Businesses of all sizes, in all industries, are taking advantage of the power of video for both marketing and employee education and training purposes. But as a company’s video library grows, so too does the need for a reliable and secure hosting and streaming solution. In the early stages of using video, organizations often opt to use a free video publishing platform such as YouTube. While you can’t deny the allure and ease of use of YouTube, you also have to ask: Is YouTube secure?
Is YouTube Secure? Why it Matters
Using YouTube to publish and stream your videos offers several benefits. For starters, it’s completely free. And it’s already well-recognized as one of the top video sites, so you can rest assured that your videos will be easy to find.
Additionally, as your video asset library grows, your own IT infrastructure may not have the capability of supporting a high volume of streaming content on your internal servers. Using YouTube eliminates that problem.
But is YouTube secure?
Not exactly. That’s the problem with using a free video platform. If you’re creating videos with private information intended only for a select audience, it’s going to be very difficult to keep your videos from being seen by unauthorized individuals. Employee training videos and other work-related content not meant for public viewing really shouldn’t be published on YouTube.
That’s why many organizations opt to use an enterprise-grade video hosting and streaming platform such as Viostream. This business-oriented video hosting platform offers unparalleled security and analytics tools, making it ideally suited for internal training and corporate communications. Start your free trial today.
Unsecured Databases
Another issue to be concerned about when using YouTube is its vulnerability to hackers. A recent hack of an unsecured database resulted in 235 million Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube user profiles being compromised. Private account data that has been stolen often winds up exposed on the Dark Web. Should a company's account data be exposed, it could cause numerous financial and privacy issues.
YouTube’s Privacy Settings
Yes, the video platform does have some privacy settings you can utilize to try to dissuade prying eyes from watching your videos. But YouTube is primarily a search engine, which means this security is limited in scope. Private links could be easily shared with others. It only takes one leak for your video to be viewed by multiple individuals that didn’t originally have permission. It simply isn’t worth the risk of using YouTube if you want to ensure confidentiality.
The same privacy settings also make it difficult to share with a large group of people within your organization. It can be a tedious process to set up a large block of user permissions. And even if you take the time to do it, there is still the risk of those permissions being inadvertently shared with others.
Is YouTube Secure Enough for Marketing Purposes?
While you obviously don’t want to use a free platform like YouTube for internal and work-related videos, is YouTube secure enough for marketing videos?
The intent of a marketing video is for it to be viewed by a large audience. So, while you wouldn’t necessarily be striving to keep these videos private, there are still other factors that affect the overall security of your video.
Unfortunately, once you upload a video to YouTube, you have very little control over it while it remains on the platform. For example, you don't have much input when it comes to any advertising that might play before and during the course of your video. It could even be advertising from a competitor! What's more, advertising that interrupts your video playback is distracting and could cause your audience to go off course.
There are also very few options for branding or customizing your videos. As mentioned above, you want as little as possible to detract the customer from their current course along the customer journey map you’ve created. Having to leave your website to go to YouTube to watch a video can certainly be a big distraction all by itself.
Another important answer to the question “Is YouTube secure?” is that you are essentially giving YouTube free license to with your videos what they will. It is in the Terms of Use, stating that you grant the platform the right to copy your videos and royalty-free license. Basically, your videos don’t really belong to you anymore.
A professional video hosting platform like Viostream eliminates these security concerns by featuring multiple tools to protect your video assets. The Viostream platform provides a multi-pronged approach to secure video hosting, including domain whitelisting, user registrations, single sign-on (SSO), and more. Start your free trial today.
Why Use an Enterprise Video Platform?
Is YouTube secure enough for your video content? Only you can answer that question. But if you never want to have to worry about whether or not YouTube is secure again, then the solution is an enterprise video platform. These are robust, feature-rich video sharing, streaming, and hosting platforms that offer you a great amount of security, control, and management of your video assets. Viostream, for example, was specially designed to aid organizations in their video marketing or corporate communications by providing a secure, easy-to-use, and intuitive alternative to free platforms such as YouTube.
In addition to advanced security, Viostream also offers amazing analytics that give you the tools to increase engagement with your audience and enhance the overall potential and ROI of your videos. Learn more about how Viostream can help with training and learning, marketing, and corporate communications. Start your free trial and see what a difference a secure video host can make to your internal and marketing communications.
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