Did you know that you can share one video in lots of different places? The choices for sharing videos can be a bit much, so we’ve put together a list of the top ten sites to share your videos online, along with simple steps for posting on each one. But before we dive into that, make sure to do the following with your video:

Keep the full-length version as it is, and make a 15-second version that showcases your best ideas and triggers an emotional reaction from the viewer. Understood? Awesome. Now do the same, but shorten it to just 6 seconds. You should now have three versions of your video prepared to share online.

1. Your Website
Why is this seemingly obvious choice in first place? Because you want to establish authority for your content prior to publishing it elsewhere. If you put it on your website first you will be more likely to help, rather than hurt, your SEO efforts – especially if you follow our tips for each subsequent platform.

To publish a video to your website, select a video hosting provider that suits your needs. Look at the analytics, security, sharing, and customer support available for each platform you evaluate. For very good reasons, you may not want to go to Youtube, even though they are known for providing free video hosting, and if you are thinking of self-hosting your videos, consider that you might be giving up analytics, security features, and a lot of time you could spend elsewhere.

Once you have picked a video hosting provider, upload your video, and copy and paste the embed code to the HTML code on your website. It is as easy as that, although you might want to feature it on your homepage or mention it in a blog post to help your existing website traffic notice this new content on your site.

2. Twitter
Twitter is great for promoting a video because new content can be shared very broadly very quickly if it catches on. If possible, get the page you are publishing it on approved for Twitter Player Cards prior to tweeting it. This will enable you to publish the video directly in a tweet, so it will show up and play in your followers’ feeds.

Can’t get that done in a timely fashion? Just tweet links to your videos anyway, and make sure to use relevant hashtags to reach the right audience. You might also want to tweet it at certain brands or followers if they would find it interesting and are likely to retweet.

3. Reddit
Reddit is a social news and entertainment site that is organized by topic into subreddits, which are essentially granular discussion forums. You will surely find several that make sense for the topic your video addresses.

The ideal way to post content to Reddit is to be an active community member, and to participate in different subreddits that are posted to frequently. Get a feel for the tone and general manner in which people in your target subreddits interact, then post your video along with some text to give context to why you are doing so. Definitely be wary of posting overtly promotional materials as these tend to do less well than authentic, informational, or hilarious posts. The Reddit community is not known for being gentle, so proceed with caution and monitor your post.

4. Pinterest
Pinterest is not just for photos anymore! Video might be Pinterest’s most underutilized feature, however, your pins will stand out even more because of this fact. Pins of videos have a subtle play symbol in the bottom lefthand corner of the poster frame image that is displayed on your board or feed.

Intersperse videos with your regular pins to existing boards, especially those with a large following, or create different boards for each type of video you produce, such as testimonials, tutorials, etc. To encourage sharing, add a Pinterest widget to your site so your viewers can easily pin your videos to their own Pinterest boards.

5. Google+
Google+ has been growing exponentially. Whether you feel this growth has been strategically forced by Google, driven by the mass exodus of teenagers from Facebook, or simply imaginary is a moot point here.

Similar to Facebook and Twitter, you can use handles and hashtags to tag relevant Google+ members and topics, widening your reach. Spend time finding relevant Google+ groups to join to help build your brand’s reputation. This will also help you connect with people who will actively share your content. Although publishing straight from Youtube is easy with Google+, you can still promote videos that are not on that platform in the same manner.

6. LinkedIn
The largest social network for professionals just made a bold move to become more content-rich, and somewhat more quietly, dramatically enhanced the company profile pages. Take advantage of that with video, especially if you are targeting a B2B audience.

Posting to LinkedIn is relatively easy, but there are a couple things to consider. You cannot use hashtags (LinkedIn briefly supported them, then stopped), and the best place for your video, depending on its content, might not be the newsfeed. The lack of hashtags means you need more connections and Groups to obtain a farther reach. Consider publishing it to your company page instead of, or in addition to, a newsfeed update.

7. Instagram
Recently, Instagram added support for 15 second videos on their platform. Some major brands have already gotten really creative with it!

This is where that 15 second video you created should go – use AirDrop or a similar file sharing app to get it onto your phone for uploading to Instagram. Use hashtags to connect your video to a broader audience, and be sure to include a link in the description that points back to your full-length video.

8. Facebook
Since adding support for autoplaying videos in the newsfeed, Facebook is a great choice for sharing videos. Use hashtags to your advantage here as well, and be sure to link back to the original content on your site. Take a look at your page insights and try to post at a time when the majority of your fans are likely to be online.

To simplify your life, you could cross-share your Instagram post to Facebook, since a shorter form video might do better than the full-length version on Facebook anyway. If you choose to do this and tagged a lot of Instagram followers in your original post, you might want to go back and clean them up from your Facebook post since the tags might not work.

9. Email
Email is the trusty rusty mechanism for getting content to people who know your brand and are interested in it. Even better, video has been proven to improve key email marketing stats like click-through rates.

Since not all email clients support video playback in the inbox, the best way to ensure all your subscribers will have an optimal experience is to take a screenshot of the video with a play button, and post it in the newsletter with a link back to the video landing page. This will not only get a lot of people onto your site, but will make sure that everyone who wants to see the video can.

10. Vine
Vine launched in June 2012, and it seems as though it is here to stay. Sure, plenty of people predicted its demise after Instagram launched 15 second videos, and for a lot of companies, it might not be the most obvious choice for sharing videos due to the extremely truncated time limitation. Still, this is where that 6 second video you made should go, and there is a lot you can do to reach new audiences on this platform. Hashtags work on Vine, and you might be surprised at how much you can pack into 6 seconds. For instance, these two companies are surprisingly creative with their Vine posts.

Do you regularly share videos on any of these platforms? Where have you seen the best return? Share with us here in the comments, on Facebook, and on Twitter!