Let's face it: It's all about branding.
Yes, YouTube is the king, and the largest billboard on the most frequent lanes of the Internet and is tightly integrated with the Google search engine. All big pluses, but what's the minus side?
It's FREE! Yep. In every other "free" model in our lives, be it TV, radio or "free" stuff, it's\paid for with advertising. we all know and accept that.
When you employ your own website for your video streaming (live and in a video on demand (VOD) format), you gain several things:
1) Control of presentation of the content. You say what's there and what's not. If a commenter dislikes or disapproves, you are the one who then arbitrates if the material continues to be present for viewing. If you are on a multi-channel network (MCN) such as YouTube or Vimeo, your videos are displayed at the discretion of the site owner's rules, which may cause them to remove your video work based on their decision or input from viewers, which may actually be your competion, looking to take you out.
2) It's your choice to advertise, or not, on top of your content (the YouTube method) or insertion of advertizing video/graphics in the full frame (like UStream/Live Stream, and also the lead in on YouTube videos in many cases). If you decide to place informational content over a portion of the frame, you choose. If you want to insert a video commercial (not a bad idea when you get good viewership that allows you to charge for the privilege!), you select the placement and content!
3) The ability to append to the video frame either a summary, or the full script of the audio in the video.
Think of your website as the hub of all your content and share outwards from there. In that condition, you control the message, and the access to your material, and what additional messaging (such as advertizing) that you see fit.
From that position, you can then share the link to your post/page to FaceBook and Linked in pages easily. As far as YouTube goes, I'd recommend (strongly) that you extract some small pieces of the videos on your site that tease people about your product or service, attach a lead in/Out branding piece and plae that on YouTube, as the biggest and most traveled "billboard" on the net. This is how you grow your brand and not the brand of the multi-channel networks.
Take Away: It's best when you control the placement and access to your own intellectual property, which allows you to promote your branding!
