- I'm gonna tell you how to make your YouTube videos
more engaging so you can get people watching them
for a longer period of time
so you'll do better on YouTube.
And of course get more likes, comments, and subscribes
which will also help you do better on YouTube.
Oh, and really quick,
if this is your first time here, I'm Nick.
I help people with their YouTube channel.
So if you wanna learn how to grow your channel
make videos and all types of other YouTube-related stuff,
start now by subscribing.
But anyway, when it comes to creating engaging content,
one of the important parts of that is creating a connection
with the people that are watching.
And a really big part of that is the language you decide
to use in your videos when you're talking to your viewers.
In fact, there's a study done back in 2017
where they analyzed over 30,000 YouTube videos
and they found that the content creators
that addressed their viewer as you
in the first 30 seconds of the video,
those videos got 66% more views than the videos who did not.
So it's pretty interesting what one word can do
when it comes to making that connection
with the people that are watching your videos.
But when it comes to getting people
to watch your videos for a longer period of time
or further engaging your content,
it's really important to make sure
that not only are you addressing them,
you know, as the person but that you are also
speaking the language that they speak
around the type of content that you make.
For example, if you're making gaming videos,
there's certain memes about the game
or certain things within the game itself,
that as soon as your video starts or your live stream starts
and you start talking about those things,
it will instantly show the people
that are watching the content
that you are as into the subject matter as they are.
And if you're making other types of content,
like let's say, cooking content or real estate content
the same exact thing applies
where if you can start getting into the details
of the language of somebody that's extremely passionate
and knowledgeable about the subject matter,
then it just shows right out of the gate
that you are already understanding that viewer
just by speaking the same language that they do.
And just to be clear, this isn't about speaking English
or speaking Spanish or anything like that.
It's about speaking that insider language
that proves or shows that you are as interested
in the things that you're talking about as your viewers are.
For example, at the beginning of this video,
I explained to you what it was
that I was going to be showing you.
But then I also changed the language a little bit
to explain how it was going to be important to you
or how it was going to be beneficial to you
based on the things that you care about about YouTube.
And by doing that, I'm not just speaking
about those things that you know about
but I'm also making it even more intense
by making sure that I'm focusing on the things
that you care about.
And you can do the same exact thing
with your content as well.
The next tip, when it comes to keeping people
watching your videos for a longer period of time,
and of course, engaging more with the content
is about accessibility.
When it comes to accessibility,
we have a few different things going on.
And a few different options that we can use here on YouTube.
The first of course is captioning your videos.
The reason captioning is important on YouTube
is because it is proven that people will watch videos
for a longer period of time when they can read along
or they can follow along,
or they can better understand the video through captions.
Captioning is obviously also helpful
for the hearing impaired, but it's also something
that can help people be able to consume
and watch your content for a longer period of time
when they're in an environment
where listening to it might not be ideal.
The next tip, when it comes to accessibility
in your content, is to make sure that people can clearly see
and hear everything it is that you are talking about
or showing or doing in your video.
For example, a lot of people watching this,
you're doing gameplay videos, you're doing cooking videos,
you're doing DIY videos, you're doing training videos,
where you're actually showing people how to do things
through screen recordings
for all of the content or at least parts of your content.
And when people can't clearly see what it is
that you're trying to show them,
they're going to lose interest
and they're going to leave the video.
To level this up a little bit more,
it's also important to know that a majority
of the watch time on YouTube comes from mobile devices.
So that means that a majority of the people on YouTube
are watching videos on phones and tablets,
which means the viewing surface they have to work with,
it's not big computer monitors,
it's these little tiny phone screens.
And because of that, we have to make sure
that we're optimizing our content for that
to create a better experience for the viewers.
So if you're going overhead shots
or anything where you're showing anything on camera,
it's important to make sure that you are zooming in
to what it is that you are trying to get people to focus on.
For the screen recording side of things,
I personally use Camtasia,
I've been using them since 2014.
Back when I started on my channel.
Now they're a sponsor of the channel, which is awesome.
But when it comes to Camtasia, the reason that I use them
and that I've always used them
is because they make it really easy to zoom in
and focus on the things that you're trying
to bring attention to with your viewers.
When zooming in you experience minimal
or no quality loss at all,
depending on how much you're zooming in.
They have a highlight you can put in your cursor.
So even if you're fully zoomed out,
the viewer can still see exactly what it is
that you're trying to have them focus on.
Because all of the attention goes to that cursor.
They also have annotations where you can draw
arrows on the screen and put boxes around things.
It's like an animated thing that they do
which is pretty cool to really focus in
on whatever particular area you're trying
to get them to focus on.
And you can even spotlight certain areas.
So that let's say that you are zoomed out
or let's say you're zoomed in on a little bit,
and you only need your viewer to focus
on this little area over here.
