Wistia Channels
Share a series of episodes with one embed code.
Channels
Channels are a great way to customize and share a series of video and audio episodes, using just one embed code. Any Channel in your Wistia account will have a Channel tag on your All Content page. You can also filter your All Content page to only view your Channels.
When you set up a Channel, you can do a number of neat things. You can choose when to publish your episodes and make them available for your audience, create Sections to organize your episodes in a clean way, and you can even collect subscribers to notify them about new content!
If you’ve already embedded a Channel you created, you can still update the content, even after you’ve embedded it! Whether removing episodes or updating customizations, if your Channel is in the wild and you update it, the Channel will update as well. Want to turn your Channel into a podcast? You can enable podcasting for your Channel, and submit it to popular directories like Apple, Spotify, and Google! Pretty cool, right? We think so. Now, let’s get down to business.
Creating a Channel
To create a Channel, select Create from your All Content page. Then, select Create a Channel.
If you’d like to enable podcasting for your Channel, check the box under Is this a podcast? and you can either start your podcast from scratch, or import an existing podcast from an RSS Feed URL. For everything you need to know about podcasting in Wistia, check out our Podcast section, here!
Episodes
Adding Episodes
There are two ways to add content to your Channel. On your Channel’s page, you can either click Add, or select the carrot next to Add to move or copy existing content in your Wistia account.
Selecting Add will bring you to a brand new episode page where you can upload your content. You can also choose to copy existing content on this page.
If you select Move or Copy Existing, you’ll be able to select content from your Wistia account to either move or copy into your Channel. If you’d like, you can also select multiple files to add at once.
On your episode pages, you’ll be able to add the title, a summary, and notes if you’d like. If you’ve enabled podcasting, there will be a Podcast Details section here as well, where you can select the Episode Type and Episode Number.
If you have entered information for an episode’s summary or notes, or you’ve ordered transcripts, these tabs will appear on your episode’s popover in your Channel. This will allow your viewer to quickly navigate to view different information about your episode.
If you have enabled podcasting and syndicated your podcast to Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts, links to these platforms and your podcast there will appear on the episode’s popover in the Channel as well.
For more information on adding episodes to your Channel, check out this page on Adding and Publishing Episodes.
Publishing Episodes
When you add new content to your Channel, by default, it will be unpublished, and in draft mode. When you’re ready to publish it, you can either publish immediately, or in the future! You can also choose whether you would like to have new episodes be included in your podcast, or excluded.
Replacing Episodes
Did you decide to tweak the introduction of your episode? Maybe you added a whole new section, or even updated most of the content. In any case, replacing an episode will allow you to update the file without having to update the embed code at all.
To replace an episode, click the symbol above the upper righthand corner of your file.
You can then either choose to “Overwrite the original, build on top of its stats” or “Swap out video content, start new stats from scratch.”
Overwriting is a popular choice if you’ve made small tweaks to your episode. For larger edits, or entirely new content, swapping tends to be the go-to here. That said, when it comes down to it, it’s up to you and you should choose whatever works best for your use case! Once the replacement has completed uploading, your Channel, as well as all embedded instances, will reflect the updated version.
Reordering Episodes
To reorder your channel episodes drag and drop them into your preferred order. Episodes at the top of their section will display first on your channel.
Channel Details
The Channel Details tab is where you can add your Title, Description, and the URL of your Channel’s embedded location. You can enable automatic pubishing here as well. With this enabled, all new episodes will publish to your Channel as soon as they are uploaded.
When you’ve finished updating your Channel details, click Submit Changes to save. Your Channel’s title and description will appear on your Channel, as well as podcasting apps (if you distribute your Channel as a podcast).
Customizing Your Channel
On your Episodes page, select Edit/Preview Channel, and you’ll be taken to a Channel building page where you can customize and share!
Channel Appearance
The Channel Appearance section of the Edit menu is where you can customize the background color, button and player colors, as well as font.
