Using Vimeo To Host Videos For Your Virtual Summit

Planning and hosting a virtual summit can be a game-changer for your business. It not only brings fresh leads and more authority but also boosts your income through signature offer sales. One aspect of planning a successful event is choosing the right place to host videos for your virtual summit.

Using Vimeo To Host Videos For Virtual Summits

Let's be honest, every virtual summit depends on amazing speakers delivering their content in engaging video (and sometimes audion only) sessions, so getting this right regardless of whether it's your first or your 50th event, is key to making the event experience a positive one. 

For all the events we've hosted, we've utilized Vimeo, the dynamic video hosting platform (use my affiliate link for 25% off annual plans!) that allows videos and events to run smoothly and to your specifications! And while there is a fee for utilizing the features we know and love, we've found that locking down our content and being able to decide who gets access and where is a big enough deal to work this tool into our event budget.

In this blog post, we will explore how Vimeo, can elevate your virtual summit to new heights, making sure you can do the same with amazing features like robust privacy settings, and insightful analytics that can help you optimize your event and make decisions for how to move forward with the next one.

Let's get started!

Vimeo For Virtual Summits Success

Vimeo is a versatile video platform that allows creators to have the ultimate control over their content! And while many people utilize it for video creation, and hosting their content, The Summit Host uses it specifically for virtual summits!

By providing event hosts with a range of features to enhance their virtual summit experience, Vimeo has some amazing functionality from its customizable video players, to custom end screens, high-quality video playback, and of course url lockdown! Let's take a look at some of these amazing features, starting with our favorite!

URLs Lockdown for Enhanced Privacy

Privacy and the ability to restrict your content are paramount when hosting a virtual summit.

Vimeo offers robust privacy settings to ensure that your videos are not only accessed only by authorized individuals but also only embeddable on specific domains. Here's how you can lock down your content on Vimeo:

1. Domain-Level Privacy: With Vimeo, you can specify which domains are allowed to embed your videos. By restricting embedding to your event website or designated partners, you maintain control over who can access your valuable content.
2. Password Protection: Take an extra layer of security by assigning a password to your videos. This feature allows you to share exclusive content with registered participants, ensuring that only those with the password can view it.
3. Private Links: Vimeo enables you to generate private links for your event videos, granting access to specific individuals or groups. This feature is ideal for granting exclusive access to paid attendees or VIP guests.

High-Quality Video Playback:

Vimeo ensures that your videos are showcased in stunning high-definition quality, offering a seamless viewing experience for your audience. Forget the days of grainy videos you can hardly see (unless of course, you recorded it like that 👀) Vimeo's playback quality is amazing, which makes your virtual summit content shine! 

Free Video Captions

Step it up a notch for accessibility by providing captions for all of your videos! Vimeo provides auto-generated captions and subtitles in English, which is a great first step to making sure your event is accessible without blowing your budget on transcription services. 

Captions offer your attendees, who may be hard of hearing, or who choose to watch on mute, context and connection. And since your attendees can even customize the caption style to watch in whatever way works best for them, everyone gets the perfect viewing experience.

Customizable Player:

With Vimeo, you can customize your video player to match your brand's aesthetics... and you know we love to use our event branding everywhere and anywhere we can to help create a cohesive experience for our guests!

Branding your video players is a big deal in our book! It allows you to maintain a consistent visual identity throughout your virtual summit which in return flows into building that know-like-trust factor! So slap your event logo on there, change the colors or the player bar, delete any unnecessary tools from the sidebar, and make your video player perfect for each event or each video!

Easily Add Video Intros & Outros

Vimeo provides a free video editor tool, which we have come to really love for the ease and simplicity it provides!

Our old process looked like this: 

• Speaker uploads video to Google Drive
• We download it
• Import into iMovie and add bumpers to the front and back. 
• We upload it into Vimeo and link to the event website.

Where previously our team had to download each video and add bumpers to the beginning and end of each one we've now found a much easier way! We cut out that step entirely...

We can add the intro and outro bumper videos to the Vimeo creation studio and simply add them to each video after we import the videos from Google Drive! This is so much better because there is no downloading and uploading necessary for each video, which is great for saving your bandwidth.

Our new process looks like this: 

• Speaker uploads video to Goolge Drive
• We use Vimeo's built-in tool to pull it over directly from Google
• We add the bumpers inside Vimeo and link to the event website. 

Vimeo Analytics For Virtual Summit Hosts

Analyzing data is crucial to optimizing your virtual summit's performance.

Vimeo provides robust analytics that offer valuable insights into your audience's behavior and engagement. Here's how Vimeo's analytics can empower you and your summit:

1. Viewer Engagement Metrics: Vimeo's analytics provide you with comprehensive data on viewer engagement, including play rates, drop-off points, and average watch time. This information helps you understand which parts of your virtual summit resonated most with your audience.
2. Geographic Data: Discover where your viewers are located with Vimeo's geographic data. This information allows you to tailor your content and marketing efforts to specific regions or time zones, maximizing your reach for future runs of the event as well as your marketing in general!
3. Heatmaps and Clickthrough Rates: Vimeo's heatmaps and clickthrough rates show you precisely where viewers are engaging with your videos. This data helps you optimize your content, identify areas of interest, and strategically place calls-to-actions inside your content (hello all-access pass sales).

Using Vimeo To Host Videos For Your Virtual Summit

When it comes to hosting videos for your virtual summit, Vimeo offers an impressive array of features, privacy settings, and analytics that we love and utilize to the fullest!

By leveraging Vimeo's high-quality playback, customizable player, and auto-generated captions, you can deliver an exceptional viewing experience to your attendees. Additionally, with Vimeo's privacy settings, you can ensure your content remains secure and accessible only to authorized individuals.

So what are you waiting for...?

Embrace the power of Vimeo to take your virtual summit to new heights!