Data and experience repeatedly prove the importance of videos as a general ‘all-rounder’ tool in the modern marketplace. Whether used for training employees, selling your product, or marketing your brand: Video content is an instrument that has proven itself effective in meeting objectives and enhancing success. Because of this, it has become highly popular and continues to grow. Accordingly, there are various options that come into question when determining the best platform to publish your video: YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, and many more. The choices seem endless. And each of these options has a unique character that distinguishes it from the others.
So how should you approach this issue? How can you solve it? And how can you use the variety of platforms to your advantage? Find out here how you can strategically place your video to reach your audience!
The Simple Way Out?
Perhaps the easiest, most obvious approach would be to just publish the video everywhere you can. This is admittedly not the worst approach. It might help to gain the greatest amount of total views possible and maximize audience size. However, it comes with a set of challenges, especially regarding the video format and activity consistency across all channels. Also, leading marketing experts tend to recommend a more targeted approach. Finding your target niche and targeting it more specifically has been shown to be way more successful in recent years. So while your audience might be enormous, the number of potential clients in that broad audience will likely be slim.
A Targeted Approach
Thus, a more targeted approach will presumably be way more beneficial for you. With a few considerations, you might be able to identify where your brand and your video will shine the brightest. There are numerous factors that can impact this decision – all the way down to personal preference. Let’s lay out some fundamental aspects that should be considered not only when assessing where to post your video content – but also when determining how to prioritize each of the channels chosen.
Existing online presence
The perhaps first factor to consider is the existing online presence of the company. Which channels are there? How successful are the different channels? How are they developing? And what is the strategy behind the use of these channels?
If there is already a well-established channel, it would definitely make sense to make use of this channel when publishing new content. Opening up a new channel is a rather strategic endeavor. Thus, do not take it too lightly. Using the already existing channels should take priority in the consideration for publishing. However, it should be periodically assessed whether the existing channels are still the optimal strategic choice for the company. As the social media landscape evolves, they might need to be reassessed.
Target country
The use of the internet tends to become more and more similar from country to country in a globalized world. However, there are still considerable differences. There are differences in the degree of social media penetration of the population, in the preference between social media channels, as well as differences in the motivation of people to use social networks. These differences require marketers to look deep into the market they want to reach. Part of this is also to closely monitor its development. This analysis of the internet use of the market will give you great insights. These findings will be enormously helpful in answering the question of which strategy will generate the best possible results – and what channel will be the best platform to publish your video.
Target audience
The perhaps most important factor in the decision or prioritization of online channels is the target group that you would like to address. After all, reaching this group with your video is the main goal. It is extremely helpful to gain knowledge of where your target group spends its time online. If you are a B2C company whose main target consists of university students you might consider and prioritize different channels than a production company with a focus on B2B customers. It is important to be aware of these differences. Aim to understand the contrasts between the groups and build a strategy that considers these factors. The goal is to maximize the reach among the relevant target group by aiming your video towards them on a platform they are actively using.
Conclusion
Ultimately, one could say that the question about the best platform to publish your video is best answered by using three steps:
1. Considering and assessing the available channels
2. Analyzing the group you want to target and their online behaviors
3. Combining the insights won in the prior two steps in order to maximize your reach and impact among your target audience.
Following these steps, you have taken the main factors that should impact your decision into account. Since the platforms at hand are so different in their nature, it is helpful to make these considerations and to reflect the purpose for your video. Besides the platforms, always remember that your website is always a great place to publish your content. Not only does it make your website more informative and enhances content diversity, but it has a massive impact on how your website is found and how it is used.
Video content can be a great asset to your online presence and with the gained knowledge on what considerations to make, you can maximize the impact it will have.
Do you have concerns about where to publish your video content? Get in touch with us so our experts can help you make the most out your video content and find the place where your brand can shine the brightest.