Last updated on 10th January 2024
In this article we’re going to take a look at the 15 best video distribution platforms for video marketing in 2024.
According to our latest Video Marketing Statistics, a huge proportion of marketers (96%) value video as an important part of their marketing strategy.
And while it’s important to make an amazing video, it’s equally important to distribute and promote the video as best you can. Otherwise, no one will see it and your hard work will go unnoticed!
With that said, let’s take a look at some of the best video distribution channels for your video…
Why it’s important to choose the right video distribution platform
There are many great video distribution platforms to choose from. The question is, which one is best for your video and your video marketing needs?
Different distribution platforms have different tones and attract different audiences, so it’s important to find the video distribution channels that appeal to your target audience. This will help you get your video in front of the right people and hopefully increase your chances of success!
Also, it’s worth noting that you don’t have to choose just one of these distribution channels – quite the opposite! You should share your video to as many platforms as possible in order to get the best reach.
The best video distribution platforms
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- TikTok
- Twitch
- DailyMotion
- Dedicated landing page
- Create a video library
- Blog articles
- Paid ads
1. YouTube
Let’s start with the obvious place: YouTube. YouTube is a giant in the video world, with over 122 million active daily users and around one billion hours of content watched on the platform every day.
The user base for YouTube is vast in terms of size but also the types of users that visit the platform. YouTube sees visitors from all demographics, but the most prominent users of the platform seem to be 18-29 year olds. And quite a chunk of traffic – almost 16% – comes solely from the US.
Here’s an example of a brand video that’s performing well on the platform:
This video clocked up almost 3 million views in the first 2 weeks of its release! The Pourri brand creates videos with a high production value and humour at the heart, and these types of videos seem to really appeal to YouTube users.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to YouTube
YouTube accepts pretty much all video dimensions and file formats, but if you want to get specific this article is really helpful!
When it comes to video length, YouTube is a little different to other video distribution platforms. YouTube rewards longer content, and viewers seem to respond to longer videos too.
According to Visme, the ideal length for a YouTube video is between seven and fifteen minutes. So if you have some longform content, this is the platform for you!
Another important thing to remember when posting to platforms like YouTube is your thumbnail. An eye-catching thumbnail will help you grab attention and encourage people to watch your video.
2. Facebook
Facebook is another giant, and while it was technically ‘late’ to the video marketing game it’s definitely caught up by now. According to our research, 86% of video marketers use Facebook in their video marketing strategy.
There are more than 4 billion videos watched on Facebook every day, and it’s the third most visited site in the world (after Google and YouTube).
Like YouTube, Facebook has a vast and wide reach. However, users tend to skew slightly older than YouTube, with 67% of Gen X adults in the US using Facebook, 43% of the Baby Boomer generation, and even 21% of the Silent generation (born 1945 and earlier).
Tasty is a brand that’s absolutely killing it when it comes to Facebook video:
Their videos are fun, uplifting, educational, and not overly promotional – which is important when using social media as a place for video distribution.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to Facebook
There are many different types of videos you can post to Facebook, from typical newsfeed videos that anyone can share to Facebook Business Explore which allows brands to distribute their videos to interested potential customers.
The best file type to opt for when it comes to Facebook is either MP4, MOV, or GIF. You should aim for a resolution of 1080p, and captions are optional but definitely recommended. When it comes to length, Facebook is very free. You can post videos that are a couple of seconds long or a couple of hours!
For more specific information, head straight to the source.
3. Vimeo
Vimeo is a video hosting platform with over 230 million users and 60 million content creators distributing videos on the site.
It’s smaller scale than Facebook and YouTube (99% of sites are!), but that’s still an impressive amount of people to share your video with.
Users on Vimeo are mostly professionals as the platform is seen as slightly more ‘high brow’ or artsy than YouTube. It’s a great place to share your work if you’re looking for feedback from peers.
However, it’s equally great as a place to simply host videos that you want to post on your website. Vimeo has several different plans to choose from depending on your video marketing needs, and all of them are ad free and support 4K and Dolby Vision so you can deliver your content in the highest quality.
Here’s an example of the type of video you might see on Vimeo:
This colourful, high-quality animated video has been watched over 30,000 times! It’s slick, professional, and engaging.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to Vimeo
Vimeo’s posting guidelines are pretty standard so you shouldn’t have any issue meeting them! It’s recommended that videos are recorded horizontally, and uploaded as an MP4 or MOV file, exported at a resolution of 1920 x 1080.
