
Vimeo Pro
Hippo Video is a video engagement platform that enables sales and marketing teams to connect with prospects via DIY in-video & hyper-video personalization. Built-in marketing automation allows teams to implement custom workflows f...Read more
Spotlightr is a video hosting and marketing solution that helps businesses of all sizes create personalized and embeddable marketing videos. The application enables users to stream videos across multiple social media channels such...Read more
Flowplayer is an online video platform for publishers, broadcasters & digital media. Flowplayer is built for the needs of any enterprise that needs to deliver video on demand or live content at any scale. The enterprise solution...Read more
Brightcove is a video hosting solution that helps businesses streamline content delivery, live streaming and content management operations. The platform enables employees to handle customer engagement activities, measure conversio...Read more
Wave.video is a cloud-based video hosting and marketing solution that helps businesses create, edit and share videos across the website, emails and social media platforms. Professionals can add watermarks in videos and utilize the...Read more
Kaltura’s mission is to power any video experience for any organization. Our Video Experience Cloud offers live, real-time, and on-demand video products for enterprises of all industries, as well as specialized industry solutions,...Read more
StoryXpress is a cloud-based platform, which helps small to large businesses create, edit, manage, host, record and analyze videos. Features include campaign personalization, activity tracking, screen recording, customizable brand...Read more
Detailed manuals and documentations, numerous live or web trainings and still the feeling that the knowledge simply does not reach your colleagues - or not at the right time? Then you should get to know SlidePresenter! SlidePr...Read more
If you create a video for your website to promote your company’s offerings, feature updates, or any other content, where do you place the video for your customers/users? Directly uploading and hosting the video on your website may not be the best solution. The large size of such videos will increase your website’s server bandwidth and storage space which will cause your website to run slower, degrade the video quality, and will increase video buffering time with unexpected pauses. This can lead to customer frustrations, potentially losing them to your competitors.
Video hosting platforms can save you from this problem and provide a smooth viewing experience for your site visitors. These platforms host videos on their servers, and you can use an embed code or link to insert them on your website or elsewhere. This reduces the load on your website and plays videos with minimal disturbances regardless of the user’s device.
In this buyers guide, we explain what a video hosting platform is, its features and benefits, and the considerations you should keep in mind when selecting a video hosting solution for your business.
Here’s what we'll cover:
Video hosting platforms enable users to upload, convert, store, and play back video content on the internet. Using such software, individuals and businesses can host and stream live, on-demand videos, or upload videos for the audience to view at their own time, all in one place.
These platforms eliminate the need for downloading videos to hard drives to watch it on installed media players, or share them via email and flash drive. It lessens the buffering time of videos allowing thousands of viewers to stream these files at a given moment.
Software features vary by product or vendor, but most video hosting platforms have the following overlapping features:
Video streaming |
Stream live or recorded videos over the internet. This lets your audience instantly view your content without downloading them on their devices. |
Reporting/analytics |
Gain insight on video performance by analyzing audience engagement, duration of views, and viewership by device. You can also see how videos are influencing important metrics, such as revenue and conversions. |
Social sharing |
Stream videos on social media channels, such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, to attract viewers and bring them back to your own website. |
Access controls/permissions |
Use permission settings to control who within or outside your organization can access your video content. |
Allow users to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate among themselves in real time on files. This can cut out unnecessary meetings and allow users to spend more time creating valuable video content. |
|
Content library |
Allow users to store videos in categories and groups within the tool. Users can create a playlist of videos, bookmark them for reference, delete when required, or publish them. |
Capture, stream, record, and share live content as well as interact with the audience through real-time engagement options, such as live chat. |
|
Search/filter |
Allow visitors, both internal employees and customers, to find specific videos of their interest. You can search your meeting recording and company videos. Your website visitors can type in keywords or click on certain topics and get directed to the relevant videos. |
Before purchasing a video hosting service, you should assess which buyer category you belong to. The majority of buyers fall into the following categories:
Listed below are some benefits you can expect from using a video hosting platform:
Here’s something to keep in mind when looking for video hosting software:
Here’s a trend in the video hosting software market that you should be aware of:
Note: The application selected in this article is an example to show a feature in context and is not intended as an endorsement or recommendation. It has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.