- Do you wanna increase watch time on YouTube?
Well, here's five easy tips
to help you increase YouTube watch time.
And if you're new,
that means you're gonna get to your 4,000 hours faster
so that you can unlock that sweet, sweet partner program.
Hi, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video,
where we help you amplify your business and brand
with video.
If you're new here,
make sure you click that subscribe button
and all the links to everything I mention in this video,
you can find linked in the description box below.
So, let's jump into it.
YouTube watch time is absolutely critical
when it comes to channel growth and audience engagement,
whether you're a new channel or a seasoned one.
Fortunately, there are ways
that you can improve your content
to boost audience retention and maximize your views.
So, in this video, we're gonna run through my top five
that you can start implementing right now.
And make sure you stick around
because my favorite tip, number five,
is one that really changed the game for us,
not only boosting watch time
but making our content creation much easier
and faster as well.
All right, so first up,
let's get real for a second here.
No one is going to stick around watching
just your talking-head videos,
you're gonna put people to sleep.
How do I know?
Because that's exactly where we started.
And trust me, our watch time was terrible.
So, how do you fix this?
How do you make your videos more engaging?
Well, it comes down to changing up the visuals,
keeping things fresh,
keeping things interesting and changing as you progress,
so that people keep watching.
And how then do you actually do that?
Well, that leads us right into tip number one,
which is to use jump cuts.
Jump cuts are one of the easiest ways
to break up your content and to make it more appealing.
Or at least change up the shot a little bit
so that there's something different
for your viewers to watch
and they're super simple to do.
All you have to do
is where you have an edit in your timeline
or a break between a sentence,
you add a cut at that point
and then, you zoom in on that clip.
Now, I wouldn't suggest zooming in too far here
but the idea here is that you zoom in enough
just to break up the shot
to make it look a little bit different.
The look here can almost be similar
to if you were using two cameras,
one to shoot a wide angle shot of you
and one for a zoomed in or a tighter shot.
So, you're essentially breaking up your static shot,
you're zooming in or jumping in to a closer shot
and then, you're zooming back out for the next sentence,
the next paragraph.
So, you can constantly be jumping in and out
just to break up your content
and to make the shot look a little bit different.
Now, depending on your camera and your editing setup
you definitely don't wanna go overboard here
and zoom in too much
because it's likely you're gonna be losing some quality.
So, what I would suggest
is that you're zooming in, say, 10%, 12%,
but I probably wouldn't be going over the 15% mark
because that's where you start to notice
a drop in your quality.
So, for me, filming here,
I normally shoot with these curtains open
and the light coming through
but the light can be constantly changing.
So, I might start a sentence
and it could be really bright in here
and the next sentence could be really dark.
Having that zoom-in or that jump-in
will break up that and help mask that change in light,
so that your viewers aren't aware
that that's even happening.
Now, a really quick pro tip on this one
is if you're going to do this,
try to keep your eyes in almost the same position,
so, no just zoom in, you may need to reposition your shot,
the zoomed in one, so that the eyes are in the same
or very close to the same position on that zoomed in shot.
This will make this effect less jarring
for people watching with the zooming in and out
because our brains and our eyes
are focused on other people's eyes.
So, if the eyes are in a similar position,
it's much easier for you to focus on and concentrate
on the presenter while you're watching the videos
than noticing that it's actually zooming in and out.
Tip number two is to use music in your videos.
This will give some emotions or some feeling
about what you're talking about,
and again, pass that feeling on to the viewers
that are watching your content.
Now, obviously here, picking the right music
to match the feeling or to match your video
is super important.
And we do have a video that I'll link up in the cards
showing you how you can select the right music
for your videos.
You wanna make sure that you're not going too upbeat
for the content that you're producing
or going the other way
and have your music really sad or depressing
while you're trying to pump people up.
And I would say
if you're creating a piece-to-camera video like this,
where someone is presenting to camera,
the best music is something that is barely noticeable.
