Recently YouTube (Google) changed their advertising policies, and it resulted in our customers having to view ads before watching our product videos.
We don't think it's reasonable that our customers should have to watch ads to see how to install our products. And for the record, we didn't receive revenue from these ads, we didn't approve them, and we have no control over what ads are being shown. We have no ability to opt out, at least not as a small business only running a few videos.
This is totally unacceptable, so we have moved all our videos to Vimeo. Here is our new Vimeo channel.
What is Vimeo? It's a video-sharing platform that was created by filmmakers, and it tends to feature more high quality artistic content. That's partly because Vimeo's revenue comes from paid creator plans, not ads. So it's a better match for a small company likes ours creating high-quality content.
As of this writing, we have about 20 videos in total. Most of them are product installation videos, such as showing how to install our leather handlebar wraps, but we also have a few general product introduction videos, how-to videos, and general videos about our small business.
One benefit we've discovered on Vimeo is that the video links also have much easier-to-remember URLs, such as: https://vimeo.com/walnutstudiolo/leather-care.
On our website, Etsy store, and print material, links to product videos have been updated on our product listings and installation guides, such as our stitch kits.
We are leaving our YouTube videos up and our channel active. But we plan to only post new videos on Vimeo going forward.
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