Best practice metadata management for streaming guides

It wasn’t too long ago that digital terrestrial TV seemed to have anything and everything you could ever want to watch. But in 2021, this couldn’t be further from the truth. 

There are a plethora of streaming platforms and bundles to choose from now — offering not only unique content but different ways to pay and consume media as well. And while some people can have their entertainment needs met by one service, most customers end up scouring multiple apps and services to find something to watch. 

That’s why streaming guides that aggregate multiple streaming services have grown in popularity as of late. These guides make it easy to find the content you want to watch without needing to comb through each of your subscriptions. 

And metadata management is integral to content’s success when sharing via these aggregated guides.

How to use metadata management to improve the quality and discoverability of streaming guides and content

Update your metadata, all the time

First, your metadata needs to stay updated. For guides themselves, this is the cornerstone of your guide’s reliability. If things are out of date and not accurate, users will move on. 

Of course, some elements of metadata are constant and will probably never need to be updated. That includes cast lists, synopses, and release dates. 

However, streaming platforms are constantly trading shows back and forth as well as changing their prices. A key part of why users look to aggregated streaming guides is to see all of this current data in one place. If your data isn’t current, then users will lose confidence and look elsewhere. 

Help your users differentiate between similar content

Another key piece of metadata management is ensuring that users can easily differentiate between pieces of similar content. This practice is less specific to streaming guides and more related to the searchability of media content on the whole — it’s something content publishers want to get right, for sure. 

Let’s say you own a movie franchise where each movie is similarly titled. Films in the Star Wars, Avengers, and Saw franchises all have titles that contain similar keywords to other titles in those franchises. How can you help connect viewers to the content they want to see?

Since streaming guides are meant to fast-track users to the TV and films they’re looking for, it’s important that your service can present these popular franchises in an orderly hierarchy and clearly to viewers. 

Keep users in the loop, no matter where they live

Another important consideration in your metadata management is localisation given that site visitors might be living all over the world. 

Since streaming platforms typically have varying content and prices depending on which country a person is from, it can benefit your guide to account for these differences. 

It can also be beneficial to users who use VPNs to stream content. This is a practice that’s becoming increasingly popular — and you can leverage that viewer behaviour to your advantage by providing location-specific metadata. 

Be a one-stop solution for a full suite of metadata needs

Lastly, one of the most important best practices for metadata management is to be a one-stop place for information, and to ensure that you provided the richest fullest aggregated metadata set to your visitors. If the only data you provide is which streaming site a show is available on, then visitors are going to be clicking off of your guide constantly and visitors will not stay on your site for long. Eventually, they may find another metadata-rich website delivering aggregated content that they prefer. 

You can avoid this by incorporating synopses, movie trailers, pricing and subscription information, links, posters, casting lists, and more into your streaming guide. Guide owners and content publishers should work together to create a suite of enriched metadata to aid viewer discoverability and decision-making.

For more advice and solutions on using metadata to your advantage, visit the rest of MetaBroadcast’s website today.