8 Simple Ways to Make Your Wistia Channel Shine

If you’ve decided that Wistia Channels is the best place to showcase your videos or audio content on your site, then you’ll be pleased to know you’re already on the right track for building an engaging brand. When it comes to setting up your Channel for success, all it takes is a little attention to detail on your part to truly make your content shine in the eyes of your viewers and listeners.

In this post, we’ll cover exactly how you can make a beautiful, brag-worthy Wistia Channel for your business. From name-picking and color-matching to thumbnail creation and embedding, there are plenty of small tweaks you can make to your Channel to improve the overall presentation of your content. Keep reading to learn how you can leave your audience impressed and coming back for more!

1. Start by choosing the best name for your Channel

Whether you’re in the pre-production stages of your business’s first branded series or you’re grouping together related content under one roof, choosing a name for your Channel is a major decision. The name you pick may ultimately influence the number of clicks, views, and engagement you receive.

“The name you pick may ultimately influence the number of clicks, views, and engagement you receive.”

When it comes to landing on the perfect name for your Channel, there are three key factors you should consider: branding, discoverability, and shareability.

Here’s how we break these three factors down:

• Branding — the “identity” factor: The name you pick will be very public, so it needs to accurately reflect your content and your brand.
• Discoverability — the “index” factor: The Channel name comes up in search, so you want people searching for a relevant topic to find your content fast — and first.
• Shareability — the “click” factor: Your audience consumes a lot of stuff online. A catchy name for your Channel will make it easy for people to remember. That means when it comes time to share your videos or podcast, they’ll be able to pull up your Channel and link to it instantly.

Considering these factors as you set up your Wistia Channel will help you grow your audience and brand over time.

2. Customize fonts, colors, thumbnails, and headers

As we mentioned before, branding is a super important factor for naming, but it also plays a big role in how your business and your content are visually perceived. You want to leave a positive first impression, right?

Luckily, with Wistia Channels you have the ability to choose a font and color scheme that aligns with your company’s existing brand, set thumbnails to match, and even upload an eye-catching header.

To customize the look of your Channel to align with your brand:

• Select “Edit” and “Banner” to add a video header (which will loop silently at the top of your Channel) or upload a static banner image
• Click “Text” to add a project title and description, and change the font to match your site. While you’re there, switch up the size to whatever you fancy as well!
• Click "Color” and use the picker to change the overall color scheme.

You can also choose between Light or Dark Mode for your Wistia Channel depending on the look and feel of your brand (and the content you have displayed). When you’re viewing a project, simply go to Edit > Color > Background to modify this setting. It’s as easy as flipping a switch!

For your banner, instead of a static image, you have the option to throw in a looping video background as we mentioned before. Want to see this feature in action? Check out how Nextiny, an inbound marketing and sales agency, uses a snazzy looping video to showcase their content and intrigue visitors on their site.

3. Choose your layout

You may want to consider mixing up the layout of your Channel as well depending on what content you’re showcasing. Choose between a Carousel, Grid, or List View format by clicking on Layout.

The Carousel format is great if you have a large number of videos in each section of your Channel and want viewers to be able to scroll through easily.

The Grid format, on the other hand, shows all thumbnails in a section in, well, a grid — no scrolling necessary. We recommend using this when you don’t have a ton of videos but want to clearly and prominently feature them.

Lastly, the List View is great for consolidating your content, giving you more of a playlist vibe you might be looking for. Take a look at the List View we use to display our podcast, A Better Workplace.

4. Highlight select content to get your audience’s attention

One way to engage visitors right away when they land on your Channel is by using the featured content section to highlight a specific video or podcast episode. This is a great way to ensure you’re putting your best foot forward to make the best impression on your audience.

Another way to give your visitors a sneek peek of your content is by featuring a trailer on your Channel. If you have a video series, pick any media to play as a trailer to give your audience a taste for what they can expect from watching the rest of your show.

