Videos are the latest trend in the market and an effective way to engage traffic and drive audience. From food recipes to stand-up comedies, videos provide full entertainment to people. With the advancement of technology, plain text has replaced videos to promote a brand and get a competitive edge. Brands are using them effectively to build personal relationships with consumers.
Looking at the widespread popularity of videos, there are many entrepreneurs considering starting a video sharing website similar to YouTube, Vimeo, etc. The main question that arises is “how do video sharing sites earn money?” Let’s have a look at the business models of video sharing websites.
- Subscription model:
One of the most popular models for a video sharing website is the subscription model. Video creators with unique content are confident of getting viewers and thus create a subscription model. Platforms like Netflix and Hulu, for example, have a subscription-based model. To incorporate subscription, you need to make your website discoverable and win the trust of customers in your video sharing services.YouTube offers premium membership comprising of ad-free videos, offline downloading of videos and play in the background feature by paying a nominal amount for membership.Some of the examples of the subscription model are monthly subscription, weekly subscription, daily subscription and more. - Advertisements:
While watching a video, you might have come across advertisements. These advertisements can be obtrusive for users, but they are an income source for broadcasters.YouTube, for example, offers targeted advertising feature to the advertisers which can be beneficial to both the broadcasters as well as advertisers. The platform earns money through sponsored ads. Advertisers pay YouTube based on the number of views they get after the viewers have clicked on such ads.Another way is embedded ads. This advertisement is played at the starting of the video. Short ads are also placed in between that help YouTube in earning revenues. It also allows ads on its landing page, which is just like a banner advertisement, charging advertisers for the same. - Pay-per-view (PPV):
One of the other ways to earn revenues for video sharing website is pay-per-view. You can allow users to view content on payment of fees. It is payment for a one-time content. This is different than the subscription model, which charges for the membership of the platform and not for specific content.Online tutorials fall in this category. To view a single movie or a show having multiple episodes, users can be asked to pay a one-time fee.Unlike ads, PPV allows broadcasters to control the viewing experience of the users. For advertisements, you need a large audience, but for PPV you can generate revenues from even a smaller audience.
Final words
The best option today can be to use a hybrid of the models mentioned above. By fusion of pay-per-view model and subscription model, you can offer users a wider range to choose from. By combining the PPV model and ads-based model, you can make customers pay for high-quality content, or they have to view ads for watching a less-valued content.
For startups wanting to start a video sharing website quickly, they can choose our video sharing script providing flexibility and having provisions to manage revenues effortlessly.
Contact us today at [email protected] to know more about our video sharing scripts for platforms similar to YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu, and Netflix.
