Today we are going to talk about audience retention.
What is a good average retention rate
that you should be shooting for in your videos?
How do you know if you're kind of above average or below
average?
And how do you maybe increase that a little bit.
All that is coming up.
Hey, guys.
My name is Tim Schmoyer.
And it's Thursday.
As we do every week, it's time to answer
one of your YouTube questions.
If you have a question that I can help you out
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I'd love to feature you right here.
Today we are going to answer a question that Adam Van
Wildest posted on the Video Creators Facebook page.
And he asked this. "Hey, Tim, what is a good average view
duration percentage someone should
aim for on their videos?"
There's a couple of different metrics
we can talk about here, such as your video abandonment rate
and things like that.
But perhaps the one that I think is most helpful
is your audience retention scores.
You can find that in your YouTube Analytics
by just looking on the left hand side
there and clicking on Audience Retention.
Go up to the top and select one of your videos,
and it will show you exactly how that video performed
in retaining your audience's attention.
As that line declines, that means more and more
people are leaving your video.
Or if you see it kind of go up again,
that means people are skipping ahead-- forward-- in your video
to watch that part of the video.
Or if you see these little bumps, where it goes flat
and then up and then-- that means people are rewinding
and watching that part of your video again.
So what's a good audience retention score to shoot for?
How do you know if you're performing well or not?
Well, if you click on the Relative Audience Retention
score tab right there in your analytics,
it'll show you how your video compares
to all other videos on YouTube that are of a similar length.
Now I think it would be helpful if YouTube split this
up a little bit more by genre, because we know that people are
watching gaming footage that performs much
differently than people who are watching a comedy sketch
or something like that.
I think that's important, but YouTube doesn't give us that,
so we've just got to go with what they have.
But ultimately, what I think you should be comparing this to
is not necessarily how every other YouTube that's
around similar length performs, but basically
how does this video perform compared
to all of your other content?
For example, if you culled an audience's retention
for an average of 48% and then you have a video that does 55%,
you're like, OK.
What did I do in this video that held
my audience's retention a little bit
longer than my other videos usually do?
And then you get to the next video, you say, oh, 58%.
You're like, OK.
You want to be solely heading the right direction; right?
And always learning from those videos that perform poorly
and also learning from those videos that
are performing great.
I just want to compare myself with myself.
And how am I improving based on where
I was this time last year, six months ago.
Am I heading in the right direction overall?
A couple of things that I have found that really
help in increasing your audience attention scores.
One, is your content interesting?
Is it valuable?
Is it something that your audience really deeply
cares about?
I think a lot of times, we sit down
and we talk about things that are important to us,
but that doesn't necessarily mean
that's important to our audience.
So you really have to know who your target audience is and ask
the question, is this valuable and important for them.
And then number two, don't talk about it
any longer than you need to.
In fact, it's way better to talk about it maybe a little
more succinctly and shortly and leave them wanting more,
than it is to give them all the details, all the facts, all
the data that you could possibly give them
about whatever it is you're talking about.
Number three, I've found that really simple things,
such as just smiling a lot in your videos,
goes a really long way for helping
people feel like they're connecting with you
and that they're engaged.
That they're like, oh, man.
This person looks like he's really
enjoying what he's talking about.
And number four, I've found that using plenty of b-role
in your video helps as well.
I could just sit here and just talk to you,
and some people can do that and get away with it.
But I think most of us-- you've got
to keep switching things up.
For example, Philip DeFranco says
you need to have something new or changing
about every three to four seconds on the screen.
And that's why if you watch SourceFed,
they have tons of jump cuts and lots of b-role footage.
I've also found that letting your viewers
know right up front at the very beginning of the video
what the value is for them by watching this video,
they don't have the time to figure it out
as they go through your entire video.
I've found this to be true, especially
with longer interviews.
You really have to come on strong in the very beginning,
and let your viewers know, here's the value of this video.
Here's what you can expect, and by the end of this video,
you're going to learn this or realize that or something.
And a lot of times you can go back and do that after you've
done the interview so you know what the content is.
Then go back and shoot a clip that you're
going to put at the beginning of that video.
And that will keep your viewers watching.
If they know what's coming up, they
will keep on watching much longer than they otherwise
would.
I know there's a lot of other things
we can do also to increase audience retention,
and I'd love to hear what those things are
for you guys in the comments below.
Because a lot of this, as you know,
depends on what type of content you're
doing, who your target audience is, who you're trying to reach,
what your personality's like.
There's just a lot of different variables.
So what do you guys do in your videos
to help you increase watched time
and to keep that audience engaged
through your entire video?
Comment below.
Let us know.
And the rest of you guys, go down
and read the comments of other people are saying.
I'm sure you'll find a lot of helpful stuff in there.
I always learn from them every week.
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Bye.