Should Nonprofits Use YouTube or Vimeo for Video Hosting?

I firmly believe they should use both. The strength of YouTube is its level of innovation–they continue to innovate and help users to spread your message. YouTubes largest problem is spam. I don’t know the best way to solve or allieviate this.

Vimeo’s largest problem is two fold.

1) First, it doesn’t have a huge userbase (when you compare it to YouTube). Also Vimeo’s major user base is artistic, where as YouTube seems to have a larger diversity.
2) Second, and arguably far more important is the bad streaming for larger video content. Why this problem hasn’t been solved–I don’t know. It seems Hulu has been able to make the jump to better streaming, where as Vimeo hasn’t.

I believe Vimeo has 2 major advantages over YouTube:

1) the slicker appearance (although the quality is supposed to be the same)
2) people who like something seems to create a better or more focused “social network.”)

Unfortunately, when you are steaming larger videos (over 5 to 10 minutes….this seems to cause a hang up. I imagine this threshold is even smaller on lower end DSL and laptops–for instance 3 minutes. Unfortunately, you don’t have control over the speed at which your potential donors or customers watch the video–if you are serving a poorer population its rather unlikely they have the latest technology and the latest in broadband). This entirely sabotages the whole reason for using Vimeo in the first place–the look and feel.

Both gives you the flexibility to access a bigger audience on YouTube, but show major donors short videos on Vimeo in group or one on one presentations (either via phone or face to face). Also, if Vimeo is slow–you can always access your videos on YouTube. Having videos on both gives you a backup.