if your videos are getting the views you want them to and your retention graphs look like this then it's likely your content isn't sending enough positive signals to the fabled YouTube algorithm to make it share your videos to more people titles and thumbnails the packaging of your videos is very important but ultimately what keeps users on the platform is actually watching videos so in this video I've gathered the seven most powerful retention hacks used by the top creators like Ali abdal Mr whoa boss Jenny Hoyos and of course Mr Beast they will help increase your
watch time and give your videos a better chance of going viral but what does viral mean at least for you anyway 10 million a million 100,000 even 10,000 views might be a number you've never hit with a single video on your channel so post a comment what would you consider a VI number for your channel we'll come back to why I'm asking you that question later but first you want what we've promised right so let's check out this retention hack from Jenny Hoyos that you probably haven't come across before you mentioned a word a second
ago you said is the mechanism good what do you mean by mechanism if they're going to be pushed to the end so like a good example is Mr Beast the red circle like is it like last Le Circle wins $500,000 the mechanism is the circle is constantly closing so the viewer watching till the end so if if it was just like the circle wasn't closing I don't know if anyone would watch to the end they'll just skip to the end probably interesting what are some of the mechanisms that you've used I think this is the
easiest one that anyone can apply it's basically saying there's three steps or there's three things we need to do because it's very easy to follow and you just showed the list of three so now the viewer knows that oh we're getting closer to the video like they actually have a good expectation which is probably one of the biggest things I think that's I think that's why my videos like go viral it's because people have a good expectation of what they're going to watch and what's actually going to be at the end now Jenny shared one
of her favorite mechanisms which is to lay her video out in three steps but there's two more ideas you can use to get your audience to watch for longer first of all you can promise added value in the video such as a free resource in this video we teased a worksheet that viewers could use to create their ideal viewer for their content but we didn't fully reveal or demonstrate how to use a worksheet until towards the end of a video another technique is to tease the most dramatic part at the start of a video and
only reveal the climax of a drama at the very end of a video one of the best examples of a Creator who does this is of course Mr Beast in all of his videos he teases the most dramatic part in the first 30 seconds but only reveals the answer or big event right at the end of the video not only is this a great mechanism to get people watching but it's also part of of a much broader retention strategy he uses to keep you watching which he revealed in this interview what's interesting is the longer
people watch something the more likely they are to keep watching so you don't have to try as hard in the hypothetically back half of a video as you do in the front like even right now we're so deep into this where a lot of people listening are probably just going to keep listening relatively close to the end unless we just have a really boring part of this conversation because they're just they're just in it they're they're immersed um and so a big like the really boil it down to a simple level you just want to
get people where they're immersed in the content and then just kind of hold them there basically what Mr Beast is saying is you want to frontload your videos you only have a finite amount of time and as people watch a video there is always going to be a natural drop off in viewers but this drop off is that it's most severe at the beginning of your videos particularly in the first 30 seconds so is it really worth investing the same amount of time and effort into the second half of your video when maybe only half
of viewers are still watching it's what you might call diminishing returns this means spending up to 60 70 even 80% of your time optimizing the hook of your video and the first few body sections because these parts of your video are most important in terms of retention than the last half of your video but we do need to be careful here just because the first half of your video has the biggest impact on retention doesn't mean that you should completely ignore the second half of the video video in fact Mr Beast went on to share
another simple retention hack that you can apply to the last 30 seconds of your video that will boost your retention but it only takes an extra two minutes of work at the start of the video you got to get them interested and get them watching and then basically I mean it sounds obvious but just don't have any moments where you Veer off story unless there's a really good reason and just end it really quickly like those are the only things that are constant and then how you do those are really up to you end it
really quickly yeah meaning the entirety of the videos quick if you like thank you for coming out to the podcast they're clicking off and then and so as you're saying that I go no thank you all for coming out to podcast and then we do that for like a minute you're just like nuking your attention people are already gone so like in a like bued live if at like the 49 hour mark I'm like guys this was a great video then they're clicking off and then I go back to another story so the second you
