The Battle or Alliance of Youtube and Vimeo
In the realm of online video hosting, it is clear that two brands stand taller than all the rest; Youtube and Vimeo. It is also quite clear that Youtube is by far the prevailing mainstream choice, to the point of being over-saturated with content. Vimeo, on the other hand, is a smaller community with more of an artistic niche, where quality and community trump quantity and advertising.
As is commonplace, people will debate with force and ferocity over which platform is better. Many will stand loyal to House Youtube – it clearly guarantees the bigger audience. Others stand steadfast in solidarity with House Vimeo, claiming Youtube is for amateurs and trolls while Vimeo is geared towards creatives and community. I have a completely different perspective on the matter....why not use both?
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Both platforms have something to offer your business or creative endeavors, and both platforms can help you further market your brand. Why not use them in tandem and get the best of both? The internet is very divisive, always trying to pit like things against each other, oftentimes to detrimental results. The fact is, both Youtube and Vimeo have advantages and limitations to their services, and using them to supplement each other is smarter than entirely ruling out one of them in favor of the other.
For now I'm going to spotlight their respective merits and weaknesses, but later I will detail how Vimeo Pro works beautifully when supplemented with your standard Youtube page.
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DECONSTRUCTING HOUSE YOUTUBE
As stated earlier, House Youtube incontestably boasts the most broadcasting power in it's field. Youtube, of all the video hosting sites in cyberspace, arguably dominates the competition. It gets more daily hits on it's collective output than any other video hosting website. In terms of marketing reach, Youtube is undeniably superior. Its important to consider that Google prioritizes Youtube in its search results. Add to that the fact that House Youtube is the number one destination for streaming music, and you've got yourself an internet behemoth.
Youtube doesn't rely solely on it's numbers for strength. Uploading content is free and will remain free, no matter how many views or subscribers you may accrue across your account. Plus Youtube has on-site editing to add subtitles and links to other videos, which is a nice tool for someone uploading a lot of content, allowing them to easily connect. This is a great way to rack up views, to keep the hits coming. The interface is simple to use – copyright issues are easy to spot and even easier to fix, play-lists can be made and sorted with ease...House Youtube certainly has a clean, precise interface.
Bounteous advertising opportunities are yet another strength of Youtube. If you're looking to make a bit of a splash with your videos, you can craft an advertisement and pay to have it appear in search results, triggered by target keywords relevant to your video. Now let's move on to the limitations.
In order to keep the site free, Youtube users are forced to sit through a surplus of invasive advertisements which sometimes turns would-be users away. You ever notice how much LOUDER the advertisements are than the videos that they're attached to? Because of the much higher daily traffic of Youtube, and because of the fact House Youtube is the most popular place for people to upload videos online, you run into some other undesirable aspects that come with the higher traffic. To put it bluntly, I've seen videos where I can't help but wonder, “Did this person even watch what they made before they uploaded it?” Youtube, while an awesome platform to express yourself through the power of video, is abused by so many who harbor little talent or self-awareness, and essentially embarrass themselves online with cringe-inspiring videos their parents would “spank” them over. This is entirely due to the fact that YouTube's whole business model hinges on quantity over quality, on advertising over artistic merit. Here's an example of a half-baked business commercial that did indeed go viral, sorry about the ad:
www.youtube.com/embed/vnOyMSEWNTs
The final unpleasing aspect of YouTube that must be acknowledged is the commentary. The comment sections in YouTube videos are so harsh and abrasive, there's actually a comedy series (ironically housed on Youtube) called “Youtube Reconstruction,” in which two posh, elderly British men recreate petty arguments found in the comments section of Youtube videos, dramatizing them with Oscar-worthy acting and intense, visceral orchestral cues. On that note, let's move on to Vimeo.
DECONSTRUCTING HOUSE VIMEO
Let’s begin with the drawbacks. Firstly, as mentioned at the top of the hour, HouseVimeo lacks the traffic and name brand appeal of House Youtube. Your videos won't have nearly as big of a potential audience; unless you market your Vimeo uploads in a smart and strategic manner. In any case, Vimeo is more focused on quality over quantity.
The other major encumbrance of House Vimeo is that you'll have to pay for some of it's best features. But again, this entirely boils down to how much care you put into your videos. If you have videos you've made with the sole intent of “going viral,” a paid Vimeo subscription alone won't meet your needs. Go with Youtube or Vine, they're free and have a wider audience. However, if you're looking to upload quality content without time limit constraints, Vimeo blows Youtube out of the water.
