effectively through videos, which have proven to be more engaging than other content formats, businesses can generate higher levels of viewer engagement which would boost their online presence and increase conversion rates. 
• Customer Support: Video hosting platforms can be utilized to provide customer support and answer frequently asked questions. Businesses can create tutorials, how-to guides, or troubleshooting videos that help customers understand the products or services while reducing support requests, improving customer experience, and establishing businesses as industry experts.  
• Analytics and Insights: Video hosting platforms often provide robust analytics tools, allowing business owners to gain valuable insights into engagement metrics, viewer behavior, and audience demographics. These insights help refine marketing strategies, understand customer preferences, and make data-informed decisions to improve future videos and marketing efforts.  
• Monetization Opportunities: Certain platforms offer monetization options, such as ads or sponsored content, or selling access to premium video content. This allows businesses to offset production costs, invest in better video equipment, and even create a new source of income.  

What factors should be considered when choosing a video hosting platform? 

Choosing a video hosting platform is not always about selecting one with all the functionalities or benefits as presented, but getting the most suitable platform for your business. To determine such suitability, business owners should consider the key factors below.  

Objectives and Priorities 

Different businesses have different objectives, such as increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or educating customers; and these objectives also change or are prioritized differently depending on the circumstances. By aligning SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals with the features and capabilities of a video hosting platform, businesses can ensure that they acquire the right tools to achieve their desired outcomes in the most efficient manner.  

Cost and Value 

While a business can have as many objectives as possible, its resources are unfortunately limited. Therefore, business owners should always look for a platform that can offer the best value for money, maximize investment, and optimize revenue and return. To do so, they need to: 

• Examine the pricing structure of different video platforms and determine if it aligns with the existing budget and expected usage.  
• Consider any additional fees for storage, bandwidth, or premium features, as well as additional benefits for the given price, such as customer support, monetization, and other marketing tools. 
• Start modest and update (or upgrade) as businesses develop. 
• Make use of the trials offered by certain platforms. These trials allow businesses to test the features and functionalities, then evaluate their experience navigating the platforms, especially if they are new to video technology. 

Quality and Performance 

Viewers want to enjoy high-definition videos with seamless experience throughout, minimal buffering, and latency issues, irrespective of their device, location, or network conditions. To achieve this, businesses should consider aspects such as video encoding, adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR), content delivery network (CDN), and streaming protocol, among others.   

Scalability and Flexibility 

Video platforms should allow businesses to scale up and reach a larger and more diverse audience, but also to scale down depending on changing circumstances, without compromising video quality and performance. Therefore, businesses should attend to bandwidth, storage, transcoding, and multi-platform support, as well as whether these can be modified flexibly based on actual needs at the time. 

Security and Privacy 

Protecting videos from unauthorized access and piracy, as well as ensuring that your videos comply with relevant laws, is crucial. Look for platforms that offer robust measures like encryption, authentication, password protection, DRM, watermarking, piracy, and data protection policies, among other security aspects.  

Analytics and Insights 

Businesses should consider whether the platform provides detailed and up-to-date analytics and insights into video performance, audience demographics, and preferences, as well as other essential data points that can help optimize their strategy. In addition to those, data should be easily accessible and presented in a user-friendly and concise manner for ease of reference. 

Competition and Differentiation 

With heavy competition across industries, business owners want their products and services to stand out from the crowd, as well as their unique selling points and strengths highlighted. As a result, businesses should research platform options to assess their reputation (through customer and expert reviews) and look for unique elements that differentiate these platforms from competitors. Pay attention to important features that can benefit the company’s overall operation and branding, such as customizable video players or integration with other business tools.  

Support and Services 

The reality of any digital tool is that at some point, businesses may encounter issues or have queries. This is where dedicated and responsive customer support becomes invaluable. Businesses should ensure that the video platform they choose offers timely and effective assistance to troubleshoot any problems that might arise. Also, Businesses should consider the platform’s reputation in terms of service quality. Customer reviews and testimonials can provide insights into other users’ experiences with the platform’s support and services. These factors can greatly impact the ease of use and overall user experience, ultimately influencing the success of their video strategy. 

Conclusion 

In a world where videos have become a powerful tool for businesses, it is safe to say that choosing video hosting platforms could make or break your success. By understanding the ins and outs of your own business and considering key factors of the hosting platforms, you can unlock the full potential of your videos and effortlessly reach business goals in no time.  

If you have decided to seek a suitable hosting platform for your business, do not hesitate to give Dailymotion a go! We offer a full-fledged, competitive video hosting platform with most, if not all, favorable features and functionalities mentioned above, as well as a dedicated team of experts that will assist you throughout your experience with our video solution. Embark on an exciting video journey with just a simple reach out to us, and you can fast-track your way to video success!