The Complete Guide to Video Sharing Platforms in 2024

With videos now accounting for 65% of global internet traffic, it's safe to assume that digital content will drive the future.
Every day, businesses around the world rely on video sharing platforms to train employees, launch products, and communicate critical information. Live streaming or video on demand are both ways in which video sharing helps content reach users. The difference is that one happens in real-time, while the other allows viewers to watch content at their convenience. 

Imagine this: a multinational corporation prepares to launch a groundbreaking product. Its marketing team has spent months crafting the perfect campaign video. The world waits in anticipation as the company streams the big reveal using live video sharing. But instead of a flawless presentation, the live stream falters—buffering screens replace the product's grand entrance. The audience is frustrated, and the launch that was meant to make headlines ends up as a cautionary tale. 

Or consider a scenario where a highly confidential internal training video, meant only for executives, somehow leaks onto the internet. Within hours, the sensitive information spreads across social media like wildfire, damaging the company's reputation. Such incidents highlight how crucial it is for businesses to choose the right video sharing platform, one that effectively shares content with security and reliability. 

As companies increasingly turn to digital content, the choice of a video sharing platform becomes a strategic decision that can make or break a campaign or event. In this guide, we'll explore the landscape of video sharing platforms in 2024, focusing on the unique needs of enterprises.  

Must Haves for Video Sharing Platforms  

When choosing a video sharing platform, some key features can go a long way to impact the quality of smooth video delivery. Ensuring the target audience has an experience that delivers the intended message correctly is based on multiple factors. These factors can independently or collectively influence the effectiveness of the purpose with which the content was shared. Here are the key features that you should look out for when choosing a video sharing platform:

Security  

Imagine a crucial town hall recording with sensitive company information becoming public due to inadequate security. This could mean your internal company affairs becoming the talk of the town.

For the above reason, data security is essential. A secure video sharing platform prevents unauthorized access and addresses rising cyberattack threats with stringent measures. Here are the key considerations you should always consider:

Encryption

Ensure that the platform uses secure encryption protocols for data at rest and in transit. This will safeguard your videos and associated metadata from unauthorized access behind a security key only known to the intended receiver's device.  

Authentication and Authorization

Multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), and role-based access control (RBAC) are features that help secure your platform from unauthorized access. These controls ensure that only recognized users can access the content and only perform actions they have been entitled to.  

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

DRM prevents unauthorized copying, sharing, or distribution of your video content, ensuring that the risk of piracy is minimal.

Tokenized Links

Tokenized links add an extra layer of security by generating unique, time-sensitive URLs for video access. This ensures that only authorized users can view the content, allowing you to expire the link after a time.  

IP Restrictions

IP restrictions limit video access to specific IP addresses or ranges, ensuring only users within a designated network or region can view sensitive content.

Embedding Controls

Embedding controls let you manage where and how your videos are embedded on external sites, helping you restrict embedding to specific domains or disable it entirely to prevent unauthorized use. 

Audit Logs

Audit logs track all user activity, including logins, video views, and sharing actions, providing a comprehensive record of content access.

If you want to learn more about securely sharing videos, head over to our detailed blog on 10 Ways to Share Videos Securely.

Scalability  

On the release of the latest software announcement through a video shared on the company's website, unexpected traffic causes the servers to crash, ruining the ever so important moment that the team had prepped on for months. To avoid such an embarrassment, always ensure that a video sharing platform can handle large volumes of traffic. 

As your organization grows, so will your need for a platform that can handle increased traffic, storage, and performance demands without compromising user experience. Scalability is critical for catering to large audiences, and as you grow as a business, your audience size will keep increasing. Keep an eye out for the following in the platform you choose:

Flexibility

A scalable platform will give you the freedom to alter your specifications as your audience grows, be it in terms of extra bandwidth requirements or providing storage facilities. It will be ready to absorb traffic in the most effective way before an important event.  

Global Content Delivery

A content delivery network (CDN) quickly and reliably delivers your video content to viewers worldwide, reducing latency and improving quality. In the case of a globally diverse audience, an eCDN (Enterprise Content Delivery Network) will ensure that viewers from each part of the world experience smooth playback.

Load Balancing

Choose platforms that distribute traffic across multiple servers, preventing any single server from becoming overwhelmed and causing downtime or slow performance.

Analytics

Think about having an organization-wide training and learning program that aims to upskill each worker in a specialized area. The program has been deployed, but soon, your team realizes that user progress is not sufficiently tracked in terms of which employee watched which video to what point.

