Best Practices for Video Distribution

From planning through to production, creating video content is an extensive process that culminates in the final and arguably the most important stage: distribution.

Once you’ve optimised your video for sharing online, provided it with an attractive thumbnail, splash screen, and added an effective call to action (CTA), it’s time to distribute your video onto the various platforms and channels available.

So what are the best practices for distributing your video? 

The ways in which you circulate your video will depend on its original intention. Some videos are designed specifically for social media, and these would be tailored in accordance with that. Other videos could be tailored more towards email distribution, or direct mail. 

Generally, though it’s worth taking advantage of all the options, and there are more than a few!

YouTube pretty much tops the list as the first place you should look to distribute your video, with around 2 billion logged-in users who are searching organically and clicking through from other sites. There’re no real upload limits either – YouTube allows consumers to discover your video in all its glory so why not take full advantage of that.

These Best Practices include:

• Ensure that you optimise your account and channel, create a brand account which allows you to create multiple channels for your different products or brands
• Use your YouTube video links to promote and share your videos across other platforms, ie embed into your own website and blogs, share on Twitter and LinkedIn
• Leverage YouTube Channel analytics to understand more about your target audience
• Ensure that you utilise the full SEO power of YouTube, as the second largest search engine, its well worth ensuring that your videos are optimised for SEO
• Consider how you could monetise your YouTube videos or utilise paid search.

Next, but no less important for distribution, is your website. Using video content on your website increases your website traffic, boosts your SEO, decreases click-off rates, and generally enhances user experience on your site. A site which holds engagement for longer is SEO-friendly and will receive organic boosts over time. Also, it’s been shown that video can increase conversion by up to 80% – so it’s positive all round! 

Best Practices

• Place your video in the most appropriate pages on your website. This depends on what your video content is – for example, a how-to video might be used on your product pages whilst a welcome video could be added to your home page
• Videos on landing pages are more likely to increase conversion rates, so consider how to use video to engage with this audience
• Create a variety of video content to engage your audience, for example, explainer videos, demo videos, promo videos, thought leadership videos, how-to videos or case study videos and use these throughout your website
• Keep it short – studies have shown more than 50% of viewers will watch a video till the end if it is under 60 secs. Some videos like explainer and how-to videos can typically be longer as the audience is more engaged in learning, so these tend to be 60-90 seconds.
• From a technical point of view, ensure that videos don’t reduce you page load speeds, use this free Google tool to check your page load speeds.

We’re getting used to media showing up in our inbox and video displays a 96% higher click through rate when compared to emails without video. Video in email makes them seem more personal, enriching and engaging. With video potentially increasing your open rate by 6% it’ no wonder that over 80% of businesses now use video in email.

There are a number of different ways to incorporate video in your email content or email signatures creating hyperlinks to your video content. It’s a simple and easy way of ramping up your distribution efforts. It’s worth doing your homework to make the most of your video/email combination.

Best Practices

• Consider how you are going to incorporate video into your email content, using a play button, gif or embedding the video through a third party.
• Don’t send your video out without giving it some context – it must have a purpose which is immediately noticeable when opened 
• Make sure your video appears towards the top of the email, so it’s easily followed
• Ensure you include a clear CTA and don’t forget to track your metrics!

SlideShare is in a primarily B2B arena, it’s basically YouTube, but for slideshows and therefore it makes for an interesting platform for content sharing. You can embed YouTube videos to your SlideShare presentations easily in the ‘My Uploads’ section. Hit ‘Edit’ and then ‘Add Video’. There are a number of ways SlideShare can be used to enhance your marketing efforts.

Best Practices

• SlideShare is a primarily B2B site for sharing business related media and presentations, make sure you share the content you have created on all your other marketing channels.
• Tag and categorise your video appropriately to ensure it shows up for the right terms.

It’s essential to take advantage of the many social networks that billions use throughout the week and exploring the uses of each one when distributing your video.

So which social media platforms are we talking about? Instagram and Facebook are the biggest and most obvious, followed closely by Twitter,  LinkedIn, TikTok and SnapChat.

Each channel has their own unique requirements and audiences, and whilst time consuming it is worth developing content to suit each channel. Some insights into how to do it right.

Best practices (Vidiyard)

• Create value for the viewer – aim to entertain, inspire, or educate
• Start with an attention grabber – animated gifs or autoplay videos help to earn clicks
• Front load the value – get your value proposition out in the first 5 to 10 seconds of your video
• Make it mobile friendly
• Add a clear CTA.

Create a more personal feel when distributing your video and share it using video brochures or video business cards. Taking the time to send a video brochure that showcases your video content can really help boost customer engagement. Plus, their focus is entirely on the video, as opposed to being distracted by other popups and emails coming through on their computer screen. There’re even options to personalise the video brochure to make it extra special and memorable for those receiving it.

Video brochures come in all shapes and sizes, so you can find the best screen size and quantity to fit your needs and budget. They’re a great way to leave a lasting impression with your clients, and ensure your video is being seen and shared.

Best practices

• Be clear and define the purpose of your video brochure, ie what is it that you want to achieve with the video brochure
• Pick the right screen size for your video – for example, if there’s lots of text included in your video, a bigger screen makes all the difference in ensuring it’s still easy to read
• Take the time to create eye catching and well-designed artwork for the brochure piece, videos can now be embedded into boxes, books, promo stands, so get creative!
• Think about extras that can add a personal touch, like personalising each video brochure, or adding an inner pocket for your marketing literature
• Consider how you would distribute your video brochures, whether these are mailed directly, used as an invite to an event, or used as a follow up to exhibitions, conferences and events.

• On your blog – Remember to embed your video in your blog posts. You can write short text posts to accompany it 
• Press releases – For product releases, use press releases to display product videos alongside text descriptions
• Partner blogs – Contact industry partners to get them to embed your video on their blog 
• Forums – Forums include Reddit and Quora which can be great places to post your content
• Marketing events – Display your video on a screen, or take along some video brochures or video business cards to hand out at the event

Video content is valuable content, and so finding ways to distribute this content and engage with your audience is key. The video marketing statistics for 2022 certainly support this (wyzowl). As we have explained there are many ways of increasing your video’s mileage once you’ve created it. With better distribution practices, you can circulate your video to really squeeze out every ounce of its potential!