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What’s better than having someone watch one of your YouTube videos?
Why, having them watch even more of your videos, of course! Ideally, they should watch as many of your videos as possible, right?
Well, to turn a single video view into a binge-watch of your channel, you need to get into the YouTube playlists game.
Playlists should be one of your go-to tools for growing your YouTube page. Playlists let you organize your videos in meaningful ways and help your audience find videos they’re interested in.
Many content creators and small businesses are already using YouTube playlists in one form or another. But there are some tips and best practices to using playlists that can make a real difference in how your channel performs.
To find out how to use YouTube playlists to get more views, increase your watch time, and grow your audience, keep reading!
Toosa Tip: Toosa’s Social Search Engine works best when your videos are organized in playlists. Find out more about Toosa’s Social Search Engine here!
1. How to Create and Edit a YouTube Playlist
First, let’s start with the basics. Luckily for all the newbies out there, YouTube makes it easy to add and adjust playlists on your channel.
Creating a Playlist
To make a new playlist, click your profile photo on the YouTube homepage, select My Channel, select Customize Channel, and then click on the Playlists tab. Click the New Playlist button, type in a title for your playlist (more on titles below), and then click Create. Voila!
Adding Videos to Your Playlist
After you’ve created and named your playlist, it will appear on your list of playlists in the Playlists tab. Click on your playlist’s thumbnail image or on the Edit icon. Then click Add Videos.
On the Add Video to Playlist page, go to the Your YouTube Videos tab and choose the videos you want to add to your playlist. You can add a video from search, from the URL, or selecting from your library. When you’ve got them all, click on Add Videos.
You can also add videos to playlists from the video’s individual page by clicking the Show more icon and then the Add to playlist button, which will let you add the video to one of your existing playlists.
Once you’re at the point of creating a steady stream of videos, there’s also a setting that can tell YouTube to automatically add new videos to certain playlists. From your Playlists window, click on Playlist Settings and then on Auto Add. Enter the rules that you want and select whether YouTube should add a video to the playlist based on a word in the title, tag, or description.
A note on privacy: While you can set the privacy of a playlist to unlisted or private, a playlist must be public for it to show up on your channel, on your subscriber’s feeds, and in search results.
Reordering Videos in Your Playlist
From the Playlists tab, click on the Edit icon to open the playlist. On the playlist screen that displays all your videos, hover your mouse over a video until you see the grey vertical bar near the video’s thumbnail. Then just drag and drop to get your videos in the right order. (Wondering what the best order is for your playlists? See the How to Optimize Your Playlists section below.)
Designating a Playlist as an Official Series
One of the best ways to link your related videos together is through a Series Playlist. By designating a playlist as a Series Playlist, you mark your playlist as an official set of videos that your audience should view together. Think about it like episodes in a TV series, for example.
According to YouTube, adding videos to a series playlist makes YouTube more likely to feature and recommend other videos in the playlist when someone is viewing a video in the series. YouTube may use this info to modify how the videos are presented or discovered.
To turn on a series playlist, visit the Playlist settings tab, and check the box that says Set as official series for this playlist.
Note: You can only add videos you’ve uploaded yourself (that you own) to an Official Series playlist, and while every video can be featured in multiple standard playlists, each video can only be included in one Official Series playlist.
2. How to Use Playlists to Organize Your Channel Page
Playlists are a fantastic way to organize your YouTube channel’s main page, allowing you to showcase your content, curate your content into categories, and make your related videos easier for your audience to find.
To feature playlists on your channel page, you need to add a section for the playlist to the homepage. YouTube lets you customize the layout of your channel homepage with up to 10 sections. Here’s how:
From your YouTube Studio, select the Customization tab and then click on Layout. At the bottom, click Add Section. From here, you can use the down arrow to select the content for the section — in this case, the playlists you want to add. Then click the Publish button.
You can also set up your channel homepage to display each playlist as either a vertical or horizontal list. Try mixing or alternating both vertical and horizontal displays to add visual interest to your page.
3. How to Optimize Your Playlists to Get More Views
Playlists are an essential optimization tool that can increase your videos’ watch time and views in at least two ways. First, videos linked together in a playlist will be played sequentially and automatically when someone starts watching the playlist — similar to binging a Netflix show. That means more views and watch time for each video in the playlist.
Second,
YouTube is more likely to feature videos in a playlist as suggested videos, even when someone finds your video outside of that playlist.
This is because YouTube’s algorithm features videos that are topically related in the Suggested Videos feed, and linking videos together in a playlist helps tell YouTube that they are closely related. That means more people will find more of your videos!
You can take all this a step further by optimizing your playlists to make sure they bring you the most benefits possible. Here are a few optimization tricks to maximize your playlists’ potential:
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Get Playlist Ideas from Your Analytics. By checking out your YouTube Analytics and reviewing how people find your videos (search results, etc), you can get insights into ways to group together your videos most effectively. You may not always realize what some of your videos have in common until you see how they’ve been performing.
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Write Clickworthy Titles and Descriptions. Just like with each video, your playlists should have great titles that will entice viewers to click on them by offering them a benefit. (For example, “Hair Tutorials” is a boring title for a playlist; but “How to Style Your Hair Like a Model” is more likely to capture someone’s interest.) Your descriptions should also summarize the playlists’ content and provide other key information that will make your viewers more likely to watch (and YouTube more likely to feature the playlist).
- Choose an Appealing Thumbnail. YouTube will automatically create a thumbnail when you create a new playlist, but it also allows you to select a thumbnail from one of the videos in your playlist. You should pick the best thumbnail from your top-performing videos to bring in more viewers.
- Start With the Best Video. Check out your YouTube analytics to figure out which of your videos on the playlist topic are the most successful, and make that the first video of the playlist. Now, every time someone watches that popular video, you can funnel some of that video’s success into the other videos in the playlist.
- Be Smart About Keywords. Don’t forget about SEO! Identify and then incorporate keywords into your playlist’s title and description. This is especially important because playlists themselves can rank in Google and YouTube’s search results — better keywords means you get more views from search results. (As always, though, don’t just throw in every keyword under the sun… you want to avoid being marked as spam.)
- Keep Playlists at a Decent Length. Most recommend keeping your playlists to 3-10 videos, max. You want to keep your viewers hooked but not overwhelm them. From an optimization standpoint, it’s better to have multiple shorter playlists than fewer long playlists.
- Create New Playlists Frequently. Other than for Series Playlists, you can feature videos in multiple playlists. Keep adding new playlists as you add new content to keep your optimization strategy fresh.
Once you master the art and strategy of the YouTube playlist, your views, subscriptions, watch time, and more will grow. Have fun and good luck!
TL;DR:
YouTube makes it easy to create playlists and add videos — but that’s only the beginning! Make sure you take steps to optimize your playlists and channel too, including using designating series playlists, using your playlists to organize your channel homepage, adding great titles and descriptions, using keywords to boost SEO, mining your analytics data, creating new playlists frequently, and more.
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