Picture this: Your target customer stumbles upon your brand’s video on YouTube and is really intrigued by what you have to offer. Maybe they’re thinking about how your service will help them reach a corporate goal, or the ways in which your latest product will streamline their day-to-day operations. You’ve hooked them, right? Well, not so fast. All of a sudden, the video pauses to buffer—or, even worse, an ad from your top competitor starts running during one of the designated promotional breaks.
In the end, a free-platform-only video strategy puts your brand integrity at risk and opens up the opportunity for you to lose valuable business. Read on to learn the top five reasons you should invest in an online video platform (OVP)—and hear how switching to a secure offering empowered SEEK to control their viewer experience.
1. Protect your brand reputation
When using free platforms, you have no control over the ads or recommended content that appear alongside your videos. This poses a huge risk to your brand reputation, as it’s possible that your videos will be associated with content that is off-message, stems from competitors, or contains inappropriate footage.
By investing in an OVP, you can own your image and ensure your brand takes center stage for your viewers.
2. Control the user experience
When your content lives on someone else’s site, you give up your ability to manage the user experience. For instance, if a certain platform is prone to buffering issues, you risk the chance that your target audience will abandon your videos and associate the negative viewing experience with your brand. This could, in turn, impact the viewer’s willingness to make a purchase from your company down the line.
By moving to a secure video platform, you can provide a user experience that meets your quality standards. And you can even customize the look and feel of your videos to match your brand aesthetic and marketing goals.
3. Reap the SEO benefits
Videos are considered high-quality content and are rewarded as such in search results. But if all of your content lives on a free platform, you’re missing out on the valuable “SEO juice” they offer.
By embedding the videos on your own site through a secure video platform, you can improve your SEO because you “own” the video file.
4. Tap into the video experts
When relying solely on a free video platform, you’re on your own when it comes to determining the right video strategy for your organization.
Invest in an OVP to gain access to highly trained specialists who are ready to offer guidance on how to maximize your video marketing potential. With this trusted support system, you can launch powerful campaigns without in-house technical expertise.
5. Make smarter, data-driven decisions
Free platforms can only offer superficial analytics, which can’t be tied to individual prospects. And, in many cases, if you make an edit to a video you’re already hosting on a free platform, you risk losing all the video history and stats associated with it.
With an OVP, you can leverage robust content performance and viewer experience data to gain impactful insights on the effectiveness of your video marketing campaigns—and integrate with your existing analytics solutions for even deeper insights.
SEEK switches to a secure platform to control their viewer experience
SEEK, an Australian employment marketplace, recently launched a powerful new library of educational videos for job seekers and employers. Their library—powered by Brightcove’s Video Marketing Suite and Brightcove Gallery —offers a single location for everything from hiring advice to job-seeking guidance to engaging business stories. This new content offering empowers SEEK to connect with key audiences and strengthen its position as a leading destination for career advice.
In the past, SEEK hosted its videos on free social platforms, but the company realized that it needed to switch to an OVP to control the behavior, look, and feel of their video player.
By moving to the Brightcove platform , SEEK now has total control over the end user experience and confidence that their content is displayed in a brand-safe environment that’s free of third-party ads and competitive distractions. In addition, they can now take their video experiences to the next level through playlists, autoplay functionality, and curated content—and leverage real-time analytics to improve the viewer experience over time.
For best results, blend thoroughly
By hosting your videos on a secure platform, you can have ultimate control over the viewer experience and avoid any association with unsavory or off-brand content. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should abandon free platforms altogether. They have their place in a blended, holistic marketing strategy—as long as you utilize them based on their specific strategic advantages. For instance, you can increase your audience reach by posting a brand awareness video on YouTube. But then that video should ideally drive viewers to premium content on your own branded portal.
Are you ready to make the switch to an OVP? Learn more about the Brightcove platform .