wind a story down end it Bo quickly on YouTube the retention hack Mr Beast just shared is one of the fastest and easiest ways that you can boost your attention end the video when it's supposed to end don't fluff your way through another 30 seconds of video assuming the viewer will continue to watch thanks for watching hope you enjoyed the video in summary to conclude don't forget to like And subscribe these are all trigger phrases that clearly communicate to the viewer we're done here so by dropping 30 seconds from the back end of your video
you will actually likely increase your attention by as much as 5 % maybe even more but you might say 5% isn't that much however because the algorithm is so finely tuned and focused so heavily on audience retention to decide whether or not to promote your video to new viewers it can have a big impact on the overall performance of your video over the long term but let's talk about the bigger retention wins now the type of changes that boost your retention by 10 maybe even 20% and dramatically increase the chances of your video being shared
out to a bigger and wider audience this next retention hack Mr Beast revealed might just help you do that but a word of warning you will need to put in the work my threshold has always been do I find it entertaining and do I watch it it's and so which this this is going to sound dumb but I've just spent so many years just studying what does well and I've seen so many hundreds of thousands of videos probably at this point I would just obsess study retention charts you know we'd scrape a million videos see
where the dip is like I know everything like if you pee like how it hurts retention if you sneeze like all that kind of stuff and so I've just like my brain has just been programmed to like just know I don't know it just come second hand like I can just tell you no retention is going to drop there we should probably yeah peeing hurts retention for it's a turn off for some people just don't like to hear it uh well just In some cultures it's not as accepted as America that makes yeah you're saying
that like it's weird uh sneezing it's just like it doesn't progress the story it's kind of like anything where like the story comes to a hold without a reason just kind of hurts retention I'm not going to do it I don't know maybe it's fairer to say that this is more of a YouTuber lifestyle Choice than a hack but if you do want to boost your retention by 10 20% Then you need to become a retention nerd study as many retention charts in your Niche that you can get your hands on so that you know
exactly what keeps your audience's attention and what BS the hell out when you're going through your retention charts you want to make a big list of what you were saying when you had a spike in retention and what you said or what you were doing when there was a dip then going forward you can make sure that when you're writing future scripts and editing future videos you say more things your audience enjoys and less of the things that make them click off and remember that a strategic edit can emphasize the good and completely remove the
bad but talking about scripts this actually leads me onto our next retention strategy which is from one of the greatest Tech tubers on the so like for a stand let's say for a a kind of Google pixel versus iPhone 13 Pro Camera comparison 22 minutes long video I think that was probably 3 and 1/2 days of scripting three and a half days yeah of like are we talking 8 hour days no we're talking like 14 hour days we're talking like 42 hours spent on scripting a single video ages and ages ages so why would Mr
whoa boss in speaking to Ali abdal spend so much time scripting his videos well the answer is simple in one sense your script is one of the biggest factors that impact the performance and retention of your videos for example hey guys it's will and in this video I'm going to share with you what I would do uh to make 10K per month ASAP uh if I had to kind of start again from scratch this video has no edits no crazy action scenes just simply a guy talking to camera but it went Mega viral because it
had a great script and we can find these countless examples like this on YouTube which proves that what you say in your videos is much more important than the fan editing or high production values but the next big and quite obvious question is how do you actually write great YouTube scripts well let's jump back into our interview to get the advice when I'm scripting I'm thinking of three different people okay so there's three people I know in my life of different levels of I guess Tech enthusiasm and so with every line I've almost reached a
stage where I'm scanning it being like is this interesting to all these three people would they watch this would they watch this would they watch this would they understand this is this funny to them or that kind of stuff and I think when you do that you end up with a script that is a little more broadly appealing than it would otherwise be so let's think about these three tiers of audience three people you want your videos to speak to you've got someone who is a core fan of your content someone who is a casual
viewer and then someone who wouldn't normally watch any of your videos so to reach the widest possible audience you want to make sure that each line of your scripts will appeal to each of these people so that you're not only reaching your core audience but a broader audience which will help the algorithm push your videos out to a wider audience in general but it's not always possible to do this I should add some topics may be too Niche dense or complicated that only your core fans will get it but no matter what your Niche is
