Tagging Videos For Growing Your Reach

by Lisa Brown Jasa, EdMedia

Your new YouTube video is one in a million. Or more like one in many millions.  Literally. 

How can you help current and potential Extension users find your video among all the related videos available on YouTube and other sites? And then, how can you lead them to related videos offered by UNL Extension?

Tagging is the key. Tags are short labels you use to identify the content of your video.  These are words that the user would typically use to search for your information. For example you might use “corn, planting, no-till, planter weights” on a video about why and how you add planter weights in no-till.

To help craft best practices for tagging UNL ExtensionTV videos ( Click Here to learn more about ExtensionTV. ) , EdMedia Software Specialist Nic Colgrove has opened a discussion in UNL Extension on https://www.yammer.com/unl.edu/#/threads/inGroup?type=in_group&feedId=4399864 .  UNL ExtensionTV.unl.edu aggregates and displays UNL Extension videos.  (See May 8 Keeping Up.)[ http://newsr          

oom.unl.edu/announce/keepingup/3361]  Careful tagging can help users quickly and easily find the information they need. It can also ensure that related UNL Extension videos are recommended after your video, eliminating the problem of having inappropriate or unrelated videos pop up immediately after yours, sometimes to a shocked viewer.

Join the discussion on what tags are needed 1) to improve the relevance of your videos in searches and 2) to accurately associate related videos.  What tags are critical to your subject area? Would you like to work from a base set of tags, create tags specific to your content with each new video, use a hybrid of these, or suggest a different system. What are the common terms your audience uses?  How can tagging encourage cross-team collaboration?

Join Nic’s discussion thread on Yammer on how we can make this best work for you and your clients or contact Nic Colgrove with your suggestions. We’ll keep the discussion thread open until June 4.

And remember, if you’re new to posting videos to YouTube or Vimeo, make sure they also appear on ExtensionTV by emailing Nic your host site URL.