For starters, the quality of content across the board is significantly higher than Youtube. Since Vimeo is a niche community geared towards filmmakers, videographers, graphic designers, super keen marketers, gamers, animators, and artists, it would prove unfruitful to go with Vimeo if the videos you make are lazy, half-baked efforts (smile). The commentary feedback you'll receive on Vimeo will most assuredly be kinder; an amicable debate on Youtube is a nonexistent entity. The fact is, the community is much smaller and the old adage “quality over quantity” rings true and perhaps that is why advertising is non-existent on Vimeo, unlike the constant and highly invasive ads on Youtube. Bonus-- whether you're a subscriber or not, the staff at Vimeo have created Vimeo University for serious and aspiring Vimeographers; here's an example from their vast collection.
The Vimeo player itself is of a much higher caliper than that of Youtube, not only in its multisfunctional interface, but also in allowing users to embed their own logos into the player, unique to their uploads. Having customizable players to embed gives your uploads an almost subliminal edge, making your video and brand really stand out on your website! It looks more professional, as if more care was put into the product...and more care has actually been put into the product, considering you went to the length of customizing the player yourself!
Other awesome features giving Vimeo a clear advantage may seem insignificant to some, but to anyone who uploads videos to the internet, these may very well be the deal breakers in making the transition to Vimeo. One such feature is the ability to choose a thumbnail from any moment of your video. That's right, any frame of your video can be chosen to represent your video around the internet, so no longer must you choose between the 3 oftentimes undesirable options afforded by Youtube. Another feature is the integration with Dropbox, which is self-explanatory: ease of uploads, ease of organization, interconnectedness between two highly useful platforms.
Perhaps my personal favorite of these features is the ability to pause your upload and resume uploading at a later time. That's right, you can pause your upload, turn off your computer, go to work, return home, and resuming uploading. Lord knows how many collective times a video upload to Youtube has been interrupted prematurely. And I'd place a high wager many of those uploads were over 90% complete, too! It's an awful feeling of despair and frustration...but this feeling of defeat shall not dissuade you on the Vimeo platform!
THE ALLIANCE OF HOUSE VIMEO AND HOUSE YOUTUBE
In my opinion the ultimate video host to choose is both. Use Youtube to promote, and Vimeo to house your quality content. Essentially Youtube is best utilized for trailers and advertisements geared towards sending traffic to your Vimeo uploads. Since Youtube is over-saturated and oftentimes a website for killing time, it is better to save your longer uploads, full-length features, demo reels and other important uploads for Vimeo. Vimeo is just the classier site with the classier player. Hence Youtube will funnel in the traffic, and people actually interested in your brand, product, message, or artistic uploads will no doubt follow the Youtube advertisement over to Vimeo.
Remember to get the most out of Vimeo Pro features! Customize the Vimeo video player for your important uploads, and embed these on your website as opposed to the Youtube promos. It will look far more professional for you to have neatly organized videos, all sharing the same video player, custom logo embedded into each and every one of them giving your site an air of sophistication.
Also remember that with Pro account, you are entitled to diligent and friendly customer service. Vimeo guarantees a 4-hour response window for any customer inquiries for Plus, and within 1 hour for Pro, granted it's on a business day (Eastern time).
With a Pro Vimeo account you reap even more benefits. With 1,000 GB of upload space a year (at 20 GB a week) it is fair to assume you'll be challenged to max storage. Pro will give you immediate tablet, mobile and connected TV compatibility. Vimeo provides you the option to make money using the Vimeo Creator services, and or to sell views of your content using Vimeo's “On Demand” feature. Vimeo Pro also offers hosted portfolio sites, complete with SEO optimization. Plus Vimeo Pro offers HTML 5 support with its universal Vimeo player, as well as third party video player support. And to cap it all off, a pro account comes with online storage for your original video files – keep your computer running efficiently and save some space!
At less than $60 a year for Vimeo Plus, and a cool $199 for a year of Vimeo Pro (15% off until June 30th), it is truly a worthy investment to upgrade your Vimeo account. Upgrading will give you more insight into your audience, more customization capabilities, unlimited groups, channels, and albums to organize your uploads, and the professional aesthetic any budding filmmaker needs to start landing those big Hollywood director gigs. Combined with Youtube for short promos to filter out passive viewers, your Vimeo will give you crucial status on just who your target audience is and where they're located.
We've detailed the advantages and constraints of both House Vimeo and House Youtube ad nauseam. Conjointly we've discussed how using the two together will yield more powerful results than focusing all of your efforts on just one of the two platforms. All that's left to do is to take this knowledge into your own hands, integrate it into your video marketing strategy, and reap the benefits of the two most dominate video host platforms simultaneously! Good luck, and happy filming!
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