Monthly Archives: February 2016

Top 7 Video Sharing Websites Like YouTube

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Video content and video marketing is a growing trend over the Internet. With increasing video viewership and the ease of sharing, the video content today makes up for around 57% of the consumer internet traffic in 2015, which is 4 times more than email and web browsing. According to Hubspot, this figure is expected to rise to 69% by 2017 and further to 79% by 2018. So, we can see the exponentially growing video penetration, both for businesses and consumers.

It has been found that 78% people watch videos online every week, while 55% watch every day. Hence, we can imagine the traffic that video website face on a daily basis. 93% of marketers use video for online marketing, sales and communication. 18% of marketers found video marketing to be successful. Hence, it is very important for marketers to upload, share and increase the viewership of their video content. You can take a look at the impact of video marketing in this article.

Video content is not only used for marketing. Video content on the web can be used for various purposes. A report in statistic states that,  the most regularly watched categories of U.S. online video viewers were funny videos, movie trailers and music videos. Video content also includes how-to videos, newscast, movie clippings, entertainment videos and much more. It can also include personal videos, which can be uploaded and shared.

There are more than 50 video sharing websites online, most of which offer free membership. YouTube has one of the leading websites for viewing and sharing video content. After Facebook, it is one of the most popular social media platforms. It has more than 1 billion unique users. Apart from YouTube, other top 7 video sharing websites are as follows:

Netflix:

This is primarily a video streaming website, which was started in 1997. This is one of the best websites to view television shows and movies. It has over 34 million subscribers in the US.

Vimeo.com:

This was started in 2004 with more than 24 million registered users currently. Vimeo does not allow upload of any commercial videos. All videos are non-commercial and original. They claim that 51% of the traffic comes from mobile devices. Vimeo can be used to share videos privately with friends and family.  They have both free and paid membership schemes.

Yahoo! Screen:

Started along with yahoo in 1994, this platform can also be used for sharing videos with friends and on-demand streaming. It supports different categories of videos and more like a social interface for hosting and sharing video content.

Dailymotion:

This came into existence in 2005 and currently it provides video services in 34 different languages. It has nice features like add friends, subscribe to channels, video recommendations and much more. In 2012, it started ‘mass uploader’, where you can upload more than one video simultaneously. Dailymotion can be easily integrated with Facebook, smart TV, smartphones and other platforms.

Vube:

This is a platform, where you can upload videos and get paid in dollars. A user can create their own channels to upload, comment and follow other channels, interact with other vube users and also connect over the social media. This has become quite a popular website with 1.7 million likes on Facebook. More than 30 million users visit the website in a month to upload videos clips and movies.

Vine:

This was started in 2012 and later acquired by Twitter. Vine supports different OS platform and is available in 25 languages. This is mostly meant for very short video clips of 6 seconds, which can be recorded and uploaded. It has a unique feature called ‘revine’, which allows you to share other people’s post with followers. This is usually used for music or humour clips.

Twitch:

This started as a live streaming platform in 2012, then later got acquired by Amazon. This is mostly dedicated to gaming related videos. It also gives real time coverage of esport tournaments and game talk shows. It also has gaming softwares for PlayStation and Xbox. It supports Android and iOS platforms.

Other popular video sharing websites include Hulu, LiveLeak, Ustream.TV, Break, Metacafe, Blip, Viwester, Veoh, Flikr and others.

So, if you are looking for sharing content, you might want to consider the following parameters:

Features:

These include both audience and producer features. Watching videos online should be more user-friendly and enjoyable for users. Video hosting websites should also have creative tools for producers to create and upload their videos easily.

Content:

Good video sharing websites should have a good database of videos. It should be regulated and scrutinized for racist, pornographic and other unwanted videos.

Ease of Use:

Again, features like search box, navigation tools should make things easy for users and they would love to return to the website.

Help and Support:

Most websites have free membership, yet they should have a good customer support like FAQs, User guides, forums, etc.

Video sharing websites are upgrading themselves day by day to enhance the audience experience. Online users love to watch videos, which are precise to their search and easy to view in any platform, including smartphones. So, if you are looking at sharing your videos online, check out the above video sharing websites for sharing, publishing, distributing and broadcasting.

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The ABCs of Marketing and Branding

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“This is my product, buy it because it is better than others.”  This is all about Marketing, a tactical approach to sell your product or services.

“This is my product, this is who I am, this is how I grew. If you like my product, buy it, share and recommend it.” And, this is all about Branding, a strategic way of selling your product or services and making a name for yourself.

To a layman, the ideas might appear to be similar. However, there is a marked difference between the two – a thin line, which differentiates Branding from Marketing.

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Marketing is the process of making a Brand, Branding is the ideology for sustaining the same over a period of time. Marketing comprises of tools for promoting your business like SEOs, social media, local searches, mobile and many others. However, Branding is like the value system, which guides the communication out across to the audience.

Marketing sells products or services, whereas Branding sells stories and experiences. Branding is to do with the mental aspect, where you try to evoke an emotional connect with the customer while Marketing is more about the physical aspects of the product or service.

Marketing is more process driven, which influences the human thought process momentarily, whereas Branding is more emotion driven, where the human senses are tapped to trigger their thinking process for a long time.

Marketing helps to dig up new customers and activates them, but Branding helps to make loyal customers, more like brand ambassadors. Marketing deals with creating a new or building on the existing customer base, but Branding aims at giving something back in terms of value to the customer base, so that they would like to come back to you again and again.

The success of a Marketing campaign depends on the amount of money and efforts spent, and might easily go wrong, if not researched well. Whereas, Branding is more flexible and a long-term investment, which can be changed over time according to the changes in the ideology.

In simple terms, Branding is like a promise, which you make, and Marketing is how you deliver the promise. Branding will keep the future in mind on how the brand can grow and sustain, whereas Marketing will look to leverage more on the present.

Understandably, there is not a huge difference between the two, Branding starts where Marketing ends and vice versa. They form the basis for each other. The two concepts go hand in hand to build a business, facilitate its growth and help it sustain in today’s competitive market scenario. Though the tools, basic guidelines or expertise might be different, but they definitely overlap.

So, if you are in two minds, on how to get more out of your Sales and Promotion, get both your Marketing and Branding strategies in sync to grow and sustain your customer base and goodwill.

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