So, it's enough there to invoke that feeling
and to keep people more interested in your videos
because there's something else happening,
something else that is adding to the video
but it's not enough for it to be annoying
or too loud or distracting to take away from the content
and what it is that you're sharing with them.
The third one is to use motion titles or animated titles
in your videos as well.
So, it could be as simple
as bringing up some text on screen,
even just saying the words that you're saying in your video
just to help add some visual elements
and to break up your shot
or to really help you hit home on a key point
that you are trying to cover.
Now, lots of video editing software
and apps out there these days
usually have quite a few presets of animated titles
and things that you can use in your videos
but what I'd like to start
is with Videohive or Storyblocks,
both of those have motion graphic templates
and title templates
that you can purchase and use in your videos
and customize up to match your brand.
And for the most part,
those look a lot better than the ones
that come built in with your editing software.
So, again, links in the description below,
if you're interested in checking those out.
So, motion titles like these
are ones that you see as used all the time in our videos,
whether it is just to break up the shot
or whether it is to help get the message across
with whatever it is we're talking about.
So, this is a really useful and really powerful technique
that you can add into your videos,
especially when you're paring that with tip number five,
which we're going to get to very shortly.
The forth one, then, is using B-roll or overlay footage.
So, this is where you've got
your standard talking-head piece like this
and you are overlaying other footage on top of it
to really help the viewer understand
what it is you're talking about.
So, this could be things like if you're mentioning
a specific website, like primalvideo.com,
where we're talking about the website,
you could be showing that on screen
instead of just having your face talking about it.
Or if you're mentioning a specific product,
this is where you're showing shots of that product
so that people can actually see and understand
what it is you're talking about to a deeper level
than you just talking about it.
So, with B-roll,
this is something that you can usually shoot yourself,
especially if it's to show off a product
or something that you're talking about in your videos.
Or in some cases,
depending on the types of videos you're creating,
it can be much easier to jump on to stock footage sites,
like Storyblocks or Artgrid,
which basically give you an all-you-can-eat subscription
to all the stock footage that you could need in your videos.
So, if you're looking for things like a nice drone shot,
a time lapse, a sunrise, a sunset, a beach shot,
all of these things that you might be mentioning
in your videos,
you can then quickly find those using services like that.
So, that brings us, then, to tip number five,
which is to use a video structure,
a structure that is designed to keep viewers engaged
and to maximize value.
The structure itself
is gonna keep your viewers interested in the content
for the duration of your video,
whereas tips one to four
are gonna help people stay interested
within each section of your overall content structure.
Now, a big part of a solid video structure
is creating what we call open loops.
Now, this is essentially where you are hooking your viewer
to stick around towards the end of your video
or to stick around longer in your content.
You might be teasing a piece of content
or teasing a tip that you might share with your viewers
towards the end of your video.
So, the idea here is that you are structuring your video up
to keep people watching until later in the video.
Another way that you can create open loops in your video
is by changing up the way
that your are presenting your content and structuring
the actual content piece of your video as well.
So, take this video for example.
At the start of the video,
I said that I would be sharing my top five tips
to help you increase your watch time on YouTube.
Now, inherently,
in structuring your video with a top five, top ten,
people are going to wanna stick around
for those later numbers, to watch longer in your video,
just in case those later ones
were the ones that really changed the game for them,
even if they knew that previous tips,
one, two, three and four,
tip five might be the one
that absolutely changes the game for them.
So, creating videos that includes some sort of list,
or even things like top three, top five, top ten videos
are going to help you with your watch time
and engagement as well.
Now, if you're interested in taking this further
and finding out more about video structure,
how to structure your videos,
we have a full video already up on our YouTube channel,
which I will link in the cards
and below in the description as well.
So, now that you know how to increase the watch time
on your videos and your YouTube channel,
it's now time to increase all of that traffic
that you're getting.
So, to do that, check out the free YouTube ranking guide
that is linked on screen now,
which features three of the most powerful tools
and ranking strategies to help you 10X your traffic
on YouTube.
And I'll see you in the next video.