You can black out or really darkly gray out everything else
that's on the screen to just ensure
that the viewer is focusing on the thing
that you want them to see,
so that they can get the understanding or the value
outta the content that you're making.
And as another awesome layer
on top of the screen recording features,
it's also really easy to use piece
of video editing software as well.
We're gonna go ahead and move on to the next tip.
But if you are interested in Camtasia,
I'll put a link to them down in the description
where you can try it out for free.
So you can see all the cool stuff that it can do.
And if you decide to purchase
if you use that link, it'll save you 10%.
The next thing you wanna do
to increase engagement in your videos,
and this one is specifically for watch time itself,
to keep people watching your videos
for a longer period of time is if your content supports it,
try to use storytelling whenever you possibly can.
And really quick, if you think
with the type of content you make
that you can't wrap storytelling around it,
I thought that way
about my type of content in the past as well.
But then Ed from Film Booth came along
and he shares all of his content through storytelling
and he just does a fantastic job at it, people love it.
And his complete rate is extremely high,
and it's extremely effective even for my type of content.
So if it can work for this type of content,
there's a really good chance it can work for yours as well.
The next tip, when it comes to getting more engagement
on your YouTube videos is of course
to ask for the engagement.
But look, it's not just asking
by saying, hey, comment like, and subscribe.
That's not the way to do it.
If you're doing it that way, you are doing it wrong.
Instead of leaving it completely open and saying
leave a comment, simply ask a question
that they can answer down in the comment section.
For example, my question to you would be to let me know now
or towards the end of the video
which one of these tips resonated with you the most.
Now I use that as an example,
but I seriously when you get to the end of this video,
I seriously want you to let me know
which one of these tips resonated with you the most
so that I can make it deeper video about it in the future.
But the reason you wanna do this is,
because when you ask somebody to leave a comment
it leaves everything completely open,
and then in their brain, they have to think, okay
what am I gonna leave a comment about?
What is that I'm gonna say?
But when you ask a question, you're starting a conversation.
If you start doing this,
you're gonna start getting more comments.
Now let's talk about likes.
Instead of saying hit the like button,
or smash the like button
give people a reason to hit the like button,
use it as a feedback mechanism
or you can go the Graham Stephan route,
just say, hey hit the like button.
It helps me out on YouTube and so on and so forth.
Doing that we'll give them a clear reason to engage
instead of it just being some open-ended thing.
Like, hey, just give me a like for no reason
whatever at all.
If you take that approach
you will start getting more likes on your videos.
Now let's talk about getting people to subscribe.
If you tell somebody to smash the subscribe button,
there's no information there,
but if you say something somewhere in your content
along the lines of if this is your first time here,
this is the value that I offer to you.
Remember to subscribe.
So in my case, I already said one in the beginning,
but I'll go ahead and just give you another example here
to where I could say something along the lines of
if this is your first time here
my entire channel is dedicated
to helping YouTube content creators.
Make sure you subscribe.
Or I could level it up a little bit more and even lean more
on the connection side that we talked about before.
For example, if this is your first time here,
my entire YouTube channel is dedicated
to helping content creators.
So make sure you subscribe, so I can help you too.
Now I probably should have smiled a little bit more
when I said that of course so I could be more inviting,
but the idea is to simply give people the reason
on why they should subscribe
by explaining the direct value that they are going to get
from interacting with your content.
And seriously hit the subscribe button.
But you can see in those examples
how I'm not just saying to smash the button,
I'm giving you a clear reason
that you should be subscribing the YouTube channel
based on what it is that you are gonna get out of it.
The next tip is to pay really close attention
to how your viewers are responding
to the content that you're currently putting out.
Doing this will help you learn how to create content
in a better way over time
that will help your viewers,
the people that you're reaching with your content,
it's gonna help them respond better
based on what you learn from studying
how they react to your content.
For this YouTube gives us a graph report
for each video called an audience retention report.
These graphs are a second by second report
based on how people are responding
to your videos on average.
And you can actually see where people
are leaving your videos, where people are sticking
in your videos as well.
So you can use that information to make better content
based on doing more of the things that people
respond to better and less of the things that people
do not respond to that causes them to leave the videos.
Studying your audience retention reports over time
and making little adjustments
to your content here and there
based on the information you get back
is going to help you make better content
that will keep people engaged for a longer period of time.
And you know, when it comes to making videos
the things I've listed so far
that's kind of like a cliff notes of engagement.
When it comes to YouTube,
I actually have two videos that I want you to watch
on how to start your videos and how to end your videos.
I'm gonna put both of them in a playlist
but they're a deeper dive
into some of the concepts that we've shared here.
You can go ahead and click into that right here.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.