Adding Hotspots to Your Video

Looking for another way to increase the interactivity of your video? Hotspots offer a way for viewers to engage more deeply with your material. They can be as flashy or as subtle as you like, but they all give your viewers a way to keep interacting instead of passively sitting back.

What are Hotspots?

Hotspots are a clickable object in a video, that allow you to customize what happens when a viewer clicks. (Remember Pop-Up Videos back when that meant a fun music video show instead of a webpage behavior? Imagine if you could have clicked on the trivia balloon and gotten the full Wikipedia article.)

Why Use Hotspots in a Video?

Hotspots offer a way to allow viewers to further explore or interact with a video, without breaking the flow of the video. Just like any other link, it could go anywhere, including:

• Another video
• A form
• A wiki article
• A pdf
• A citation
• A shopping cart
• A different time point in the video

Here are some possible uses you might consider:

• Additional facts: Maybe your video mentions a topic in passing. You could offer more information when that topic comes up, so interested viewers could explore the topic in greater detail. It could link to anything from a paragraph on another webpage to a video series to a 200-page ebook. Viewers who aren’t interested can easily ignore the offer, without getting bogged down in details they don’t need.
• Calls-to-action: You can use the video to encourage viewers to take the next step in a sequence, whether that is watching the next video in the series or filling out a contact form.
• Buy now: You can even link straight to the page where a customer can purchase something. Imagine an ad that features multiple products, where customers can click on each object to buy it. With a transparent hotspot, you can make objects appearing in the video itself clickable, or you could give them visible, clickable labels.
• Skip around the video: Use a hotspot to link to a different point in time in the video. Offer users the option to “Skip intro” or “Let’s see that again”.

How Do You Add Hotspots to a Video?

In Kaltura’s Video Editor, it’s easy to add and customize a hotspot. 

1. Choose when you want your hotspot to appear in your video on the timeline.
2. Click where on the screen you want your hotspot to appear. Or click and drag the hotspot to your chosen location. (You can also do this precisely using coordinates.)
3. Add text and/or a link (either one is optional; you could add just a pop-up fact, a link without words, or clickable text).
4. Adjust the shape, color, transparency, and font so your hotspot matches your branding or your video itself.

That’s it! Now go experiment with hotspots!