One of our social media experts takes you through the advantages and disadvantages of YouTube and Vimeo
Figuring out which video content platform to use for your business can be hard: YouTube, Vimeo or both? Before choosing, let’s take a moment to go over the advantages and disadvantages of each:
YouTube
Advantages:
- It has a big audience and it’s growing. This means your content has more potential to reach more eyes.
- It is the second most popular search engine (next to Google, which owns YouTube).
- YouTube usually ranks higher than Vimeo on Google. Google usually favors the content from the company it owns. This means that users will most likely see a YouTube video as a Google search result before they see a Vimeo video.
- YouTube is a more familiar name, which means there is trust and familiarity behind the brand.
- More than half of YouTube’s views are on a phone or tablet. This is a huge mobile audience and means people could be watching your content from anywhere.
- Creating a YouTube channel is free.
- Paid promotions are an option for your business on YouTube. This will expand the reach of your video content.
- Clickable hotspots can be used on YouTube video content. Links can be added on the top of your videos. This can help with conversations, information and click-thru.
Disadvantages:
- You’re risking your video appearing next to a bad quality or offensive video on YouTube. You’re in a platform that has videos from all over and all types of users.
- There are ads before videos, unless the users pay for their account. This could lose the impatient viewers of the world.
- More users and a more popular channel means more competition. Staying relevant with tags, titles and descriptions can help this.
- YouTube wants users to stay on their site. Suggested videos might hurt your click-thru rate.
- Depending on who you are targeting, restrictions may be an issue. For example, if you are targeting businesses, people from those businesses may not be able to watch those videos because of restrictions and locks on sites.
Vimeo
Advantages:
- Unlike YouTube, Vimeo does not have any ads so you won’t have to worry about losing impatient viewers.
- Vimeo is known for and has marketed itself around quality videos and filmmakers. This means there most likely won’t be as many bad quality or offensive videos around your video.
- Vimeo prides itself on constructive comments as opposed to “trolling” comments. They set guidelines for quality and respectful comments so there is less spam.
- You are able to customize a logo to the video player, create a custom outro and use third party players to display work.
Disadvantages:
- Vimeo has a smaller audience, which means you’re reaching fewer people. They have about 20 percent fewer viewers monthly than YouTube.
- Vimeo is ranked lower on a Google search. This could mean that your Vimeo video might not even be on the first page of search results on Google.
- Vimeo has a rate of $170 a year for businesses called Vimeo Pro.
- Your account has restrictions on how many uploads and how much storage you have. For more storage capacity, it’s $400 annually to upgrade.
In conclusion, if your business is looking for more quality content and to appear more advanced with video, Vimeo is the way to go. Vimeo is used for productions, filmmakers and companies that need their video content to look elevated. YouTube is better for search results and businesses. If your business is looking to get eyes on your videos, YouTube is probably the video content channel for you.
Need more guidance on which video content channel is for you? Contact us here!