When it comes to building a thriving community, content creators have more options than ever at their disposal. But in order to start your channel and grow your audience, you’ll need more than just a video hosting platform. You’ll need all of the must-have features to start and scale your channel beyond a place to post your videos.
Here’s what to look for and questions to ask yourself when deciding among the best video hosting platforms.
How Easy Is It to Build an Audience Around Your Content?
It’s no longer a strategy of “build it, and they will come” but rather “give them ways to interact, and they will come.” Creating a community around your content, with everything from discussions after the stream ends to user profiles and custom avatars, helps people feel included while encouraging them to participate.
But fostering interaction is only the first step. Getting insightful details into the kind of content your users want to see also helps build loyalty and keep users coming back for more.
Can You Create Free and Paid Events?
It’s one thing to stream and another to build something that keeps viewers’ attention over the long term. Creating virtual events, both free and paid, gives users something extra they can’t get anywhere else. Then, adding interactive features, like the ability to reply using photos, GIFs, and emojis, livens up the space and gives it personality.
Encourage interaction by having users vote on polls, upvote, or downvote, all while having complete control to ensure inappropriate images and content don’t filter through. That’s the power of community.
Don’t Guess When it Comes to Audience Analytics – Know.
Another powerful but often-forgotten feature of video hosting platforms that content creators need to know about is video analytics. No matter how blazing fast or cutting-edge the technology that powers your videos, if the platform can’t deliver insightful details about your subscribers and viewers, how can you monetize and build a community around it?
That’s why, when choosing the best video hosting platform, it’s important to know about the data being collected. Who are your users? Where are they from? What are they watching? Are you able to use the analytics to break down their viewing habits by events, dates, channels, or locations? Can you set up pre-defined KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and track them so you’ll know what to aim for? The right analytics can tell you.
How Easy Is It to Live Stream?
The best video hosting platform makes it almost effortless to livestream and capture every unforgettable moment – for both you and your community. Not only should the platform handle transcoding the video on the server side (and freeing up hours of your time trying to wrangle it into a compatible format), but also give you broadcast-quality results behind a customizable player that matches your brand and aesthetic.
All of this, backed by the ability to optionally DVR and archive the stream, support multiple camera views, and even monetize your content, means that no matter which video platform you choose, live streaming should be second nature.
Can You Fully Leverage Video Commerce Features?
So far, we’ve talked about must-have features when choosing a video hosting platform that helps build a community. But what about monetizing that community? The best video hosting platform will have taken this into consideration as well, and built a platform that’s designed for growth and scalability.
That means having multiple options available to help content creators take advantage of cutting-edge monetization options. From subscriptions (SVOD) to pay-per-view (TVOD) to advertising (AVOD) and memberships, the best video hosting platforms make it easy for content creators not just to make money but also make money in their market and in their language, using their preferred currency.
Can You Integrate Third-Party Tools?
No video hosting platform is an island. The best cloud-based video hosting platforms are content to continue doing what they do best while integrating with popular and much-loved tools for the rest. From email marketing to CRMs to text messages and more, the best video hosting platform helps you build a community outside the platform itself and grows with you.
Not only is third-party integration a must, but so is the ability to reach your users wherever they are. Whether they watch you on the web, stream you on their iPhone or Android device, or broadcast you on Chromecast, AppleTV, or Samsung, your ability to be there on any size screen is crucial when building your community.
Choosing a Video Hosting Platform that Has It All
Deciding on the best video hosting platform can feel overwhelming, especially when factoring in all of these points. The good news is your search is over with FanHero. Built to perform with a white label, all-in-one live streaming video and OTT solution, there’s no better way to create, upload, manage, share, and monetize your content, all from one centralized hub. Trusted by over 5 million users, from solo entrepreneurs to major enterprises like Google and Samsung, FanHero is your complete video hosting, monetization, and community-building platform. Start now for free with a full suite of programs and services that grow and scale with you and only pay for what you need.
Getting Started with FanHero
FanHero is more than just a video hosting platform. It’s your gateway to a variety of cutting-edge video promotion and community-building tools. Create virtual events, online courses, live streams, community groups and more all in one place with an interface that’s easy to use and easy to love.
Create a community that pays you back with multiple monetization options, including subscriptions, paywalls, memberships, free trials, coupons, and more, all backed by global payments. Manage it all with a headless CMS, helpful user roles and permissions, advanced video hosting, and a resilient global network optimized for performance.
Learn more and create your free account at FanHero.com
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