5 Tips for Increasing Audience Retention

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 with in an upcoming video sometime, leave it as a comment below or post it on our Facebook page. Or even send me a video of yourself asking the question. There's a link in the description text below in this video here on YouTube.

Or you can submit your video to me. 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.

So if this is your first time here, I'd love to have you subscribe as well. Every week we just take a question from one of you guys about YouTube and the things that you're trying to do here. And I do my best to answer them for you.

And then on Tuesdays, we take a look at online video news and talk about what it means for us as video creators. And the changes that are happening to YouTube all the time, and how do we continue to craft our content so that it continues to perform well here? We talk about that.

And then on Wednesdays, we give you some YouTube tips, ideas, suggestions, advice-- just to really help you guys who have a message here on YouTube that you're trying to spread. I really want to do my best to partner with you and help you do that so that it reaches the people who really need to hear what you have to say. And thank you for letting me be a part of that.

Subscribe, and I will see you guys again next week. Bye.