Another great tip for posting to Vimeo is to credit the professionals who worked on the project in the description box of the video. As Vimeo is a professional network for people who love video, this is a great way to give credit and build your community on the platform.
4. Instagram
This mobile-first social media site should absolutely be a serious contender when it comes to looking for video distribution platforms in 2024.
Instagram has been steadily growing on the video front for the past few years with no signs of slowing down. In fact, Instagram users spend a staggering 80% more time watching videos today than they did in 2017.
The platform has a wide reach, with over one billion monthly users. That means almost 13% of the entire world’s population checks their Instagram profile every month!
Their audience is pretty equally split between male and female, with over 50% of users being between the ages of 18 and 34.
One of the best things about choosing Instagram as a video distribution channel is that people like to shop there. According to Instagram, 50% of Instagrammers have visited a website to buy a product or service as a result of seeing it in Stories.
This is great news if you’re posting a sales or product demonstration video! Here’s an example of a typical brand video on Instagram:
Educational, close up videos that show users exactly what to do (like this one) do really well on Instagram.
5. TikTok
TikTok is another mobile-first platform and very similar to Instagram when it comes to video distribution.
The platform currently has around 750 million monthly users, and these people skew slightly younger than Instagram users. Almost 50% of TikTok users are between the ages of 10 and 29, making this a great place to target Gen Z consumers.
The biggest difference between Instagram and TikTok is that TikTok is solely a video platform. Also, the platform favours much shorter content.
The limit for a TikTok video used to be 3 minutes. This has recently made a big leap to 10 minutes, but users still prefer quicker videos that grab attention and move fast.
Here’s an example:
A catchy soundtrack, fast-paced editing, and captions are all hallmarks of a good TikTok video.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to TikTok
TikTok can be a great video distribution platform, especially if you’re looking to target a younger audience. However, the platform has such a unique style that it’s best to make videos directly for TikTok, rather than trying to make any existing video content work on the platform..
The ideal TikTok video is shot vertically with an aspect ratio of 9:16 (the size of a typical smartphone screen) and a maximum file size of 287.6 MB (or 500 MB for an ad).
6. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is probably as different to TikTok as two social media sites could possibly be, but it’s still a great place for video distribution (depending on your ideal audience).
LinkedIn is primarily used for professional networking and career development. It has 875 million members in more than 200 countries worldwide.
As such, it’s best to share professional brand videos on LinkedIn, such as company updates, success stories, and behind-the-scenes content.
Here’s a great example from our partner brand, Project.co:
This video is clear and concise, and is presented in a professional way that highlights the friendly and approachable culture of Project.co.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to LinkedIn
LinkedIn has similar video requirements to many other platforms. Videos can be between 3 seconds and 10 minutes long, and both MP4 and MOV formats are accepted.
The maximum file size is 5GB. The preferred aspect ratio is 1:2.4 or 2.4:1 and the resolution range is 256×144 to 4096×2304.
LinkedIn accepts videos that are horizontal or vertical, but vertical videos will be cropped to square in the news feed.
7. Twitter
Twitter is another huge social media site and another place you can post your video. Twitter has almost 400 million users, 200 million of which are daily active users.
It can be easy to dismiss Twitter when it comes to your video marketing strategy, but listen to this: People spend 26% more time viewing video ads on Twitter than on any other social networking site! So if you’ve created a video ad, you need to distribute it on Twitter.
Here’s an example from Burger King:
Video ads that perform well on Twitter are short, entertaining, and shareable.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to Twitter
Like Instagram and TikTok, videos on Twitter should be optimised for mobile. Shorter videos work best, with a maximum length of 140 seconds. Twitter has quite strict requirements for video:
- File sizes must not exceed 512 mb
- Aspect ratio must be between 1:3 and 3:1
- Dimensions must be between 32×32 and 1280×1024
One of the most important things to remember when posting a video to Twitter is to use hashtags. Twitter is king of the hashtags and it’s how posts get found and gain traction on the site.
You can create your own hashtag like the Burger King video ad above, or hop onto an existing trending hashtag to immediately boost the traction of your post.