there will always be topics you cover that have a potential to reach a broad audience if you package it in the right way and make the content accessible to everyone so make sure to look out for those opportunities because those videos have a great greatest chance of going viral a classic example of this is from another tech YouTuber Marquez brownley who took the incredibly Niche product of a pair of headphones with an air filter and turned it into the dumbest product he's ever reviewed so when this first started popping up on actual like Dyson social
media channels I had to double check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1st because seriously Dyson are you pranking us right now this is it's ,000 for air purifying headphones I wasn't really sure what to think probably safe to ignore it that intriguing whether or not you're interested in Tech right today this video has got almost 10 million views right then back to the question I asked you around about uh 10 minutes ago what is a viral number for you I asked this question because it's really important to understand that every YouTuber has
different needs different goals different expectations and I want to make sure that if you think 10,000 views is a viral moment for you then be proud of that achievement and try your best not to compare yourself to anyone else if you've never reached that number before that you're aiming for it's important to you and the right step the next step in growing your channel so if these strategies help you get there that's all that matters all right so now we know how important scripts are for retention let's take a look at an even more powerful
script retention hack shared by two YouTube Geniuses with years of experience so a lot of Storytelling and specifically on the Internet is about unanswered questions constantly storytelling is always about unanswered questions so basically in your first few lines you want to make sure that you validate the video like you said and then you open up a new unanswered question and throughout your script document as you're writing out always look at it in your beginning your middle and your end is there an unanswered question and then at the end when that question is answered or the
final question is answered the video is over yeah so write it out it doesn't have to be word for word but you're making your video first on paper then on camera so V hack is an important one because so many creators write a lot of words in their scripts but they lack the ability to create curiosity so Their audience keeps watching unanswered questions solve this script dilemma they help to Peak the viewer's interest by driving up a question they want to know the answer to but then delaying the information so they have to keep watching
but how do you actually create an unanswered question silence Works what you need to do is tease information the audience desires to know the answer to but delay resolving it until further into your video without annoying your audience for example it could be something like this in this video I'm going to reveal this leaked document that explains exactly how the YouTube algorithm Works to help you get more views and more subscribers but before I reveal it I need to explain the crazy story of how it came into my possession in the first place oh that
piece went in there did it now obviously this is a madeup example but you can see how in the first sentence I'm teasing a piece of valuable information a leaked document on a YouTube algorithm this Peaks people's interest and makes them desire the answer then I simply delay the answer with a story which hopefully keeps them watching the video and speaking of Storytelling it leads us to an incredibly powerful retention skill but is fast becoming the superpower of the best creators on a platform here's Ali adal from earlier being interviewed this time explaining one of
the most traditional and yet most effective forms of Storytelling the heroes Journey template that we do some sometimes use you've got a main character and they're in a they're in a place like the Shire and then someone comes to them and gives them a call to Adventure and then they're like oh I don't want to go and then the Mentor is like yeah you should go in this adventure and they're like all right I'm going to go in the adventure and they leave the Shire they go in the adventure there's trials and tribulations there struggles
along the way and they ultimately overcome the struggles and they come back to the Shire they're changed externally because they've been through this adventure but there's something about them that changes internally as well there is a lesson that they've learned along the journey and so essentially it's like who is the main character what do they want why can't they get what they want what's holding them back how do they get what they want and then what's the lesson and this is because our brains have been wired to pay attention to stories for thousands of years
long before YouTube long before television and radio it's something built into our psychology when done correctly will keep your audience watching for your entire video but how do you tell the right stories with the right packaging to get the Buy in you need to convince someone to click on your videos in the first place let me show you with some awesome examples from small channels and yes no FIA I'm ending the video right now
