Introducing Shared Playlists: A simple way to share content across your trust

Sharing high-quality, relevant and timely content across your Multi Academy Trust should be simple. In busy learning environments, it can be a challenge to keep track of emails, manage shared folders or maintain a complex communications system. That’s why we created Shared Playlists, a new TrilbyTV feature designed for MATs who want to share trust content into their schools, quickly and easily.

What are Shared Playlists?

TrilbyTV users will be familiar with the Playlists feature for schools, allowing them to build a sequence of content to be displayed on their screens. Shared Playlists take this further by allowing staff at trust level to create a playlist from the central location and then be able to share it with one or many of the schools that sit inside the trust. When a playlist is shared, school staff then decide when and where the content should be shown, in the same way they would manage the content they create at school level. When playlists need to be updated, the trust can do so from their own account and changes will be automatically reflected on school screens.

Dominic Barnes, Head of Product at TrilbyTV, explained the choice to design this feature to fit in with the platform’s existing functionality,

“As with all parts of TrilbyTV, simplicity is at the heart of what we build. We wanted to avoid complexity so that our customers can focus on what they need to do. So building it right alongside their existing playlists was an easy decision. You find your playlist, turn it on and pick where you want it to go. We understood that when it comes to our larger MATs, we needed to make sure it’s quick to find your destination schools. We’ve made it easy to search and filter a list of any size and use those choices.”

When and where to use Shared Playlists

Shared Playlists open up lots of opportunities for trusts to display content in different areas of their schools. For example, reception areas are a great way to display the trust’s ethos to students, staff and visitors. Putting together a few slides that showcase CEO messaging and trust values can help schools to feel unified, especially when paired with on-brand colours, logos and images.

Staffrooms are another area where Shared Playlists can make a real impact. Do you have upcoming trust-wide CPD sessions to promote? Perhaps you want to make sure your staff know about the benefits available to them, or an upcoming event? Digital signage is a great way to cut through the noise of emails and printed flyers.

In student areas such as corridors and social spaces, Shared Playlists provide an opportunity to share inspiring messages or stories from students and staff across the trust. Although two students from different schools may not cross paths often, it can be motivating to hear about academic, creative or sporting achievements from others in their trust community. Plus, if your trust hosts cross-school tournaments or events, it’s an easy way to let students know.

The benefits of Shared Playlists for your MAT

Ben Stanley, Director at TrilbyTV, explained the importance of shared messaging for schools. Often, they’ll operate as individual organisations day-to-day, with their own unique identity and ways of working:

“When you’ve got something like  Shared Playlists being shared to you as a school, there’s a feeling of cohesiveness between you as a school and being part of something bigger. There’s a reminder that the trust is there to support and has your back. Ultimately, there’s a group of people and staff helping you as a school. That’s really important. That feeling of being joined up and connected.”

From a trust perspective, Shared Playlists provide the opportunity to combine and strengthen trust messaging with that of the individual schools. Ben added,

“I think it’s useful as a way to help join trust and school together. Strengthening those trust values so that the whole ethos of the trust is carried into the schools in a more central way.”

While Shared Playlists provide these enriching communication opportunities, schools can still retain their individual identity by managing where and when the content is shown, and by mixing it with their own playlists if they want to. This means that trusts can support schools with content while the schools maintain their autonomy.

How to get started

Shared Playlists are included in the price of a Multisite subscription and we’re currently rolling out the feature to MATs. We want to make sure that our customers get the most out of TrilbyTV, so we’re working closely with current users to make sure that it meets their needs.

If you’re a TrilbyTV customer and you’d like to hear more about the benefits of Shared Playlists for your trust, you can get in touch with us. As always, we’ll offer training at no extra cost and our Relationships Team will be on hand to support you.

Not a TrilbyTV customer yet? Shared Playlists are just one of the exciting ways you can use our simple, cost-effective platform to enhance whole-school communication. To see TrilbyTV for yourself, you can sign up for a fully-functional 30 day trial complete with support. You can also book a free demo where we’ll show you around and give you lots of ideas for getting started.