In a world driven by granular insights, measuring and analyzing your video content's performance is essential. Analytics provide insights that can help you optimize your content strategy, improve viewer engagement, measure participation, and ultimately drive better results. Key features that could make a difference for you are:

Engagement Metrics

Monitor viewer behavior by tracking play rates, watch time, view count, and interaction points to understand how your content is consumed.  

Audience Insights

Know who your audience is, understand their preferences regarding the devices or browsers they use to access your videos, and know their location.

Real-time Reporting

Real-time dashboards let you monitor video performance as viewers watch, enabling you to make timely adjustments if needed.

Interactivity

Interactivity is becoming increasingly important as organizations seek to engage their audiences more effectively. Interactive features can transform passive viewers into active participants, leading to higher engagement and retention rates. Important interactive features to consider include:  

Live Chat and Q&A

These features are especially useful for live events, webinars, and educational content, allowing viewers to participate and engage with the content in real time.  

Clickable Calls to Action (CTAs)

Embedded CTAs within videos can drive conversions, direct viewers to additional resources, or encourage social sharing.  

Integrations with Third-party Tools

Integration with video conferencing platforms, content management systems, tracking tools, etc., can enhance the interactivity and functionality of your video content and ensure interoperability.

Branding/White Labeling 

Maintaining consistent branding across all digital channels is crucial for building brand recognition and trust and making your brand stand out. When selecting a video sharing platform, consider options that allow for full customization and white labelling:  

Customizable Player

Customizing a video player with your brand's colors, logo, and design elements ensures that your videos align with your overall brand identity.

White-label Solutions

Whitelabelling allows you to present the platform as your own, with custom domains, branded interfaces, and no third-party branding. This is particularly important for businesses that want to maintain a professional and consistent image.  

Deployment Options

Different organizations have different needs when it comes to how their video sharing platform is deployed. Whether you're looking for ease of use, control, or flexibility, the right deployment option can make a significant difference:  

SaaS (Software as a Service)

Cloud-based SaaS platforms make deployment and scaling easy without requiring extensive IT resources. They are typically subscription-based, which can be more cost-effective for smaller businesses. Cloud-based platforms allow easy scaling as your audience grows.  

On-premises

For organizations that need complete control over their data and infrastructure, on-premises deployment allows you to host the platform on your own servers. This option provides the highest level of customization and security, but it also requires significant IT resources and maintenance.  

Hybrid Model

A hybrid approach combines the benefits of both SaaS and on-premises deployments, offering flexibility and control while leveraging the scalability of the cloud. This model is ideal for organizations with complex needs that require a tailored solution.

Compliance with Regulations

The platform should comply with global data protection standards like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations), CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), and other relevant regulations, ensuring that your data handling practices meet legal requirements.  

Consumer-Focused vs. Enterprise-Grade Video Sharing Platforms  

When considering video sharing platforms, two main categories exist that can serve your organization's needs. The difference lies in the feature offerings, use cases, and the challenges each category can present.

Consumer-focused platforms are easily available and accessible for everyone to use and share content through. These can include platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Facebook Live, etc. Companies often use these platforms to share content with the public, such as Apple sharing its yearly product launch through YouTube.

On the other hand, Enterprise-grade platforms specialize in video sharing for organizations and institutions. Platforms such as Kaltura, EnterpriseTube, and Brightcove offer their platforms to organizations to share content with global audiences, with more control over security, distribution, integration of interactivity features, and other customizations. However, this customization and security comes at a cost compared to consumer-focused platforms, which are available freely or for a low fee.

How are the Two Categories Different?

Take the example of a healthcare institute wanting to conduct specialized medical training for doctors, where the content will be sensitive and require secure protocols, such as RTMPS - which is a secure version of the real-time messaging protocol (RTMP). In addition, they would also need to monitor progress and keep the performance of each doctor. In such a case, although the basic video sharing purpose can be fulfilled by consumer-focused platforms, a specialized enterprise-grade video sharing platform would be needed to provide customizations such as progress tracking, security, etc.  

Another example could be a military department wanting to share tactical videos within the organization through a secure platform. Once again, a platform specializing in providing enterprise-level solutions would come into use, where the security features and compliances to be met would be a major requirement that consumer-focused platforms fail to fulfill.

However, if your company has to make a public announcement about a new product, a consumer-focused platform would serve the purpose. Yet the question that pops up is: Is the sharing secure? The answer turns out to be NO.

Multiple incidents have occurred in the past where such a platform was used, causing issues of unauthorized access. Take the example of Babylon Health, which accidentally shared patient consultation videos of one patient with another, posing a significant risk to patient's privacy. Similarly,

What is the Solution?  

