How to Tag Stock Video & Footage Metadata

Stock video is one of the best-paying corners of microstock — and one of the most under-served, because footage is harder to keyword than photos. A still shows everything at once; a clip unfolds over time, and its metadata has to capture motion, not just subject. Here's how to tag footage properly.

Why video keywording is different

With a photo, what you see is what you tag. With video you also have to describe:

• Motion — walking, flowing, spinning, slow motion, time lapse, aerial
• Shot type — close up, wide shot, tracking shot, drone, handheld, POV
• Duration and pacing — loop, seamless loop, real time, hyperlapse
• The clip's arc — what changes from first frame to last

Miss the motion and shot-type layer and your clip simply won't appear in the searches video buyers actually run.

Keyword the concept, not just the frame

Video buyers are often editors looking for a moment or feeling to cut into a project: "team celebrating success," "city waking up at dawn," "hands typing on keyboard close up." Your keywords should include those editorial concepts, not only the literal objects. Think about how a video editor would search for the shot they need.

Title and description for footage

Describe the action, not just the scene. Compare:

❌ "City street" ✅ "Aerial drone shot flying over a busy city street at sunset, slow motion"

The second tells the buyer the subject, the shot type, the motion and the mood — everything they filter on.

Technical metadata matters too

Footage buyers filter by resolution and frame rate (4K, 1080p, 24/30/60 fps) and by whether a clip loops. Make sure those attributes are accurate in your submission — they're part of how footage gets filtered and chosen.

The same discipline as photos, plus motion

Everything from the photo playbook still applies — relevance over volume, three keyword layers, accurate categories, honest declarations, clean CSV formatting — you're just adding the motion and shot-type dimension on top. And because a clip is many frames, describing it by hand is even more tedious than a photo, which is exactly why so much footage ships under-keyworded.

How StockPhotoTags handles video

StockPhotoTags analyzes footage from representative frames across the clip — not a single thumbnail — so the generated title, description and keywords reflect what actually happens in the video, including subject, setting and shot context. You get motion-aware, marketplace-ready metadata and a CSV for your footage, the same way you would for stills. Upload a mixed batch of photos and clips and let the tagging keep up with your camera.