We all know how important YouTube watchtime is so how do we stop viewers from doing this...
Hello, is there anyone there...
hello?
Welcome back everyone I'm Rob and this is vidIQ, the YouTube tool and channel that aims
to help you get more views in less time.
Our tool is free to download, a link is in the description and while you're at it you
might as well subscribe to our channel and click that bell notification so you'll be
kept right up to date with everything we do.
Today's topic is all about audience retention, making sure viewers watch your content for
as long as possible and we're going to use ourselves as an example so let's jump straight
into it.
In case you're unfamiliar with the term audience retention, it's the average time a video is
watched for and it's usually calculated as percentage.
As a simple example if one person watches a 1 minute video for 30 seconds that's an
audience retention of 50%.
As the numbers increase this could get insanely complicated but fortunately YouTube has a
dedicated audience retention tool in the analytics.
Using it to view your entire channel will only give you a vague insight so you really
need to drill down.
Click on a specific video and that will start playing it, along with a graph that starts
at 100% audience retention and then falls as the video plays.
So what you can do with this is watch videos at a microscopic detail to see what might
be causing your viewers to switch off.
Now let's put this into practice on one of our videos, a quick 90 second tutorial on
YouTube Watchtime and how important it is.
Roll the tape!
Welcome to a brand new series called vidIQ Shorts. 60 seconds.
One topic.
Let's go
Simply put watchtime is the total number of minutes viewers watch your Youtube videos
for .
You can look at your watchtime from the Youtube analytics page for either your entire channel
or for individual videos.
The vidIQ realtime statsbar also shows you watchtime for the last 7 days.
While there are many factors that decide the success of a Youtube video, watchtime is definitely
one of the most important for one simple reason:
The more minutes a viewer stays on Youtube, the more ads they can sell.
As a video creator it's your job to keep viewers on Youtube through watchtime so make sure
to keep viewers engaged throughout your video with the best content you can produce.
The more watchtime your videos get the more Youtube will promote them.
Everybody wins.
Check your audience retention analytics to see how long viewers watch your content for
because if you can keep them on Youtube to watch more videos, even if they are not your
own videos, you will benefit from session watchtime which we will cover in a future
video.
Want us to cover a topic in 60 seconds let us know in the comments below and to start
using vidIQ tools to help you get more views in less time download the chrome extension
for free.
Like, subscribe and enjoy the rest of your video making day.
Bye for now.
So what does this graph tells us?
First all the good news.
It has high audience retention for the first minute being over 60%, however you would expect
this from such a short video.
There are no sudden mid-video drops which suggests the topic is relevant to the audience,
the gradual decline simply represents concentration span.
The sudden drop off at 1 minute however is very alarming and on review of the video we
can see why.
The countdown clock and tone telegraphs the end of the video content with the remaining
20 seconds being a pre-recorded like, subscribe and comment segment.
Viewers have watched enough YouTube these days to sniff out such tactics and immediately
switch off.
In effect 30% of my video is dead space and it's seriously affecting my audience retention.
Audience drop off at the end of videos is a common problem for most YouTubers.
I try to fix this by including a little bonus after the end credits in longer videos just
like this one, but for the vidIQ short series I think I just need to be ruthless and kill
that end segment because the last thing I want is viewers killing their YouTube session.
Now let's take a look at some more examples.
This 6 minute video loses half its audience in the first 15 seconds which suggest the
introduction is too long or the thumbnail and title don't match the content.
This video looks like it peaked too early.
The second half of the video must be boring waffle that doesn't interest the viewer.
This video is very long which causes 80% of the audience to drop off in the first 15 minutes.
Those that stay however seem to be there for the long run.
Lot's of watch time here.
And this video spikes back to 100% 1 minute in.
This is because viewers are replaying that section of the video meaning something of
significance occurs here.
After that a huge drop off.
So those are some tips to help you review your audience retention and find out why viewers
might be switching off.
As a YouTuber you should never stop learning.
I've just criticized my own work in this video and that's fine because I want to improve
with every video I make.
Now as way an experiment to improve audience retention on vidiq I want to play a little
game with you.
Try and find this logo somewhere in the video, it's already occurred, comment with the timestamp
and �I want to win� and you may randomly be picked for one month's free trial of vidIQ
boost.
Enjoy the rest of your video making day, bye for now.