The solution is driven by opting for a platform that caters to all your needs without compromising security and ensuring optimal viewer experience. Here is where enterprise-grade video sharing platforms are the most useful. Let us explore the leading options that can serve your purpose best based on the must-haves we discussed: 

EnterpriseTube

• Security: Features robust security measures such as strict authentication and authorization controls, tokenized URLs, AES encryption, DRM, and IP restrictions.  
• Scalability: Offers customization based on your need, where extra bandwidth and storage can be added on short notice if the need arises to cater to increasing demand.  
• Analytics: Provides comprehensive analytics for both live stream and VOD, with dashboards and user-level insights into media interaction.  
• Interactivity: Allows you to place quizzes, forms, live Q&As to make training more interactive, along with controls over passing criteria, and dashboards to display user-level results.  
• Branding/White-labelling: Extensive custom branding options, including white labeling, allow you to brand your player and the platform exactly like you want it.   
• Deployment Options: Offers flexible deployment models, including on-premises, SaaS, private cloud, and hybrid.  
• Compliances: Compliant with most of the regulations in place (HIPPA, GDPR, CCPA, CJIS, and FIPS, to name a few) 

Kaltura  

• Security: Video security includes encryption at rest, HTTPS streaming, tokenized CDN URLs, AES encryption, DRM, session access control, and forensic watermarking. Administrators can manage content access based on user ID, Active Directory, geolocation, IP, time, and session limits.  
• Scalability: Kaltura is designed to grow with you and fit the needs of any user, from small businesses to large enterprises.
• Analytics: Kaltura provides media analytics, including engagement data, top videos, and audience metrics like player impressions, play counts, completion rates, unique viewers, and viewing time. It also offers insights into top countries, operating systems, browsers, and contributors.  
• Interactivity: Kaltura allows you to create quizzes within videos, add CTAs that are customizable, and place Interactive Video Paths where viewers play an active role by choosing their preferred actions and learning paths.  
• Branding/White Labeling: Users have the option to either customize the media player using pre-made templates or create their own. They can edit player templates by applying custom CSS, adding features like a Share button, displaying captions, enabling full-screen mode, and more.  
• Deployment Options: Kaltura offers only SaaS-based deployment after a recent change in policy.  
• Compliance: No information was available with regard to Kaltura's compliances.

Brightcove  

• Security: Brightcove allows you to establish rules on content access and the number of devices viewers can use. You can limit concurrent streams, restrict link sharing, and take measures to prevent content copying and piracy.   
• Scalability: Brightcove supports seamless live streaming, regardless of the audience size, from a few dozen to millions of concurrent viewers.  
• Analytics: Brightcove provides basic live analytics, including metrics like total views, unique viewers, views by device, views by country, and concurrent viewers. Additionally, while Brightcove offers performance reports, it lacks detailed player-specific metrics like player load time, buffering, and error rates.  
• Interactivity: Incorporate live chat, polls, surveys, quizzes, Q&A sessions, branded product overlays, and calls to action into live streams.  
• Branding/White Labeling: Brightcove Gallery enables the creation of impactful and engaging video experiences without requiring custom development. It offers options for creating experiences such as portals, in-page displays, landing pages, and events.  
• Deployment Options: Brightcove only offers product deployment on its own cloud.  
• Compliances: Brightcove adheres to ISO 27001, CSA STAR Level 1, CSA, and SOX compliance standards and holds certifications from the Digital Production Partnership and Privacy Shield.

Dacast

• Security: With security in mind, it includes options like password protection, encryption, and location-based restrictions, and DRM controls.  
• Scalability:  Plans are offered to adapt to varying user demands and adjust bandwidth and storage accordingly.  
• Analytics: Discover key audience insights, such as watch duration, which devices they use, what content performs best, and where they are tuning in from.  
• Interactivity: With limited interactivity features, DaCast offers only graphic overlays.  
• Branding/White Labeling: Dacast's HTML5 player lets you easily customize the look to match your brand colors. However, it does not give complete freedom for rebranding.  
• Deployment: Dacast offers cloud-based deployment on its own servers.  
• Compliance: No information was available for DaCast's adherence to compliances.