5. Share and embed your Channel in discoverable locations

With Wistia Channels, you have the power to choose whether to embed your Channel as an Inline embed (meaning your audience will see your entire Channel “inline” with the rest of your content) or as a Popover (meaning your audience will click on a single image or video to launch your Channel full-screen). Plus, any updates you make to your Project will automatically be reflected on your Channel — no need to replace the embed!

While it’s super simple to add all your content to your site with just one embed, deciding where to place your Channel will impact who discovers and engages with your content. We recommend making the call based on the type of content you’re presenting to your audience.

“While it’s super simple to add all your content to your site with just one embed, deciding where to place your Channel will impact who discovers and engages with your content.”

For example, if your Channel consists of informational or educational videos, putting it on your homepage might not make sense to someone visiting for the first time. On the other hand, if you have a blog, a Channel like this may fit well amongst your other educational content. Those who frequent your blog looking to learn from your expertise will easily discover your shiny, new collection of videos and be over the moon!

You can also easily share your professional-looking Channel across your business' social media platforms with a public URL. Get more personal and direct with your communication efforts by popping the link to your Wistia Channel right in an email or newsletter to get more eyes on your content.

When you’re ready to share your Channel:

• Select “Share” from the menu options
• Select whether to share your Channel via “Embed” or “Public URL”
• If embedding: Select your “Embed Type,” whether “Inline” or “Popover”
  • Choose a “Responsive” or “Fixed size"
• If sharing the public URL: Just hit “Copy” and paste the link wherever your heart desires!

6. Use Email Collectors to capture contacts

Once you’ve got some action on your Wistia Channel, don’t miss out on the opportunity to capture the contact information of the folks interested in consuming your content. While you’re customizing your Channel, you also have the option to add an Email Collector — not just any old Email Collector, but one that comes in a few flavors. Aside from requiring viewers to enter their email in order to view your content, we have two Email Collector options you can start experimenting with today. The first option is called “Overlay on hover." Here’s an example from Zaius to showcase what this looks like in reality:

In this scenario, an email collection form will overlay when someone hovers over your content with their mouse. Your video will keep playing while displaying several fields, including a place for folks to enter their names as well as text fields you can customize, depending on the Call to Action that makes the most sense in the given context — something like, “Enter your email address to view this video."

The second option is “Conditional," which means each video will maintain the email collecting pre-sets you’ve already set up in your Wistia account when the content is embedded on your Channel.

Using Email Collectors is a sure-fire way to get the most out of your Wistia Channel. You can bet the people who enter their information are interested in the value you offer and will be more likely to check out future content you create. Plus, it gives you the opportunity to communicate with them more often and let them know when you’ve got a new video for them to watch!

7. Grow subscribers for your Channel

If you’re creating a branded show for your business, Wistia can also help you quickly and easily build an audience with our Subscribers feature. Whether you’re using a Channel to host your video or audio content, you can let people subscribe to get more updates about your content by capturing their email addresses from your Channel. Then you can notify your subscriber list every time a new episode is published.

With Wistia Channels Subscribers, you own all of your Channel subscriber data, which is super important when it comes to owning your audience. You can also take advantage of our integrations and sync with your marketing automation platform to get audience insights. Using your owned data, you can engage with your audience by serving them relevant and valuable content that could nurture them into prospects and customers.

8. Keep folks engaged with resumable video

Last but not least, our resumable video makes it easy for viewers to pick up right where they left off watching your content.

If you’re using Channels to showcase your videos, you’ll see a “Resume” button that acts as a shortcut to bring you right back into the last video you watched. The player will remember your volume, mute, and playback speed settings across videos.

We think this really provides that Netflix viewing experience that’ll keep folks engaged with your content even if they drift off to another destination on the web and return after!

Show off your polished Wistia Channel

A Wistia Channel is only as great as the sum of its parts — names, colors, fonts, banners, email collectors and more all add up to create a beautiful video or podcast collection you’re proud to share. Start engaging your audience with the content you’ve worked so hard to create and build stronger brand affinity in the long-run. We’d love to see your next Channel out in the wild, so be sure to throw a link to it in the comments below!