Have you ever heard someone say
"A video should be as long as it needs to be"?
Well, this is a nice platitude
but it's not exactly useful, concrete information, is it?
So, in the video today, how long does a video actually need to be?
MASTER CLASS: IDEAL VIDEO LENGTH FOR YOUTUBE
Hey, I'm Simon Whistler.
You might know me from channels like Today I Found Out.
I do "edutainment," which I'm hoping someday becomes a real word
because it describes what I do really well.
We make history, science, and facts rather fun.
Or at least I hope that's what we do!
So, let's get right into it and talk about
the two things that matter most, in my opinion, when it comes to video length.
These are average audience retention and watch time.
You can see both of these things in your analytics
so go in there and check those out.
But let me explain what we mean.
The first one, average audience retention, just shows
how long on average someone is watching one of your videos
or all of your videos altogether.
It's measured in minutes
and, for example, it might look something like 7 minutes and 42 seconds.
The second one I mentioned is watch time
and this shows how long someone has watched all of your videos in total.
FIVE BEST PRACTICES FOR VIDEO LENGTH
I want to talk about five things you should be thinking about
when thinking about these stats.
1. Always be maximizing.
The longer retention is super important.
There's another analytic you'll often hear mentioned
which is average percentage viewed.
It is important, but not as much as the raw watch figure.
2. Therefore, this means you should make longer content if it's still good.
It's really important you do not sacrifice quality over quantity
but typically, if you can work out a way to make longer videos
while still making them amazing, please do that.
Overdeliver to your audience, and give them more than they expect.
And that leads to #3, which is a "but," and that's consider the genre of your video.
There are some genres out there that just demand longer videos.
Gaming, for one, is a good example of that.
And then right on the other side of things
you have tutorials, which really should be kept short.
No one wants to watch a 15-minute video on how to restart your Mac.
But if you're not making tutorials or gaming videos, this wasn't much help.
So, where do you find out how long your videos should be in your genre?
Well, go look at the leaders, the people you admire in your space
and see what sort of lengths they're doing.
And this actually leads into point #4, which is all about experimentation.
Just because the leader in your space is making videos that are 6 minutes long
don't necessarily think you can't make a video that's 20 minutes long
or 2 minutes long.
Just give it a try every now and again, and see how your audience reacts to it.
You can then go into those analytics I mentioned
and see if people are watching more or less of that type of video.
Now, with me, as an example, my videos tend to be about 7–10 minutes long
but actually, one of my most popular videos
which is "Why are Cashews Not Sold to Consumers in Their Shells?"
that's only 2 minutes long and it's one of my most popular.
And point #5 is always have something cool at the end
like a little bit of extra information or something a viewer wasn't expecting
although they will grow to expect it!
Using me as an example again
at the end of every Today I Found Out video we do what we call a bonus fact.
You watch the regular video, then we get to about 89% of the way through
and then it's like "Bonus fact—here's something extra!"
Just putting that extra cool thing at the end
people will start to look forward to it, so they'll watch more of your videos.
HOW OFTEN TO UPLOAD
I really feel that if we're talking about watch time
we can't really not talk about how often to publish videos
because if you have more videos out there
chances are your watch time overall is going to be higher.
So, the question then comes, how often should you be publishing videos?
And the really basic way I'd put that is probably doing it more than you think
and I would personally say you should aim to do a minimum of two videos a week.
And I know already some people are going to come in the comments and be like
"Ah, but Simon, I know this guy who publishes one video a year
and he's amazing and super successful!"
But the reality is that guy or girl is probably an outlier
and if you make more stuff, you do have a better chance of success.
And I don't necessarily think this means you have to produce a ton of stuff
but you do have to be regular.
And I would say don't expand, don't do a two-a-week schedule
if you can't keep with that.
It's going to confuse your audience
and also, speaking from personal experience
once you get on that hamster wheel, it's mentally tough when you miss a video
so don't expand unless you're ready to do that.
Keep it slow, keep it manageable, and you'll get there eventually.
The great thing about being regular is
you become a part of your viewers' life and their schedule.
For me, when I'm watching YouTube videos, often I'll wake up on Monday morning
and some creators that release videos on Sunday in the US
I get those over in Europe on Monday morning, and I look forward to that Monday morning
where it's like, "There is a new video by this person"
and when it doesn't happen, I'm disappointed.
As with many of these things
it's hard to say where you should fall with this sort of scheduling thing
and how often to make videos
but as I always say, it's just good to experiment.
So now, you might be thinking, "Oh, how am I going to keep up?
This is a lot of stuff to do. I mean, it's all good advice, Simon
but how do I make longer stuff?"
Well, good news—that's what the next episode in this series is all about!
So, stay tuned for that one.