Colors
This is where you’ll update the player color for your entire Channel. Select any color you’d like, or optionally check the box to only see high-contrast colors, and make your Channel more accessible.
Font
Select your Channel’s font. Channels allow you to choose from 25 fonts to display. After finding the perfect font, you can customize the size of it, which will affect your Channel title, Channel description, and episode names.
Header
The header of your Channel contains the logo, title, and description, as well as their alignment. It is also the spot where your background is most prominent, and where visitors can click to listen to your Channel’s trailer (if you’ve added one). You also have the option to turn the header off if you want to share your Channel without one.
Logo, Title and Description
The title will reflect what you’ve added in the title section of your Channel Details page, and serves as another spot to edit it! Right beneath the title, you can also edit the description to give a brief overview of what your Channel is about.
Customize your Channel further by adding a logo. Once a logo is uploaded, you’ll have the option to customize its size, and can choose to display your logo in place of the title.
Alignment
You can adjust the alignment of your Channel title and description to be either Left aligned or Centered.
If you think setting left aligned will move your text and logo to the left of the page, then you’re exactly right! This will give your Channel the look and feel for more of a “branded-content” design.
Centered will have your text and logo display centered over the Channel background. This will help keep your information displayed prominently if you want your viewers focused on reading your description.
Background
You can upload a new image or use a video as the background. If you decide to use a video, then the video can come from any project or Channel within your Wistia account!
Trailer
You can select any video within your Wistia account to display as the trailer for your Channel, even if that video is not part of the specific Channel that you’re customizing.
When you have a trailer selected, this will change your “Play” button to “Play Trailer.”
Once you select a trailer, you can choose to remove it entirely and then select another one. Or, you can just remove it - a Channel is not required to have a trailer.
Featured
You can use the Featured section of your Channel to showcase a trailer, new episode, or your most popular content.
Once Featured is turned on, you can select a media to showcase between the header and body of your Channel. Choose Switch featured media to select an episode from your Channel to feature.
Give your Featured section a custom title, headline, and description, or just use the media title!
If you choose an episode to highlight in the Featured section, that episode will still appear in your Channel. Featuring a video or podcast episode will not affect your RSS feed.
Body
The body of your Channel contains your content, and this is where you can choose how to organize it. You can also select to display transcripts for your episodes.
Layout
You can choose between three different layout options for your Channel.
- Carousel
- Grid
- List
Sections created in your Channel will be reflected in all Layout styles.
Sections and Layout
You can create sections on your episodes page, which will carry directly over to reflect in your Channel, and will display according to the layout you have chosen.
With Carousel, episodes will appear in a single row for each section, and you can scroll through each row to see all of them.
With Grid, as you scroll down through the Channel, you’ll see all of your episodes laid out in a grid format for each section.
With List, episodes will be listed vertically and display your thumbnail or episode art as well as the episode summary, this is a great option for podcasts!
Transcripts
With this option enabled, when a visitor clicks into an episode that you’ve ordered or uploaded a transcript for, we’ll display the transcript below.
Add-Ons
The Add-Ons sections of your Channel’s edit menu is where you can enable the option to collect Email Subscribers.
Email Subscribers
You can enable the Email Subscribers feature so that your viewers can fill out a form (much like our Turnstiles) to receive email updates when you add new content to your Channel.
To add a subscribe form to a Channel, select the “Show Subscribe button” option here.
Once this option has been selected, a “Subscribe for updates” button will appear on your Channel. The following options can be configured for the form.
- Ask for First and Last Name or just ask for email address
- Customize upper or lower text on the form
- Select a list to sync Subscribers to if you have an email marketing or marketing automation integration connected
Want to find additional information on the Email Subscribers functionality? Head over to our Subscribers Page!
Analyze
When you’re not on the Edit/Preview page for your Channel, you’ll notice a number of other options in Wistia. One of these is Analyze.
