Online video is everywhere, and its popularity keeps growing from year to year. It is by far the most popular content type on the Internet. Videos are fun, interactive, engaging and highly profitable for companies that put effort into video marketing. Adobe says that 52% of marketing professions around the world named video as the content with the highest ROI. But you already know all these things! Otherwise, you wouldn’t be looking for the best free video sharing sites.
Posting your video content on multiple platforms is crucial to having a successful video marketing campaign. Why? Because you’ll be able to increase your outreach, connect with different types of audiences and grow your customer base more effectively. Here’s a video sites list of online places where you can upload and share your videos for free.
Free Video Sharing Sites
YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world – right below Google. It is basically the place where online video was born. The platform has over a billion active users who upload over 500 hours of video every single minute! One key difference between YouTube and other video hosting providers is SEO. YouTube videos rank in Google’s search engine – which allows you to optimize your content and get organic traffic. So, you get dual search power and SEO benefits. This is something you can’t simply walk away from. YouTube also provides flexible advertising plans that allow businesses to reach new audiences, gather insights and reach their campaign goals.
360 YouTube video was launched in March of 2015. And in April 2015, YouTube introduced 360-degree live video streaming and got one step closer towards virtual reality. YouTube’s chief product officer, Neil Mohan said: “What excites me most about 360-degree storytelling is that it lets us open up the world’s experiences to everyone.” There are also rumors about a live video streaming app called YouTube Connect that will rival Periscope.
If anyone can stand up to YouTube as a serious contender for the best video platform, it is definitely Facebook. The leading social network with around 1.6 billion users has been actively investing and improving their video platform for over two years. In late 2015, they reported an impressive 8 billion daily video views. This is more than YouTube, but it’s important to note that the two platforms handle views differently. Facebook registers a video view after 3 seconds of playing, while YouTube waits for around 30 seconds.
With the launch of auto play, live video and 360-degree video, Facebook makes its ambitions for online video pretty clear. Recently, they also introduced Rights Manager, which is a set of admin tools that allow video content creators to manage and protect their content from copyright infringement.
Overall, Facebook is a great platform for sharing videos. It helps you connect with your audience, boost viewer engagement and reach your marketing goals. One thing that’s important, is that you need to post videos natively on the platform in order to get the best results. Videos that are shared from other websites (like YouTube) won’t be auto played on the wall, which is a huge disadvantage.
Dailymotion
Although YouTube and Facebook are the top destinations for most brands, there are other video platforms that you should make use of. Dailymotion is one example. It features great analytics for content creators and a content ID mechanism for preventing copyright violations.
Judging by their stats page, this platform receives over 3 billion video views per month, and it has around 137 million active users. Dailymotion also supports live video streaming. In 2014 alone, there were 150 million live streamed hours.
Vimeo
Vimeo is a platform that focuses mainly on filmmaking video content. It is a niche community that has more than 170 million monthly viewers. The platform is very similar to YouTube in features, and it is ideal for posting short films, documentaries and episodic content. Even though Vimeo doesn’t have as large a user base as the other platforms on this list, it still offers yet another option for your video marketing strategy.
Video sharing sites like YouTube offer businesses a way for customers to find their products and services by doing a simple video search. By uploading and sharing your videos for free on multiple platforms, you maximize the exposure of your videos.
Image credit: Joe the Goat Farmer (via Flickr)
