It’s hard to understate the importance of videos for marketing your business these days. Social media prioritizes them and website platforms are making it easier than ever to integrate them on your site. However, there are still right and wrong ways to upload videos. Here are a few tips to upload videos optimally on all of your digital marketing outlets:
Upload directly to Facebook. Since Youtube is owned by Google, Facebook’s algorithm doesn’t like Youtube links. Youtube videos won’t even play on Facebook anymore—you can only link, requiring followers to click and leave Facebook to watch the video. Instead, upload directly to Facebook, allowing your followers to watch the video on the spot and access it from your timeline (and via the Videos link on your page) in the future.
Upload directly to Instagram.* That’s the only option besides linking in your bio (Bonus: Instagram’s algorithm is starting to punish posts that say “link in bio”. They want users to stay on Instagram, not leave it for other sites.)
*Better yet: Use Instagram stories and Instagram TV. They are huge right now. Learn more about how to get started here, and check out the video below for more tips.
Upload directly to Twitter. Not going into too much detail on this one, because most of my clients no longer use it (and if your market is mainly North America, then I don’t think it’s necessary).
Websites
Embed Youtube or Vimeo links. DO NOT upload directly to your website! Here are a few reasons why:
- Video files are huge and take up a ton of bandwidth and space on your website storage
- Your videos are more likely to freeze and will take longer to load if uploaded directly onto your website
- You’ll have to manually convert videos to multiple resolutions to display on different devices and internet connections
- Different web browsers will call for videos in different formats
- You’ll miss out on the additional visibility of videos on Youtube or Vimeo search engines