Microsoft Stream  

• Security: Microsoft Stream includes features like SSO, restricted sharing, RBAC, DRM, IP and geo-restrictions, and other extensive security features
• Scalability: Stream can scale to handle large volumes of video content and high user demand without requiring on-premises hardware upgrades. 
• Analytics: Stream provides analytics on views, viewers, and viewer retention at specific times. For additional metrics, such as unique viewers, site visits, average time spent per user, etc., you need to access SharePoint.  
• Interactivity: MS Stream lets you integrate Microsoft Forms for quizzes and forms. This way, users get customization options like templates, colors, music, and images. You can control response permissions and include branching in your quizzes. Additionally, you can add annotations to your videos.  
• Branding/White Labeling: MS Stream on SharePoint lacks direct branding options. However, you can customize branding through SharePoint. SharePoint allows users to modify the navigation menu, site theme, header, footer, and logo and add sections for featured, recent, and trending videos.
• Deployment: Microsoft Stream is available as a SaaS solution with mobile apps for GCC and DoD users. MS Stream processes and delivers videos through cloud services, while SharePoint Server hosts files on-premises.
• Compliances: Stream meets compliance requirements for ISO 27001, ISO 27018, SOC 1/2, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), and the EU Model Clauses, among other standards. 

Having considered the leading video sharing platforms, you would want to make a choice that suits you best. The platform should provide not just a secure environment to share content, but also help enagage audience, keep track of activity, and allow customization.  

In addition to this, it should be future proof, and come from a brand that leverages AI and latest technology to introduce new features which help improve user experience and ease of use. 

Trends and Future Outlook 

As enterprises increasingly rely on video for everything from internal communications to customer engagement, the video sharing platform landscape is not just evolving—it's transforming at an unprecedented pace. To stay ahead in this digital era, you need more than just a platform that meets today's needs; you must choose one that can grow and adapt to the rapidly changing technology landscape.

Based on trends, AI-driven personalization and stricter data privacy regulations will redefine what enterprises need from video sharing platforms. Selecting a platform that addresses current challenges and aligns with emerging trends is essential for future-proofing your video strategy. 

Data Privacy Laws and Secure Video Sharing

As data privacy concerns escalate, future regulations will become more stringent, directly impacting the operation of video-sharing platforms. Emerging laws will demand greater transparency, stricter data handling practices, and enhanced user control. Platforms will need to offer granular consent options to ensure users have clear choices about how their data is used.

Additionally, data minimization and anonymization will become standard practices, requiring platforms to collect only essential information and protect user identities. Enterprises should choose video sharing solutions that not only meet current legal requirements but also adapt to future regulatory changes. This proactive approach will be essential for safeguarding user data and maintaining trust in an increasingly regulated digital environment. 

Summing It Up

Choosing the right video sharing platform is a strategic decision that can significantly impact your organization's communication, security, and growth. As video continues to dominate digital content, your platform should meet the highest standards for security, scalability, and interactivity. Whether you're managing sensitive internal communications or preparing for a high-stakes public launch, the platform you select should not only support your current needs but also adapt to your future requirements. 

EnterpriseTube stands out as a premium choice for organizations seeking an enterprise-grade solution. With its robust security features, scalable infrastructure, and extensive customization options, EnterpriseTube offers the reliability and control necessary for any high-demand video sharing scenario. From advanced analytics to comprehensive compliance with global regulations, it ensures your content is both secure and impactful. It also secures you for the long term, with its focus on continuous development and reliance on AI to make your video-sharing experience better! 

People Also Ask

What factors should I consider when choosing a video sharing platform for my business? 

When selecting a video sharing platform, consider factors such as security, scalability, integration capabilities, user accessibility, and support for various video formats. Assess the platform's ability to handle large volumes of content and its compatibility with your compliance requirements. 

How does the security of video sharing platforms impact my business? 

Security is a crucial aspect of video sharing platforms as it protects sensitive content from unauthorized access and potential breaches. Look for features like encryption, secure authentication, role-based access controls, and compliance with data protection regulations. A robust security framework ensures that your content remains confidential and secure. 

Can video sharing platforms integrate with other business tools and systems?

Yes, many video sharing platforms offer integration capabilities with other business tools. These include meeting platforms, content management systems, tracking apps, and collaboration tools. Integration enhances workflow efficiency by enabling seamless sharing and management of video content across different applications used within your organization. 

What are the benefits of scalability in a video sharing platform?

Scalability allows a video sharing platform to accommodate growing content and users without compromising performance. This is essential for businesses that anticipate expansion or require the platform to support a large and diverse audience. Scalable platforms ensure that your video sharing capabilities can grow with your organization's needs. 

How can I determine the best video sharing platform for my organization's specific needs? 

Evaluate your organization's requirements, such as content volume, user needs, security standards, and integration preferences. Conduct a thorough comparison of available platforms, considering their features, pricing, and user reviews. It may also be helpful to request demos or trials to test the platform's suitability for your business.