On your Channel’s Analyze page, you can see a ton of super cool stats! This includes Total Plays, Total Time Played, and Top Episodes. If you’ve enabled podcasting and syndicated your RSS Feed URL to directories, you’ll also be able to see Plays on Wistia, Plays on Other Platforms, Listening Platforms, Time on Wistia, Time on Other Platforms. Phew, that’s a lot! Pretty sweet, right? You can even adjust your Channel stats to view trends for the last 7 days, 28 days, or a custom range.
You can export your Channel’s analytics using the “Export as CSV” button on the top right of your Analyze page. The export will include stats from the date range you have selected in the date picker. We’ll email you a link to download a CSV file with your Channel’s stats.
For more in-depth information on your Channel’s stats, head on over to our Channel Stats Overview page.
Subscribers
So you’ve enabled the subscribe form on your Channel and you’ve been building your audience with new subscribers! Head over to your Subscribers page, where you’ll be able to see the Name (if you decided to collect names), Email, and the date they subscribed on.
To learn more about Channel subscribers, head over here!
Notify
On your episode pages, you’ll see an option there called Notify. This is how you can keep your subscribers in the loop about your fresh, new content! Your email notifications can be configured for when you publish each individual episode in your Channel.
You can customize the subject line, preview text, the button link to your episode, as well a number of other details! In order to set up your email notification, you’ll need to be sure that your Account Owner has configured the Email Settings in your account. Head on over to our page on Channel Subscribers and Notifications for everything you’ll need.
Promote
If you have Reach & Retarget for Facebook or Google enabled in your account and you’d like to further promote your episodes to your audience based on their watch behavior, head on over to the Promote tab in your Channel. This will take you right to the Audience tab. Reach & Retarget allows you to enable pre-built audiences to retarget based on engagement with your content.
If you haven’t connected Facebook or Google yet, head to the Integrations tab there to configure them.
For more detailed instructions on setting up and using Reach & Retarget, check out our pages on Facebook or Google.
Podcast Settings
If you’d like to enable podcasting for your Channel, or you’ve already done so, your Podcast Settings option is where you’ll find your Checklist, Feed Details, and Distribute pages.
The Checklist walks you through all the steps you’ll need to take before distributing your podcast to directories!
The Feed Details page has a number of important details for you to fill in.
The Distribute tab is where you’ll find your podcast’s RSS Feed URL, which is what you’ll need to submit your podcast to directories.
When it comes to enabling and sharing your podcast, there’s a lot of crucial information, as well as steps you’ll need to take. Our Help Center Podcast section has everything you’ll need!
Permissions
The Account Owner, as well as all Managers in an account, have access to create a Channel, update its details, customize, and enable podcasting. Basically, they have access to all of the working Channel parts!
If you’d like to add additional users to a specific Channel, head over to your Channel’s Permissions page, and click Add User. You can either add an existing Wistia user to your Channel, or create and add a new one. You’ll be able to decide if you’d like to give a user just viewing permissions, or full access to edit the Channel, and you can choose to include a personalized message as well.
You can view any user’s page by clicking View User.
Here, you’ll be able to see when they were added to your account, if they’ve activated their login, and a number of other details about their permission status. You can add them to projects in your account as well.
To remove a user from your Channel, click the X next to View User, confirm your decision, and you’ll be all set!
For more information about permissions and users in Wistia, head over to our Permissions page or visit Sharing Media Privately to specifically learn more about private sharing with projects.
More Options
This is where you will be able to export everything in your Channel, or delete your Channel.
Export All Media and Assets
Exporting all of the content in your Channel will create a ZIP archive.
Delete Channel
Deleting your Channel will remove all of your episodes, as well as Channel stats. If you’ve enabled podcasting, this will also remove your podcast from any directories that you’ve distributed it to.
Once you click Delete Channel, confirm your decision in the popup.
Need a hand? Reach out to our Support Team - we’re here to help!