You may have chosen to produce a video for a specific reason—maybe a trade show, a presentation or even a fundraising event. While your initial purpose for you video may have passed, you can still get of mileage out of it. There are plenty of online outlets to showcase your video, and many of them are free! Just take a few moments to sign up to these sites and you’re well on your way to promoting your businesses through video.
YouTube
YouTube is the grandfather of online video. Not only does it give you a free place to host your video, it also lets you embed it in other places, like your own website. YouTube has its own search engine, so by tagging your video with keywords anyone interested in a topic related to your business can find you with ease. YouTube also keeps track of how many views your clip gets; whether it’s viewed through YouTube itself or it’s embedded in another site. Brilliant!
Twitter
Twitter now has a sister site called TwitVid (visit www.twitvid.com), which is dedicated to the videos of Tweeters. When you upload a video on TwitVid, it generates an automatic Tweet directing your followers to view your video. Like YouTube, TwitVid has its own search engine so users can browse videos using keywords.
Facebook
Facebook lets you add videos to your personal profile or business fan page with ease. What makes Facebook great is that you can “tag” your Facebook friends in your videos. By tagging them, (even if they don’t actually appear in the video) your video appears on your friends’ profiles, meaning their Facebook friends will see it as well. It’s an amazingly efficient way to get exposure.
Vimeo
Vimeo offers very high resolution playback but doesn’t allow commercial content. However, if you’ve sponsored an educational video or you’re a non profit, Vimeo is another great online outlet. Their Basic membership is free and their Plus membership (which features higher quality video and unlimited uploads) has an annual fee.
No matter what original format your video is in, always, ALWAYS ask your editor to compress it for you for web use. You’ll be glad you did.
