What is Wistia?

Wistia is an end-to-end media hosting platform with extensive video creation, customization, and analytics tools. Upload and customize media, collaborate on a recording, or host a branded webinar, all in your Wistia account.

We made this quick start guide to walk you through the basics of your account and direct you to other helpful resources.

Add media

The first step to using Wistia is to add media to your account. You can do so by uploading a file or recording a video.

To upload media or start a recording, open any of your existing folders (or create a new one). In that folder, click “Add” and then select your desired option.

Edit and customize your media

Each media you upload has a dedicated media page. Here, you'll find lots of exciting features, like Edit, Customize, Embed, Share, and more.

Edit

If you'd like to make some changes to the contents of your media—think trimming, stitching clips, adding background music, etc.—click "Edit" to get started. Check out our Editing in Wistia guide for all the details you may need.

Customize

Once you're ready to begin customizing the player to your liking, select "Customize." In the Customize panel, you can change the player color, set a thumbnail, add or remove controls, and more.

We recommend diving right in and exploring all the customization options, but if you need some guidance, check out our Customize overview for a full breakdown.

Note

Audio files have fewer customization options than video files.

Manage your media

Media in your Wistia account are organized into folders similar to the ones you use to organize documents on your computer. In Wistia, you can create as many folders as you need, and each one can contain one or more media items.

Learn more about Wistia's media management tools here.

Share your media

Now it's time to show your customized media off to the world. We offer multiple ways to share your Wistia content and expand your audience:

Share a direct link
Private sharing
Embedding
Share via email
Social sharing

Check out our media sharing overview for more details.

Note

Your Wistia account is not indexed by search engines, meaning your account and the media in it will never show up in a Google search. Your media will remain private in your account unless you choose to embed and share them publicly.

Embed your media

Want to embed media on your site? No problem. We’ve designed the embedding process to be as easy as possible with two main options: inline embeds and popover embeds.

To generate an embed code for any media, click “Embed” from the media page, select your embed code type, and copy the code.

For a more in-depth overview, check out our embedding overview.

Create a Channel

Wistia Channels allow you to share video and audio files in a sleek, branded gallery with a single embed code.

To learn everything about creating, customizing, and sharing your channel, check out our Wistia Channels help article.

Tip

Did you know you can turn your channel into a podcast? Now you get all the best parts of having a Wistia Channel while being able to import or share a podcast with your audience. Check out our podcasting guide to learn more.

Host a webinar

Make Wistia your one-stop shop for hosting webinars. Whether you're presenting product demos, educational content, or training videos, we give you the tools to customize, share, host, and measure the impact of your webinar. Visit our Getting Started with Webinars guide to get started.

Media analytics

Wistia's in-depth analytics provide a complete view of who is engaging with your content and how they interact with it. You can review analytics at the media, folder, Channel, or account level. Depending on your plan type, you may also drill into identified viewer stats.

Check out our analytics collection to dive into our media engagement features.