If you’ve worked in film and video for any amount of time, you might have some preconceived notions about the age-old “Vimeo vs. YouTube” debate.
On one hand, you have a video hosting platform that is built to empower filmmakers with HD video and plenty of professional tools and communities. On the other hand, you have an endless sea of aspiring vloggers, streamers, and content creators opening boxes as a form of ASMR therapy.
Both are great platforms in their own rights, but looking specifically at Vimeo, we have news of another new, cool feature that might help out those of us who work in the specific niche of film and video production.
Vimeo’s New "Vimeo Experts" Program
Just unveiled, this new Vimeo Experts program looks to be a helpful new offering from Vimeo aimed at helping users (whether they be individual filmmakers or small production companies or businesses) connect with a community, level up some professional skills, and earn rewards through a new referral program.
Similar to how Vimeo overhauled its profile experience with a new marketplace for finding new clients and work, this appears to be another step by Vimeo to double down on becoming a one-stop-shop for film and video professionals.
What Does the Experts Program Offer?
While just launched, this Vimeo Experts program already has some nifty courses and features which are available to anyone with any sort of paid Vimeo account. The crux of Vimeo Experts is focused on these three elements for both individuals and organizations:
- Certification and Training
- Community and Networking
- Professional Growth
Let’s look at each section below.
The first principle function of this new Vimeo Experts program aims to offer users several in-depth training courses with different certifications you can unlock. For example, one of the first ones is Video Marketing 101, which covers real-world strategies for helping your clients succeed with their videos online.
Once you go through these Vimeo Expert training courses you’ll be able to unlock “Expert” badges which will be viewable to the public on your Vimeo profile, as well as offer some additional promotional benefits in the “Vimeo for Hire” marketplace.
From there, Vimeo Experts is also designed to be a way for Vimeo users to better connect and build a community with one another. With the new program, Vimeo Expert users will have access to “all things Vimeo” through the personalized support of a Vimeo Experts Partner success team.
This will also unlock the ability to connect virtually with other creative professionals virtually with a community moderated Slack server as well as join in on some other upcoming virtual events and discussions. (Vimeo plans to offer regional in-person meetings as well, as soon as COVID restrictions and concerns lessen.)
Finally, the kicker for any film or video professionals or companies that already use Vimeo for a great deal of their client work—Vimeo is also rolling out a significant increase to their referral reward payment program for certified Vimeo Experts.
In the past, Vimeo had offered up to $50 payments for referring any plans to friends or businesses. However, with this new Vimeo Experts endeavor, users can get payments up to $200 for Premium self-service account referrals and over $1,000 for Vimeo Enterprise and OTT referrals.
From there, you can also unlock additional rewards such as percentage-based referral payouts for Enterprise and OTT referrals. High-volume Experts can go on to become full Vimeo resellers through a Vimeo Channel Partner program.
How to Join
If any (or all) of this sounds interesting to any current or prospective Vimeo users here in this film and video space, then you can check out Vimeo Experts here. If you’re already on Vimeo, this program is available for anyone with any sort of Vimeo account (just not the free, Basic account, unfortunately).
To learn even more, you can read up all about the program, the communities, and the referral rewards on the Vimeo Experts landing page.
Or, you know, you can go back to unboxing videos on YouTube. To each their own!
