Online videos have exploded in popularity in recent months, with Cisco’s Annual Internet Report revealing that video will make up 82% of internet traffic this year alone. And it’s no wonder when you think about how they not only entertain us but can help us learn and sell as well.
It should come as no surprise then to realise that video is now one of the most powerful marketing tools, thanks to video marketing platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. So how do you decide which is the best platform to use when it comes to hosting your videos?
In this article, we will take a look at the main differences between YouTube and Vimeo, and what the pros and cons of using each platform for marketing are.
An Introduction to YouTube
YouTube was founded in 2005 by three ex PayPal employees (and bought by Google in 2006) and is far and away the most popular social video sharing platform on the internet.
There are no limits to what you can find to watch on YouTube, from make-up tutorials to gaming walkthroughs, and even educational SEO content – the list is endless. Anyone who has the desire to make a video can upload it and share it through this platform.
An Introduction to Vimeo
Vimeo is also a video sharing platform that was launched back in 2004 by filmmakers, with the aim of sharing both their creative work and personal moments from their lives. Vimeo is smaller, audience-wise, than YouTube but tends to attract people with a more artsy and creative vibe, such as animators, film artists and musicians.
Now that you know a little bit about each platform let’s have a look at their similarities and differences:
Pricing
YouTube’s biggest advantage over Vimeo is its pricing – as it is free. Anyone can upload and share videos without paying anything. This means for businesses with budget constraints, YouTube is a clear winner.
Vimeo on the other hand, while being free for individuals, has a range of paid annual subscription business plans based on a tiered pricing model.
Audience Reach & Engagement
YouTube wins hands down every time when it comes to audience reach as it has 1.8 billion active monthly users. The fact that it is also owned by Google also makes it the second most searched site behind Google itself – in fact, some people treat it like a search engine in its own right. YouTube is also available in every country in the world, and in over 50 languages.
However, the fact that YouTube’s reach seems to be limitless is not always a good thing. There are so many videos for people to watch, that competition for viewers’ attention is really high. This means that even if you upload the most engaging and high-quality video possible, it may just get lost amid the thousands of other videos on there.
YouTube is also a free platform, meaning its viewers are not always the most professional people – and they can be ruthless in their comments.
Vimeo has a smaller audience reach than YouTube with only about 240 million active monthly users. However, this can work in its favour as your video has more chance of being found by viewers in your particular niche.
This smaller number of viewers also means that there is more of a community mindset, with more constructive comments posted than there is likely to be on YouTube.
SEO
As we have mentioned above, YouTube is owned by Google and so is consistently ranked as the second most popular site on the internet and so it seems to be the best option for SEO as YouTube videos also rank for Google keywords. Yes, it seems that Google is showing favouritism here to one of their own products – what a surprise!
However, this doesn’t mean that Vimeo videos don’t rank for SEO keywords, it just isn’t as easy and quick to do that as it is for videos that are hosted on YouTube.
Adverts
The flip side of YouTube being a free service is that they make their money through advertisements. So, whenever anyone views a video on YouTube, they are forced to sit through 5 to 6 seconds of an advert before they are given the option to skip it. This can be a negative experience for many viewers, and so YouTube has now started offering an ad-free experience which comes at a cost of £11.99 a month.
The fact that Vimeo is a paid subscription video marketing platform, means viewers can enjoy your videos without annoying adverts popping up before them, at no extra charge.
Upload & Storage Capacity
You can upload videos of up to 15 minutes to YouTube whether you have an account or not. If you sign up for an account, then you can upload videos of up to 128GB or 12 hours long. There is no limit to the number of videos you can upload.
The free version of Vimeo allows you to upload 10 files per day or 500MB per week at a maximum, but there are larger limits on their paid subscriptions. For example, their Plus Plan allows 5GB of video uploads per week with a maximum file size of 5GB, while their Pro Plan allows 20GB of storage per week with a maximum file size of 25GB.
Video Quality
There are around 300 videos uploaded to YouTube per minute every day, and each of these videos needs to be processed before they can go live. Therefore, they need to balance compression speed and quality with the huge volume of uploads, meaning video quality is good but not always great.
The fact that Vimeo places restrictions on upload size and quantity means videos tend to be of higher quality, due to having a higher bitrate. So, the same video uploaded to both platforms will look better on Vimeo.
So, which is better for your business – YouTube or Vimeo?
Well as you can see, they both have their pros and cons. YouTube is the bigger platform and so if you wanted a presence on there, rather than just using it as a host for embedding videos onto your site, then it would win over Vimeo in terms of users and visibility.
However, YouTube has stopped allowing users to edit things such as what is shown when the video is embedded and can sometimes show suggested videos at the end of your video, which may be inappropriate in content. Vimeo does away with all of this and is, therefore, more professional in appearance.
If you are thinking of adding video to your marketing strategy and want to discuss how we can help, please get in touch for a chat.
YouTube vs Vimeo: Which is the best video marketing platform?
