5.9.12

How to Embed a YouTube Playlist into your Website | Connecting Up

How to Embed a YouTube Playlist into your Website | Connecting Up


So, you've managed to secure a YouTube for Nonprofits account and you've made some great looking videos, but how do you share them on your website?


YouTube has the great feature of being able to create playlists filled with your organisation's videos. The benefit of this is that instead of hunting down all of your videos, they can just check out your playlists. They're also a great way of keeping track of your favourite YouTube videos.

It's well known that you can embed a single YouTube video into your website, but did you know you can embed a YouTube playlist into your website too? It doesn't take up any more room than a single video, and brings all of your YouTube playlist videos into one place.

Why would you want to embed a YouTube playlist into your website?

Here are some great reasons why you would want to embed a YouTube playlist into your nonprofit organisation's website:
  • Everytime you add videos to your playlist, they will be automatically added to your website.
  • Keep people on your website longer by offering them more relevant content that you hand-pick.
  • Avoid unrelated or inappropriate videos being displayed after a video has been watched
  • Easy way to create a portal to your YouTube content
  • Highlight videos from your supporters - the playlists can contain any videos, not just yours!
Part 1: Create Your YouTube Playlist

There are a range of ways to create a YouTube playlist for you to embed. Here's one, straightforward option:
  1. From any page on YouTube, click on your account name (next to the "Sign Out" link) to open the "My Acocunt" box.
  2. Click "Videos" under "My Account"
  3. In the left hand column click the "+New" button next to "Playlists"
  4. A box will pop up asking for: Playlist title, Playlist description and Playlist tags
  5. Once you've filled these out, click "Create playlist"
Now you can add videos to your YouTube Playlist, simply click the "+" buton you see under every YouTube video. For example, for videos from the Connecting Up 2011 conference, we added all of our videos to one playlist.

Part 2: Get the YouTube Playlist Embed code

Now that you're all set up, the next step is to get the code to embed your YouTube playlist into your website.

  1. From any page on YouTube, click on your account name (next to the "Sign Out" link) to open the "My Acocunt" box.
  2. Click "Videos" under "My Account"
  3. Choose your YouTube Playlist from the left hand column (under the "Playlists" heading)
  4. Click the "Share" button
  5. Copy the "Embed code"
The code is now in your clipboard. If you want to save it, you can open up your wordprocessor (e.g. Microsoft Word) or text editor and paste it into there. Otherwise, it's in your clipboard ready to be pasted into your website!

Part 3: Embed the YouTube Playlist into your website code

Great work! You now have the necessary code to embed your YouTube playlist in your clipboard. The next part requires you to embed this into your website. Now, this will be different for everyone as the platforms you use for your website are different, but here are a few things to remember:
  1. What you have copied is HTML code, and will have to be inserted with this in mind. If you're using a WYSIWIG editor, you may need to click "source" or "Disable rich-text" or "HTML" to see the HTML code.
  2. You can change the size of the embedded YouTube Playlist by changing the "width" and "height" properties (defaults are: width="480" height="385")
  3. If you want more advanced options you can see the YouTube Embedded Player Parameters
  4. Be creative! With this code, you can embed your YouTube Playlist just about anywhere - e.g. Facebook Tabs, blogs, etc
  5. If you can't embed your YouTube Playlist, you can always link to it by copying the "Playlist URL" instead.

Here's a finished example!

Below is the playlist from our Connecting Up 2011: Reboot Your Nonprofit conference, enjoy!