My dance video is finished. Now what?
After weeks or months of choreographing, concepting, directing, editing, and more – your videos are finally finished. And now, you want people to see your work! You’re ready to go online!
Once you open your browser, you see that video is everywhere. YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, embedded on web pages, Instagram…
So what platforms and social media should you use?
Our advice is simple: share everywhere!
Yes, all of the video platforms out there are different, and each one has pros and cons and a specific kind of user in mind. The impact of your work will be different every place you post your video — which is why it’s important to share widely, on every platform that’s available to you.
We’re sharing the positive aspects of some of the main channels you’ll want to use in this quick guide to get you started!
Facebook has quickly become one of the best places to post your videos and really see them soar. Facebook reports about 8 billion video impressions per day.
While Facebook is free to use, boosting posts and running paid video campaigns can dramatically further your impact and visibility. Use Facebook’s insights to see how many people your content is reaching and improve your next campaigns.
Two key reasons we tell our dance clients to upload videos directly to their Facebook pages:
- Facebook favors native videos – that means videos uploaded directly to Facebook perform significantly better than if you post a YouTube or Vimeo link to your page.
- Facebook advertising allows you to really hone in on the audience you need – that means any dance video you use in a paid campaign can be targeted to reach “people who are interested in modern dance, The Joyce Theater, and live in New York City and New Jersey” or “women who like ballet, who are under 35, and live in Connecticut.” Getting really specific about what demographics want to see your show can increase ticket sales so much!
Youtube
With more than one billion users, YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world – second only to Google – and Google favors YouTube videos in its search results, too. Between the number of users and the SEO benefits, that’s a whole lot of potential eyes on your work!
YouTube offers advertising capabilities and the option to add a call to action right to your video. This means, posting your dance video on YouTube can drive traffic to your website, fundraising campaign, or anything else you want to highlight.
If you’re using the right keywords in your video description, you could gain new fans from the mere description of your work. Videos posted with your company or choreographer name will come up in Google searches for your work, giving people instant access to video if they’re looking you up online.
YouTube is a free platform (unless you’re using your video for ads). Accounts have unlimited storage capacity too, which means you can upload as many hours of footage as you want, whenever you want.
Vimeo
When people think Vimeo, people think quality. Vimeo users are usually creatives and artists who want a clean, reliable platform to house their videos. You can share private links to Vimeo videos very easily, without any distracting sidebars or ads since Vimeo is completely and totally ad-free. This makes it a perfect platform for videos you’ll share with grant applications and to presenters and festivals.
We encourage our clients to upgrade to Vimeo Plus or Pro. When you upgrade, you have more space per week for larger, longer videos, and you can customize the look and feel of the player. This is a huge plus when you’re embedding video on your website – which you should do!!
Instagram is about creating community. Great videos on Instagram show your commitment to quality content and ensure that your followers remember it. It’s extraordinarily popular and can be an important way to establish your image as an artist. Not to mention, Facebook now owns Instagram, so you can run paid ads.
Instagram is a free unless you’re running ads, and made up of mostly casual users. Think about why you go to Instagram – it’s to see the inspiring things your friends are up to! Thus, behind-the-scenes videos, fun how-tos, and really stunning content do well.
Instagram allows up to 60 seconds of video per post – so now is the time to get creative!
Guess what...
We’re on Instagram too!
Nel Shelby is Video Producer at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and Owner & Filmmaker for Nel Shelby Productions, her New York City-based company dedicated to dance videography and editing. Nel shares her mission to preserve and promote the art of dance with her husband, Christopher Duggan, a dance and wedding photographer. They collaborate on projects with dance companies of worldwide renown, up-and-coming choreographers, dance educators, dance schools and more. Nel is also the proud Director and Producer of PS DANCE! — a New York Emmy-nominated documentary about dance education in NYC’s public schools.
