With advances in technology and millions of internet users searching for and uploading video content online on a daily basis, there is an ever increasing number of video hosting platforms available to choose from to upload and share your videos. YouTube and Vimeo are two of the most popular platforms, but which one is more suited to you as a health and care organisation?
We’ve put together a few facts about each platform to give you an idea of what to expect when making your choice.
1. Advertising
YouTube is a free service with unlimited hosting storage. They make their money by displaying advertising banners and running adverts before, during and after a video starts. You have no say in which adverts can be displayed
In order to retain viewers on the YouTube site, they can often play videos they feel are relevant or similar to your content, even though they may undermine your message. As a result of being bombarded by adverts and inappropriate content, viewers may be inclined to leave the site before your video has even begun to be payed.
Vimeo offers three types of membership- a free ‘basic’ option, plus two paying subscription options with different levels support and storage limits. Vimeo displays no advertising at all.
2. Quality of content
YouTube has over 100 hours of video uploaded to it per minute. Whilst this means there are huge volumes of content, there is also a vast amount of poor quality video loaded on to the platform.
Even if people find your videos through a direct link, the downside is that other videos or similar content (or sometimes unrelated content) are displayed at the end of the video play and to the side of the page, alongside your video and messaging. Unfortunately you have no say in what appears on your page and some may be actually detrimental to your organisation and brand.
Vimeo is more of a niche community, and generally more mature and serious content is uploaded. These other videos don’t get shown alongside your videos, so your viewers focus is entirely on your message and there is less risk of damage to your brand and organisation.
3. Community feedback
YouTube – because of the immensely broad range of content uploaded to YouTube, and the more lenient user rules, the comments section in YouTube videos are much more prone to trolling, bad language, derogatory remarks and comments which are irrelevant to the video.
Vimeo has stricter guidelines on community feedback, and requests respect from users at all times. Along with this, the users of Vimeo tend to be more professional viewers who have come to the site to search for something in particular and are therefore much more likely to leave useful, constructive feedback.
4. Password protection
YouTube offers the option of creating a ‘private’ video, but this requires users to have a YouTube account and be logged in before viewing the video. The alternative is set up your video as ‘unlisted’ which means only people with a link can watch it.
Vimeo offers the option of protecting your video with a password, so only those you choose to share it with will be able to view it, and they do not need to be logged into an account to do so. You can also hide your video from the open library so that people have to have a link to find it.
5. Access
Every organisation’s internet restrictions are different, but you may find that some block staff from accessing YouTube and/or Vimeo, which restricts the number of people that can view your content during work hours.
Our recommendation:
As a respected health and care organisation with the need to maintain a level of professionalism, we are inclined to recommend the use of Vimeo to host your videos rather than YouTube due to the following reasons:
- No advertising
- Professional look and feel
- Less risk of inappropriate content being shown
- Less of a risk the website will be blocked
