How to Construct Your Online Video Platform

There are numerous reasons to add video to a website: To share product demos, case studies, training materials, perspective from a remote location or event, entertaining clips. The list goes on. However, video publishing is hardly a core competency for many companies, and the fall-back position of setting up a public YouTube channel isn’t always the right decision. Customization options are limited, you often direct traffic away from your own site, and there’s always a risk associated with the other videos YouTube recommends in its Suggestions sidebar.

Setting aside YouTube specifically, a lot of companies don’t know what questions to ask when planning an online video platform. The evaluation process is stunted early on. At a high level, here are the first three decisions to consider:

1. Build or buy. The choice to build your own video platform or outsource video publishing depends in part on your ability to make educated decisions about video player technology, transcoding needs, and device support. It also depends on the internal resources you can allocate to maintenance and troubleshooting.
2. Free or premium. There is always the option to choose a free video platform such as YouTube, but with it comes a slew of limitations. You should consider how much control you need over branding, ad placement, and visual style.
3. Simple or complex. As your content library grows, the ability to publish video efficiently becomes more and more important. If you’re updating content frequently, consider a video platform with a drag-and-drop interface that lets you not only add content, but customize it quickly and easily.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 8:51 am and is filed under Publishing, website optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.