8. Pinterest
Originally an image-sharing platform, Pinterest is growing rapidly in the world of video marketing. The over 400 million active users on the site watch almost one billion videos every single day!
Even better than that, people aren’t just watching videos on the platform. They’re taking action. According to Pinterest, people spend 2x more per month shopping on their platform than on any other social media sites.
Pinterest is a site where people typically share and save content that inspires, informs, or educates. As such, this is the type of content that tends to perform best on the platform. Here’s an example video:
It’s also worth noting that videos autoplay within the main feed of Pinterest, so videos that grab attention within the first few seconds are likely to perform better.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to Pinterest
Aesthetics are so important on Pinterest. To gain any traction on the site your video needs to look perfect, and that includes getting the requirements right.
Record in vertical mode whenever possible, and remember that content that performs best on Pinterest tends to be a mix of educational and inspirational.
Here are some rules to stick to when it comes to distributing videos on Pinterest:
- Video length – minimum 4 seconds, maximum 15 minutes (between 45 seconds and 3 minutes recommended)
- File type – .mp4, .mov or .m4v.
- Max file size – up to 2GB.
- Aspect ratio – Pinterest recommends making your videos square (1:1) or vertical (2:3 or 9:16)
9. Twitch
It’s likely you’ve heard of Twitch before – almost 23 billion hours of video was consumed on the platform in 2021 alone – but you may not have considered it as one of the best video distribution platforms for your brand.
But Twitch is on the rise in the video marketing world. The platform runs different types of video ads – like pre-rolls and mid-rolls – that viewers have to watch before viewing video content of a channel they aren’t subscribed to.
So there’s a lot of potential here! But first it’s important to consider whether their audience is a good match for your brand.
Twitch has a majority (65%) male audience, and their audience is young too. Over 70% of Twitch users are under 35, and only 3% are over 55.
Here’s an example of the type of ad you’ll see on Twitch:
Ads for tech, like this one, are quite popular as most people on Twitch are there for gaming content.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to Twitch
Twitch is best for posting short and snappy video ads. Pre-roll ads are limited to 30 seconds so you don’t have a lot of time to work with. Mid-roll ads can be up to 60 seconds long but there’s an extra charge for those.
The resolution required is your typical 1920×1080, but pricing can vary and it’s best to start here if you’re serious about distributing video ads on Twitch.
10. DailyMotion
DailyMotion is a French-owned video sharing platform that is very similar to YouTube in its functionality. It’s a place where people go to watch and share entertaining video content on a wide range of topics.
However, there are some big differences. For starters, YouTube (obviously) has a bigger reach. DailyMotion has around 112 million site visits per month, which is nothing to sniff at but pales in comparison to YouTube’s 122 million visits every day.
DailyMotion also has some restrictions that YouTube doesn’t when it comes to distributing videos. Regular users are limited to uploading a maximum of 15 videos a day with a total duration of 10 hours. Although there is the option to become a partner to increase that amount.
Here’s a video from DailyMotion:
Top categories for videos on DailyMotion include shopping, news, and gaming. Plus, the audience is largely male (over 60%) so content aimed at a male audience is likely to perform better.
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to DailyMotion
DailyMotion accepts videos in a wide variety of file types and can also handle resolutions up to 4K. There’s a recommended aspect ratio of 16:9. 4:3 is also accepted but black bars will appear on either side of the video.
It’s also great to remember that DailyMotion has more of a worldwide appeal than YouTube, with only 15% of traffic coming from the US. It can be useful to add captions to your video so that you can target people who speak languages other than English.
11. Dedicated landing page
In addition to distributing your videos all over the internet, you should also give them a dedicated home on your website.
A landing page is a standalone page on your site with a specific marketing goal, such as increasing brand awareness or converting leads to customers. We have one that showcases our customer testimonial videos:
Video content can add more credibility to your site and keep visitors on your site for a longer amount of time, reducing your bounce rate, which in turn gives your SEO a boost.
According to our Video Marketing Statistics 2023, 91% of marketers say video has helped them increase traffic and 87% agree that video has helped to increase dwell time.
Tips & Tricks for creating landing pages
There are some things to consider when creating a video landing page, and one of the first is where you want to host your video. You could use one of the hosting sites on this list, like YouTube or Vimeo, or opt for a more dedicated solution like Wistia.