Creative Video / Mar 29, 2021
Online videos have exploded in popularity in recent months, with Cisco’s Annual Internet Report revealing that video will make up 82% of internet traffic this year alone. And it’s no wonder when you think about how they not only entertain us but can help us learn and sell as well.
It should come as no surprise then to realise that video is now one of the most powerful marketing tools, thanks to video marketing platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. So how do you decide which is the best platform to use when it comes to hosting your videos?
In this article, we will take a look at the main differences between YouTube and Vimeo, and what the pros and cons of using each platform for marketing are.
An Introduction to YouTube
YouTube was founded in 2005 by three ex PayPal employees (and bought by Google in 2006) and is far and away the most popular social video sharing platform on the internet.
There are no limits to what you can find to watch on YouTube, from make-up tutorials to gaming walkthroughs, and even educational SEO content – the list is endless. Anyone who has the desire to make a video can upload it and share it through this platform.
An Introduction to Vimeo
Vimeo is also a video sharing platform that was launched back in 2004 by filmmakers, with the aim of sharing both their creative work and personal moments from their lives. Vimeo is smaller, audience-wise, than YouTube but tends to attract people with a more artsy and creative vibe, such as animators, film artists and musicians.
Now that you know a little bit about each platform let’s have a look at their similarities and differences:
Pricing
YouTube’s biggest advantage over Vimeo is its pricing – as it is free. Anyone can upload and share videos without paying anything. This means for businesses with budget constraints, YouTube is a clear winner.
Vimeo on the other hand, while being free for individuals, has a range of paid annual subscription business plans based on a tiered pricing model.
Audience Reach & Engagement
YouTube wins hands down every time when it comes to audience reach as it has 1.8 billion active monthly users. The fact that it is also owned by Google also makes it the second most searched site behind Google itself – in fact, some people treat it like a search engine in its own right. YouTube is also available in every country in the world, and in over 50 languages.
However, the fact that YouTube’s reach seems to be limitless is not always a good thing. There are so many videos for people to watch, that competition for viewers’ attention is really high. This means that even if you upload the most engaging and high-quality video possible, it may just get lost amid the thousands of other videos on there.
YouTube is also a free platform, meaning its viewers are not always the most professional people – and they can be ruthless in their comments.
Vimeo has a smaller audience reach than YouTube with only about 240 million active monthly users. However, this can work in its favour as your video has more chance of being found by viewers in your particular niche.
This smaller number of viewers also means that there is more of a community mindset, with more constructive comments posted than there is likely to be on YouTube.
SEO
As we have mentioned above, YouTube is owned by Google and so is consistently ranked as the second most popular site on the internet and so it seems to be the best option for SEO as YouTube videos also rank for Google keywords. Yes, it seems that Google is showing favouritism here to one of their own products – what a surprise!
However, this doesn’t mean that Vimeo videos don’t rank for SEO keywords, it just isn’t as easy and quick to do that as it is for videos that are hosted on YouTube.
Adverts
The flip side of YouTube being a free service is that they make their money through advertisements. So, whenever anyone views a video on YouTube, they are forced to sit through 5 to 6 seconds of an advert before they are given the option to skip it. This can be a negative experience for many viewers, and so YouTube has now started offering an ad-free experience which comes at a cost of £11.99 a month.
The fact that Vimeo is a paid subscription video marketing platform, means viewers can enjoy your videos without annoying adverts popping up before them, at no extra charge.
Upload & Storage Capacity
You can upload videos of up to 15 minutes to YouTube whether you have an account or not. If you sign up for an account, then you can upload videos of up to 128GB or 12 hours long. There is no limit to the number of videos you can upload.
The free version of Vimeo allows you to upload 10 files per day or 500MB per week at a maximum, but there are larger limits on their paid subscriptions. For example, their Plus Plan allows 5GB of video uploads per week with a maximum file size of 5GB, while their Pro Plan allows 20GB of storage per week with a maximum file size of 25GB.
Video Quality
There are around 300 videos uploaded to YouTube per minute every day, and each of these videos needs to be processed before they can go live. Therefore, they need to balance compression speed and quality with the huge volume of uploads, meaning video quality is good but not always great.
The fact that Vimeo places restrictions on upload size and quantity means videos tend to be of higher quality, due to having a higher bitrate. So, the same video uploaded to both platforms will look better on Vimeo.
So, which is better for your business – YouTube or Vimeo?
Well as you can see, they both have their pros and cons. YouTube is the bigger platform and so if you wanted a presence on there, rather than just using it as a host for embedding videos onto your site, then it would win over Vimeo in terms of users and visibility.
However, YouTube has stopped allowing users to edit things such as what is shown when the video is embedded and can sometimes show suggested videos at the end of your video, which may be inappropriate in content. Vimeo does away with all of this and is, therefore, more professional in appearance.
If you are thinking of adding video to your marketing strategy and want to discuss how we can help, please get in touch for a chat.
