Joshua HardwickYes, YouTube is the biggest, most well-known and most widely used video sharing site in the world. But, by no means is it the only one you should care about.
It won’t take much ‘googling’ to find that there are literally hundreds of video sharing sites like YouTube (Vimeo, Yahoo Video, Veoh etc) but the thing is, uploading your video to this huge list of sites is not only going to be time-consuming, but also pretty pointless.
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Most of these sites don’t have much of an audience (at least not compared with the bigger sites) and even if they do, they may speak and entirely different language meaning that they probably aren’t really your target audience.
Despite this, there are a few video sharing websites aside from YouTube that you should be uploading your web videos to in order to increase exposure and attract a larger audience.
1. Vimeo
Vimeo. With over 70 million unique visitors per month, you can’t afford to miss out on Vimeo’s huge audience. Vimeo has a loyal community of regular visitors and tends to be the website of choice for amateur/semi-professional videographers, regularly attracting high quality, ‘arty’ videos that if high enough quality, can be promoted to the Vimeo front page and attract an audience of thousands.
Vimeo is also a great video hosting platform and offers two premium account options for those who are serious about hosting their videos professionally (i.e. in full HD and without YouTube’s advertising/branding).
3. DailyMotion
DailyMotion. Currently attracting over 106 million unique visitors per month, DailyMotion is another hidden gem in a sea of video sharing sites. It might be French, but it attracts video views from all over the world (2 billion a month to be exact) and over the years, has firmly established itself in a number of different countries (including the UK and US).
With almost a third of the sites visitor base aged between 12 and 24, DailyMotion is a site that appeals primarily to the younger generation, making it great for marketing your business to new, youthful audiences.
3. Facebook
Facebook. Facebook attracts hundreds of millions of visitors per month and chances are that you probably use the site on a daily basis too. However, Facebook is never really viewed as a video sharing site; probably due to the fact that it’s primarily viewed as a social network but much like YouTube, Facebook allows video uploads and sharing.
Sure, you could just upload your videos to YouTube and share the link on Facebook (and as a matter of fact, that’s what most people do) but uploading to Facebook gives you the ability to share your videos with Facebook’s huge audience, without them even having to leave the site. Not to mention that videos can quickly go viral on Facebook (much like the recent BodyForm video).
4. Flickr
Flickr. Despite the fact that Flickr seem to keep this feature pretty well-hidden (for whatever reason), the site offers yet another way for you to share your videos online.
Flickr’s free account allows members to upload a maximum of two videos per month (so long as they’re no larger than 150mb and no longer than 90 seconds) but if you want to upload more, you can opt for a Flickr Pro account which offers unlimited video uploads.
To be honest though, the free account is good enough for most small businesses.
5. MetaCafe
MetaCafe. According to WikiPedia, MetaCafe attracts over 40 million unique visitors per month making it one of the largest video sharing sites out there. Much like YouTube, you can actually earn money from your uploads on MetaCafe through their Producer Rewards Program.
Through this program, it’s possible to earn up to $5 per 1000 video views on MetaCafe, although there are a few terms and conditions (such as the fact that your video must rack up at least 20,000 views to be eligible). Despite this, MetaCafe still offers a great way to increase the potential audience for your video and is always a worthwhile site in which to upload your videos.
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Conclusion
Sure, there are plenty of other video sharing sites like YouTube (e.g. Veoh, Blip.tv, PhotoBucket etc) but as we mentioned at the beginning of the post, most of these simply don’t have enough visitors to make your upload worthwhile.
By focussing on just a few sites that are most likely to offer a return, you will be able to dedicate more time to promoting the videos on those sites and ensuring that the videos are optimised properly i.e. tags, titles and descriptions. (Editor's Note: Read more on 10 Ways to Optimize Keyword Tags for Video SEO.)
In our opinion, it is much better to upload your video to just a few video sharing sites and do things properly than to bulk upload to hundreds of sites and simply ‘hope for the best’.
This Article by Joshua Hardwick was first Published on ShortyMedia, check it out here.
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Sorry to tell you this…but two things about changes to Metacafe.
The first is that they have now been a YouTube and other video portal aggregator for several years now; and the second is the Producer Rewards Program was also ended several years ago. If you are already uploading the YouTube chances are your video will be seen as duplicate content and removed. If your video spans more than 10 minutes, it will also be removed.
Metacafe, in this videomaker’s eye, has become useless.
Vimeo’s TOS clearly states no business marketing allowed so for the puposes this article was written, also less than useful. Facebook’s 100MB limit is also less than useful if you produce in High Definition…same for Flickr.
Leaving the only contender out of Joshua’s five, to be Dailymotion, which does have its own rev share program.
