3 Ways to Improve Video Engagement

3 Ways to Improve Video Engagement

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Andy Ford February 5, 2021

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Engagement is my favorite metric to track, as it represents the overall performance and health of your video. Unlike vanity metrics such as Views (which simply shows the reach of your video), metrics like Audience Retention tell you the percentage of the video the audience watched (engaged with) and exactly what parts were watched. Analyzing this metric will help guide you on what your audience really wants to see so you can do more of it in the future.

This is important because video is powerful. The more time people spend watching your content, the more likely they are to engage with you. This means giving you a Like instead of just a view. Eventually, viewers will start to comment on or share your content. If they come back later, it could be to make an online purchase on a B2C site or request more information from a B2B site.

The holy grail is to have highly engaged viewers become an advocate of your brand, freely promoting your content.

Getting Started

Nothing should occur until you analyze your target audience and choose your digital marketing channels of choice, brand points, and content mix and strategy. Assuming you've done that, you'll want to first become familiar with your digital marketing channels to see how they obtain their metrics, as channels may count or present metrics differently. Then, you'll need to read the graphs and other data provided for your video. Below is an example of an Audience Retention graph for a video in YouTube and a video in FaceBook.

data-src=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/02232234/Ford_Engage2-1024x348.jpg alt= class=lazyload wp-image-2338788 data-srcset=https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/02232234/Ford_Engage2-1024x348.jpg 1024w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/02232234/Ford_Engage2-300x102.jpg 300w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/02232234/Ford_Engage2-768x261.jpg 768w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/02232234/Ford_Engage2-624x212.jpg 624w, https://gcs.creativecow.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/02232234/Ford_Engage2.jpg 1089w data-sizes=(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px />The graph line shows the percent of total viewers watching the video at various times. It is typical for your engagement graph to receive a drop off at the beginning (as some people realize this video isn't for them) and at the end (when the video is wrapping up and contact information appears), but the goal is to have the drop-off be minimal and gradual throughout the video.

The gradual drop-off of the YouTube graph would be considered good, and a 74% retention is above the benchmark for a video of this length (1-minute). The steep drop-off on the Facebook graph is far from optimal, although Facebook videos often receive short 3-second views as people scroll by on their news feed and this results in a sharper retention drop-off.

It is worth noting that the graph can also rise up, as people may skip ahead or re-watch certain parts of the video. Re-watching could mean you have amazing content in a certain section, or that your content isn't clear and better explanation may be necessary.

OK, Now What?

Three simple ways to improve engagement are finding what gets people excited to watch your content, tailoring your content to a specific social channel, and keeping the length of your video content to a minimum.

Generating Excitement

The title and thumbnail of your video is the first impression that you make on potential viewers. I recommend A/B testing your video titles and thumbnail images. If you have similar videos on YouTube, perhaps title one with the name of a person in the video, another with the topic, and another with buzz words like new. See if a certain type of title gets higher view counts and engagement rates.

If you are including videos in email marketing campaigns, try A/B testing with the email subject line. I've found that adding the word Video to the subject line usually increases email open and click-through rate significantly. Just remember to keep the title and thumbnail relevant to the video. If you mislead a viewer with a title or image, they are likely to abruptly stop watching and that will cause a large drop off at the beginning of your engagement analytics.

Tailor to a Specific Channel

Your video may be performing great on YouTube, but not great on Facebook or Instagram. There could be many simple reasons why. For instance, Instagram tends to show the first frame of your video as the default thumbnail. Many people start videos with a fade from black, so they won't be attracting viewers with that image.

On Facebook, most people have audio off when scrolling through their news feed, so perhaps making a short version of your video with captions will catch people's attention. Then, the post can have a link to the full video.

Length Matters

If you look at the benchmark for engagement loss over time, notice that the loss increases as time increases. This mimics viewer attention spans. Always be as concise as possible. A minute? Great. Two or three minutes. Fine. Five minutes? Only if there is a good reason.

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