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Adding video to your content feeds

How to include video in your content feeds so Echobox can ingest and share it automatically

Echobox uses your content feeds to discover everything you publish — articles and video — and make it available to share. 

If you haven't connected a feed yet, or you're troubleshooting a feed that isn't loading, see Content Feeds.

What Echobox reads from your feed

Article content

For standard article items, Echobox reads the following fields:

  • RSS Title – used as a possible data source for your shares (e.g. to fill the share message) 
  • RSS Description – used as another possible data source for your shares
  • RSS Image – used as the possible data source for your share's image
  • Publication date – used for scheduling and automation logic

Video content

If your feed includes video items, Echobox additionally reads:

  • Video file URL – the direct link to the video file, used when sharing the video to social networks
  • Thumbnail image URL– used as the video preview
  • Duration – used to check compatibility with each social network's video limits
  • Dimensions – used alongside duration for compatibility checking

Echobox reads these fields automatically from the feed. No manual configuration is needed beyond setting up the feed correctly (see below).

Adding video to your feed

Echobox can ingest video from two types of feed structure. Understanding which applies to you will help you or your tech team set things up correctly.

Option 1: Articles with video attached

Your existing RSS feed items each have a <link> to an article page, and you add video to those items by including a <media:content> tag. Each item represents a piece of editorial content – an article – that also has an associated video.

This is the right approach if you produce articles and videos together as paired content, and want both to flow through the same feed.

Option 2: Video-only items

Each feed item represents a video only – there is no associated article. The <link> and <media:content> URLs will be the same. This is the pattern produced by most dedicated video platforms (JW Player, Brightcove, and similar), and a common starting point for broadcasters and video-first publishers.

Both structures are fully supported by Echobox. In both cases, video items appear in Echobox with a video indicator, and open in the Compose Box with the video file loaded and ready to share.

This is a technical setup step

Enabling video in your feed requires changes at the feed source – either in your CMS, your video hosting platform, or both. This will typically need to be done by your tech team or your video platform provider, rather than in Echobox itself.

The good news is that most major video platforms support this natively. Once it's configured, new videos will appear in Echobox automatically as they're published – no ongoing manual steps needed.

What your feed needs to include

Regardless of which structure you use, each video item must have a <media:content> tag containing:

  • the direct video file URL – this allows Echobox to pull in the video
  • at least one of the type or medium subfields – these help us confirm the content is video
  • subfields width, height and duration – this lets us know to which networks and channels the video can be shared.

Including a <media:thumbnail> tag within the <media:content> group will let us use your chosen cover image for the video.

You also need to declare the Media RSS namespace on the feed's root element:

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/">

Example: article item with video attached (Option 1)

<item>
  <title>My article title</title>
  <link>https://example.com/my-article</link>
  <description>A short description of the article.</description>
  <pubDate>Mon, 02 Jun 2025 09:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
  <media:content url="https://example.com/video.mp4"
                 type="video/mp4"
                 height="1920" 
                 width="1080" 
                 duration="180"/>
  <media:thumbnail url="https://example.com/thumbnail.jpg"/>
</item>

Example: video-only item (Option 2)

<item>
  <title>My video title</title>
  <link>https://example.com/video.mp4</link>
  <description>A short description of the article.</description>
  <pubDate>Mon, 02 Jun 2025 09:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
  <media:content url="https://example.com/video.mp4"
                 type="video/mp4"
                 height="1920" 
                 width="1080" 
                 duration="180"/>
  <media:thumbnail url="https://example.com/thumbnail.jpg"/>
</item>

If you are passing this to a developer or your video platform's support team, the examples above are the clearest way to communicate what the feed should produce.

Also share with them the RSS Advisory Board specification, which explains everything about MRSS.

Setting this up in your video platform

Most video hosting platforms can generate a feed in this format, often called a Media RSS or MRSS feed. Below are guides for common platforms:

If your platform isn't listed here, search for "media RSS" or "MRSS" in your platform's documentation, or contact their support team and share the XML examples above.

For enriching an existing editorial RSS feed with video (Option 1), your tech team will need to add the <media:content> and <media:thumbnail> tags to items in your feed's output template. This is typically a change to your CMS feed template or a custom RSS module.

Troubleshooting

My feed is connected but videos aren't appearing. Confirm that <media:content> and its required subfields are present on video items in your feed, and that the Media RSS namespace is declared on the root <rss> element. You can check by viewing the raw feed URL in a browser. If those tags are absent, your feed will need to be updated – see the setup section above.

My video thumbnail isn't showing, or is showing the wrong image. The thumbnail Echobox displays is pulled directly from the <media:thumbnail> tag in your feed. If it's incorrect, update it at the source in your video platform. Echobox will reflect the change on the next ingestion cycle. If you don't provide a thumbnail, Echobox will try to find a suitable image (either the article image or the first frame of the video).

My feed requires a login to access. Feeds behind authentication are not currently supported. Contact support to discuss your options.

For general feed troubleshooting – feed validation errors, articles not appearing, HTTP vs HTTPS issues – see Content Feeds.

If you have additional questions about adding video content to Echobox via RSS, please reach out to your customer service manager or email our support team.