Playlists have a retro-FM-radio sound to them, but they’re really a powerful tool to spice up your video channel. We use them on our YouTube channel to draw attention to some types of videos we’ve made for multiple clients with great results.
If our visitor is considering creating, for example, a video for their association, they can readily find other videos we’ve created for associations by clicking the associations playlist. Create playlists around topics likely to interest your channel’s visitors. We know that a good deal of our visitors—especially those we most want to reach!—are considering creating a video for a particular purpose. A playlist of videos in that mold will help them imagine what will work for their organizations. Try to group videos that are related to one another but that aren’t boring together. Seek videos that take different approaches to a single issue.
The playlists on our channel only use videos we’ve made, because to do otherwise would be potentially confusing. But organizations that aren’t in the business of producing video can create playlists that include videos created by other like-minded organizations. Here are some benefits of playlists:
- Curating content for your playlist will bolster goodwill in your coalition partners and other allies.
- It’s a great way to increase your channel’s value to a viewer by featuring more videos that interest your audience.
- Playlists feature an indexing benefit. Playlists are indexed separately from individual videos, so they double your chances of a video being found through search if you have it in a playlist.
Online video platforms such as Vimeo and BrightCove also support playlists, and BrightCove offers something called smart playlists. You can create a smart playlist based around a tag you assign to your videos, and anytime you tag a new video with the same word or phrase, it will automatically appear on the playlist. Multiple tags can feed into a single playlist, too. You can assign the criteria for order of appearance and limit the number of videos—and the invisible hand of the programming will take care of that, too.
Playlists aren’t complicated and they’re the kind of touch that show a viewer that you’re taking care to use all the features your video channels have to offer. Organizations that take video seriously communicate their seriousness with small measures like this. If you’ve got great videos, they deserve great playlists.
If MiniMatters can help you use this tip or serve your other video needs, we’d love to talk with you at 301-339-0339 or via email at [email protected].