Wistia is a complete video marketing platform for businesses and will allow you to embed your videos to landing pages on your site, while also giving you access to impressive analytics that can inform your video marketing efforts going forward.
It’s also important to consider the finer details, such as placing your video above the fold, and deciding whether you want your videos to autoplay or not.
12. Create a video library
A step up from the dedicated video landing page is the video library. This is perfect if you’re investing a lot into video content and would like to keep all of it in a central hub that’s easy for potential customers to find and watch.
Here’s an example from Samsung:
Video libraries are great for educational content, as seen here. Not only are they practical, consumers love them too. According to our Video Statistics, 96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
Tips & Tricks for video libraries
Like the Samsung example above, it’s important to let your website visitors know exactly what they’re looking at. A descriptive title and engaging thumbnail is key. Both of these elements will hopefully encourage people to click on the video and watch it.
Another great feature for your video library – particularly if it’s educational – is to make it searchable. That way, customers can search for the exact problem they’re trying to solve and hopefully find some video content to help them.
13. Email
If you have a list of email subscribers then you have nothing to lose by distributing your new video in your latest email. If anything, people want to see videos in their inbox!
According to GetResponse, emails with videos show a 5.6% higher open rate and a 96% higher click-through rate when compared to emails without videos.
As a video marketing company, we send out videos in our emails all the time:
It’s easy to add videos to your emails and you can do so in two ways. You can directly embed the video into the email or you can add a hyperlink to a video image (to take people to a video landing page where they can watch the video).
Find out more about both of those options here: How to Embed Video in Email.
Tips & Tricks for email videos
First things first, let people know that your email includes a video! You can do this by including the word “video” in your subject line. According to Campaign Monitor, this can boost your open rates by 19%.
Another important tip to remember is that not all email providers will support video players, so embedding might not be the best option. To play it safe we’d recommend including an engaging screenshot from your video and a link that people can click on to watch the video on your website (or hosted elsewhere).
14. Blog articles
Yep, you can even distribute your videos in blog articles! And why not? It’s a super easy way to get your videos in front of more people and it also has the potential to boost the performance of your articles because search engines love rich media. So it’s a win-win!
Almost every video hosting platform makes it easy to share your videos anywhere on the web. You just have to copy the link or embed code, paste it into the body of your article and you’re done!
Tips & Tricks for posting videos to blog articles
Of course, you can’t just post videos to blog articles for no reason. Search engines are smart enough to know whether content is valuable and relevant or not, so if you really want an excuse to share your videos on your blog then it’s best to write an article around a topic that naturally complements your video content.
Here’s an example from our blog: What is a Storyboard and How Do You Make One for Your Video? (WITH VIDEO)
Note the “with video” in the title, that’s another top tip! Let people know you’re sharing video content on your blog. After all, most people would rather watch a video than engage with any other type of content.
15. Paid ads
So far most of the video distribution methods we’ve discussed have been free, but there’s also a paid option. Paid ads allow you to get your video in front of the right audience to improve your chances of success.
You can run a video ad campaign on many of the social networking sites listed in this article. For example, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Here’s an example from YouTube:
This is an example of a 15 second skippable pre-roll ad. The video plays before the viewer’s selected video content and includes a visible ‘Shop Now’ CTA for Etsy throughout.
Tips & Tricks for creating video ads
The best video ads are snappy, attention grabbing, and relevant to the main video content. They should also end with a strong call to action so that you can direct viewers on what to do next.
Each video distribution platform has its own set of rules when it comes to video ads. And, within that, each individual video ad also has a specific set of rules to follow. It’s a lot of information to go through, but hopefully these articles will give you a great place to start:
- How to Create a Successful YouTube Video Ads Campaign
- How to Create a Successful Facebook Video Ads Campaign
And if you’re looking for inspiration, look no further: 21 of the Best Video Ads of All Time.
Final thoughts
As video marketers ourselves, we know just how much blood, sweat and tears (or, more accurately, how much time, money and effort!) you’ve put into your videos. Don’t let it go to waste by not distributing them appropriately.
The more video distribution platforms that you can post your video to, the better it will be for awareness, engagement, and ROI.
And if you’re looking for ways to accurately measure and improve your ROI, we’ve got information on that too. Check out this article: 6 Ways to Measure & Improve Your Video ROI.
