There’s something to be said for free social media sharing platforms. A handful have the reach and brand awareness to attract worldwide audiences. There’s value there. They make it easy to direct viewers to your on-demand content. We all want more viewers, and search tools and AI algorithms can potentially suggest your videos to all-new audiences. If you want more viewers – and it doesn’t violate your town/school/franchise agreement – it’s certainly tempting to go ahead and post your content.
However, the major negative, particularly for education and government content, is the loss of control once your programming is posted. So, while it may be free to post your content, here are three major red flags that might make you avoid these web-based distribution platforms:
1) Advertising. Video sharing platforms earn revenue through advertisements. These can take the form of banners or other display ads on the page surrounding the media player. Even worse, they can be commercials that interrupt your content. You have no control over the number of commercial interruptions or what commercials will run. Oh, you might not get any significant revenue from those ads, either.
2) Related Content. Once your video is complete, some sites will recommend other content. It might be one of your videos…or not. You have no say in what shows up when your show is over.
3) Content License. Once you post a video, anyone can link to it and share that link. That’s fine, but check the terms of service. When you post something, you probably give that platform the right to use your content within their own content. Some platforms even have licenses that allow other content creators on the site to edit and reuse your video, too. Would your school district be comfortable with that?
Thankfully, Cablecast VIO and VIO Stream let you keep control of the viewer experience. It’s your own digital media infrastructure, so there’s no platform “bot” inserting unwanted advertising. No third-party content suggestions, either, so there’s no fear of your on-demand programming being associated with inappropriate, competitive, or commercial content. Avoiding social media platforms lets you avoid intellectual property rights issues, too.
There are lots of other advantages to using Cablecast for your VOD, too. If you drive people to your platform, it appears with your other content – and it’s categorized in ways that make sense for your viewers. Cablecast also provides consistency across multiple content outlets, because the categories you create on VOD are automatically setup for OTT or mobile content delivery.
Cablecast not only eliminates the red flags of video sharing platforms, but it also lets you enhance the viewer experience with VOD chaptering and the ability to embed meeting agendas and other PDF files. Plus, Cablecast’s robust reporting tools include a VOD view count, so you can monitor which videos are getting the most views. Find out more here.
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