Addendum.
There is a way to to business marketing through Vimeo, but it involves going Pro at a monthly subscription cost.
Thank you for your addition to this article – as always with the Internet, developments are consistently taking place. Vimeo is a viable option, indeed!
There is also İzlesene, Turkey’s # 1 local video web site, #3 video web site overall in Turkey (After Youtube and Facebook). Video content is in Turkish.
http://www.izlesene.com/
Cagri, thank you for sharing your domestic country’s specific video sharing site!
the problem with watching videos on vimeo is that they always stop. they never run all the way through with out suddenly freezing, and there is nothing you can do to make them start running again. vimeo is terrible. one would think they’d have corrected this problem by now; I can’t be the only one having this problem.
Hi Qwyzl, yes, I’ve noticed issues with Vimeo loading videos, even almost a year, now in May 2015. I’ve restarted the videos, reloaded in new windows, and still had streaming issues. It’s a shame, Vimeo used to be such a premium offering – I was proud to may the yearly $60 US membership fee for the service. I hope Vimeo makes an effort to revamp their service and product!
Nice information why dont you also check http://www.thewebtube.com
Jawad, thank you for your suggestion of The Web Tube.
thanks for the list 🙂
i prefer vimeo than others
Hi Bams,
Yes I prefer Vimeo for the most part, however, their slow up-take in 1080P or 4K video, and the fact that Vimeo videos don’t show up as easily in Google results leads me to still suggest YouTube as a hosting platform if you’re looking for good SEO in addition to free hosting. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Thanks for sharing this. Is there a way for viewers to watch your uploaded videos without having to watch the pop up ads?
Hi Richard – where is your hosted video showing ads?
YouTube is the site that comes to mind if you’re referring to pre-roll ads (video advertisements that play before your video plays). If this is the case, as a content creator, you can decide if you want ads on videos on your channel or note. Login to YouTube with your Google/YouTube credentials and go to settlings – you can choose if you want pre-roll, or lower thirds (bottom of screen) ads on your videos or not!
Thanks for great list of video sharing sites
i like vimeo and dailymotion but Youtube is my favorite 🙂
Thanks for commenting Wid – I agree – YouTube offers the most diversity. Vimeo, back before YouTube went HD, offered a compelling reason to use their service, but given the fact that Vimeo doesn’t share profits via ads, doesn’t allow 2K or 4K video playback, and other reasons has left it behind in 2015. YouTube, while not offering the prestige of a so-called ‘premium’ service due to it’s ubiquity, really does offer the best service right now, as of May 2015!
Very nice article. Here you’ve got 5 new online video sharing platforms. Before read it this article, I only know about YouTube!
In YouTube’s defence, it is number one for many good reasons! Vimeo offers more control over how you share your content especially if you build online courses, but they both have their purposes (Vimeo and YouTube)! Thanks Vivek.
Thank you for the list. Flickr and Veoh can also be used for video marketing and personal video uploads, albeit they have less traffic than some of the sources you listed. -makeitmindful
I think that YouTube is way better than these other sites.
Hi Dessy, it does appear YouTube offers a lot of flexibility – great indexing in Google, fast load/start times, available across a lot of platforms, keywords, etc. The point of this article was to point out the other alternatives that were available, however, YouTube may be the best fit for your project.
videotapenetwork.com is platform which provides video sharing facility where you can share the video from this site YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, Viddler etc.
Hi Ashwini, it looks like a very active website – are you one of the founders of Video Tape Network?
Pepaya.com is a local video host from Indonesia. It shares many movie clips mostly
Thanks for sharing this Donny!
Great article. This will be more helpful for me, thank you.
Glad to hear that you’ve enjoyed the article Shruthi!
Great Tips!
Thanks for sharing!
Hi David, glad you’ve found the list and information useful, thanks for saying so!
One of the amazing article I have read ever. Thanks a ton for sharing. I guess vimeo will be better than YouTube
HI Ganesh – Vimeo be better, depends on what your needs for your video(s) are! You can have more control over who sees your Vimeo videos and how, and it’s a more professional medium (great if you’re making online courses or have a business you want to control how your content is viewed), but for flat-out marketing to generate interest and get new leads, YouTube can be hard to beat. It depends – use both, and see how it works for you!
I was searching for website to share my video. Thanks, you provide a great list of video sites!
great concern and thanks for sharing the information
Hey – this is a wonderful article regarding education methods. Well written, fully defined, keep it up.
I would like to suggest Tammah, a web-based free video sharing platform that allows creators and users find, watch & share original African independent video content. The platform has an African focus but anyone can use it free.