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Did you know that a goldfish has an attention span of only 9 seconds? That does not sound like much, does it? Well, what if I told you that humans aren’t much better? In 2015, our attention span has fallen down to a mere 8.25 seconds! This means you are probably not paying attention to what you are reading.
Also Read: Now YouTube Lets You Blur Moving Objects In Videos
I speak a lot about the need to capture attention on social media. We are overwhelmed with information and the fight for our attention is a hard game. But there are good news for marketers, and especially when it comes to video, and YouTube of course.
The average watch-time of a single video online is still around 2.7 minutes. Of course shorter videos (under 1 minute) have the highest retention rates but even some longer ones that are up to 10 minutes, really do manage to keep viewers engaged. There is still hope.
Subrat Kar, CEO and co-founder of Vidooly, took a deeper look into the world of YouTube videos, and he came up with five tips to increase engagement.
1. Go Mobile First
98% of Millennials watch videos on their smartphone. They are leading on this, but the rest of the population isn’t far behind.
Smartphone viewers have the highest rate of completion, that means that they are more likely than others watching it from a computer, to watch your video through to the end.
Finally, 52% of mobile search traffic results in users watching a video. Now, that’s impressive.
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2. Post At The Right Time
It’s no secret that if you post something at the time that your audience is willing to watch videos, then you’re likely to get more views and engagement. Quite simple really.
Online videos have slowly taken over TV, but TV remains the most watched medium during evenings, so you might want to avoid pushing out your online video content after 7pm.
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However, there are still no right or wrong times to post videos. You can match your audience’s behaviour, or follow the standards. For example, on weekdays, video views peak between 12pm and 5pm. That might be a good start.
3. Find Your Magic Zone
People watch videos online for 4 very specific reasons: inspiration or entertainment, learning, understanding, or deciding what to buy.
It is very important to produce videos that will trigger one of those 4 needs. Why? Because 67% of online shoppers viewed an online video before making a purchase decision.
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But giving viewers what they want isn’t enough to create great engagement around your brand and/or products. You need to bring your own message and identity into it. Otherwise, you still will have succeeded in engaging viewers, but there might not be any ROI for your brand.
The confluence of your audience passions and interests with your brand identity… this is what we call “The magic zone.”
4. Use Email To Increase Shelf Life
Once your video has been uploaded on your YouTube channel, it will start losing “shelf life.” Subscribers have been notified, some viewed your video, some won’t. You will probably share your video on your site or blog and generate more views. But, one of the best ways to increase “shelf life” and keep getting more views on your video, is probably also one of the most overlooked one: email.
Adding videos to your email will generate more views. But it also is a great plus for your emails. In his research, Subrat found that emails saw a 96% increase in CTR when including video. Moreover, when the word “video” was included in the subject line, 19% more subscribers opened the email.
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Winning on both sides, right?
5. Be More Local
Think about this: 60% of your video views will come from a country other than where the video originated. That’s awesome, right? But what about viewers who speak another language? Will you lose them just because they don’t understand everything that is said in the video?
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YouTube supports 76 languages. And the best way to cover a maximum of these, is simply to ask your subscribers to help. Let them submit translations and/or subtitles for you, they will love you for making them feel useful and special. And this could result in up to 60% more engagements on your video.
It’s the perfect case of let me help you help me.
