Protecting videos on your membership sites can be tricky.
In this article, I’m going to share some of my experiences with hosting videos on membership sites.
[Spoiler Alert] I’m all in using Amazon S3 and it’s easier than you think. I share how I have it set up below. Click here to skip and see how I use Amazon S3 for my membership site videos!
Benefits of Using Video on Membership Sites
Who doesn’t like video? Most of us know that video is one of the most engaging media types for online marketing. It’s one of the fastest growing post type on social media as its one of the highest forms of converting media.
Video is an investment that helps connect your brand / offer with your audience. It helps establish that video handshake and serves as one of the primary touchpoints. It’s one of the most recommended elements to include on a sales page or your landing page to help boost conversions.
But what about the videos inside the membership walls.
There are many options for hosting your membership videos. Some of those options include:
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- Wistia
- Amazon S3
Let’s Talk YouTube
YouTube is a great resource for video. One of the top ranking factors when considering YouTube is it’s a free resource.
It’s faily easy to use and when in doubt, there’s plenty of resources to overcome any related obstacle.
Embedding YouTube videos on your website is relatively simple and has shown to increas your page rank on the search results pages (since Google owns YouTube).
YouTube allows you to easily add videos supporting many formats, create video playlists, make simple video edits, add video thumbnails, optimize for video search, and so much more.
Most people use YouTube for video search to get maximum views. But YouTube also has a Unlisted option for videos that shouldn’t be found on search. This is probably the best option if you’re looking for a free resource to host your membership videos.
There are a few downsides to YouTube. There are many free and online resources to download YouTube content. No one wants their content swiped but then again – any online media can be swiped and is not ever 100% protected.
Vimeo – Created for Video
Vimeo is a video hosting tool created specifically for hosting videos.
It also comes with many additional features for creating or editing videos.
One of the added benefits with Vimeo is their video activity reports. You’re able to see how much of a video is watched on average or discover your most popular videos watched from start to finish.
Some of the great features with Vimeo include
- Video Player
- Screen Recorder
- Live Streaming
- Privacy
- Collaboration
- Distribution and Marketing
- Monetization
- Analytics
- Hosting and Management
A few features to note is the Vimeo app to reference your video performance at a moments glance and the ability to capture leads within the video.
Vimeo is an affordable resource starting at $7/mo. They offer a 30 day trial with limited features. It’s easy to use but also easy to reach those storage limits.
Wistia – Build and Grow with Videos
Wistia is another great video hosting platform. They market themselves as a growth tool for small businesses that helps you connect with your audience by video.
Wistia has quickly become one of the competing resources for YouTube and Vimeo.
Some of their top features include:
- Uploading videos and easily embed on your site
- Create captivating experiences formatted for your marketing platform
- Bring viewers to your website and easily capture email addresses
- Custom video player
- Interactive video tools
- Create multiple channels
- Reach and Retarget capabilities
- CRM integrations
Wistia has also recently launched their new podcasting feature (added benefit).
You can start with Wistia for free. However, you’ll likely have to upgrade your account with their Pro plan starting at $99/mo.
I’ve heard from many digital marketers that Amazon S3 is extremely affordable option for hosting website assets.
I gave the three alternative options some consideration. But after giving it more thought, I didn’t like YouTube’s lack of security, Vimeo’s trap to get you started for cheap but quickly requires an account upgrade, and Wistia was just too expensive to start.
I really didn’t know where to start. I had a WordPress Membership site using Wishlist Member and I had videos that I wanted to load quickly and be secure.
I’ve created an Amazon S3 account but it quickly gets overwhelming with buckets, permissions, and lots of other settings.
I’m happy to share I found an amazing WordPress plugin that is easy to use and setup.
S3 Media Maestro by FlyPlugins
S3 Media Maestro is an amazing WordPress plugin that easily integrates your WordPress site with Amazon S3. It does require some basic setup with Amazon S3 as expected but S3 Media Maestro provides very detailed instructions that are easy to follow (unlike Ikea).
Once the configuration steps are complete on Amazon S3, that’s it. Everything else from here on out can be handled in WordPress.
The plugin settings has a few tabs but really only two that matter.
The main settings screen let’s you integrate with your Amazon S3 account.
You can see that there is also a default S3 bucket for your videos. You can change this default bucket if needed. You can also easily add new buckets as you can below.
Once you have the integration complete with Amazon S3, it’s easy to upload new media directly to your Amazon S3 buckets all from within your WordPress website.
The only other settings tab to visit within the S3 Media Maestro plugin is the Video Player tab. This tab let’s you set some default settings for the video player that opens to play your media.
After your video media has been uploaded, it’s simply using the shortcode provided by S3 Media Maestro to display the video to your members.
Here’s an example of the short code: [s3mm type=”video” s3bucket=”miseason01″ files=”Miami-Ink-S01-E01-five-friends.mp4″ /]
As you can see, it’s very simple and this makes adding video to your membership website much easier than dealing with the Amazon S3 dashboard.
I highly recommend using S3 Media Maestro for your membership website. Amazon S3 is very affordable. My bill last month was $1.46.
The S3 Media Maestro is $107 for two sites at the time of this post (Dec 2020). Like most plugins, it’s costs a little more upfront but pays off in the long term (5 months of Vimeo’s Pro plan).
