YouTube is the gold standard social networking tool for video, but a few weeks ago, my friend and fellow blogger, Alan Weinkrantz, introduced me to Veoh. Over the past two weeks, I have been using it with some success.
Veoh doesn’t nearly have the reach of YouTube, but it does a few things well, and is especially useful for organizations trying to get their video out there. I have been experimenting with it on a new campaign I am putting together for SeaWorld San Antonio, which is one of my clients.
Here are the advantages of Veoh, from my perspective:
- Time Savings: Veoh syndicates your videos to Google Video, YouTube and MySpace for you. So, if you have multiple accounts, once you set it up in the interface, you only have to upload once.
- Professional Look: They have a professional video interface that is much nicer looking that YouTube. If you sign up for the free pro account, you can even personalize your Veoh channel.
- Automatically Send New Videos: They have the ability to group videos into series. The most recent video plays in the main screen, but there are thumbnails of the other videos that you can scroll and play at the bottom (just push the play button and click on any of the thumbnails to see the other videos in the series). Since it is all done by code, as you update the series, it will also automatically update everywhere it is embedded across the net.
- Measurement: Veoh keeps track of your video downloads across all platforms in one handy interface. So you can track your campaign very easily.
There are a few drawbacks. The first video you upload may take as much as 3 to 4 hours to upload, but after the first one, I noticed the upload time was faster, though still considerably slower than YouTube. They also don’t have a very good help section, but the Veoh Forum has some good tech support information.
