Shorten Videos to Improving Audience Retention and Upload Consistency?

[Abdullahx9000]

I am experiencing issues/problems with Audience Retention which is really low in most of my videos at 20-50%. They are usually 10 minutes long with a lot of Epic and Funny Clips with editing, zoom and subtitles. I put around 10 hours on each video and it kinda makes me sad that it feels like I spent all that time on little. I am also having some problems with video upload consistencies. As I am barely able to upload a video every few weeks sometimes multiple months'.

Would it improve my Audience retention if I decrease the length of upcoming videos to around 3-5 minutes? I feel like this can help with the audience retention and upload inconsistency.

 

[Tito Tims Videos]

I was making like 15 minute vids with about a 4-5 minute retention. So... I decided to make shorter vids and see if the same 4-5 minute retention would help, with only a 5 or 6 minute vid. Hoping for it count as a higher percentage. It kind of backfired on me. All i got were less views and numerous complaints. I found that I have a small, but active, base. They do watch the whole vid, and were complaining about the shorter vids.

I went back to my regular, longer format, and they were happier. Now my vids are 15-20 minutes usually, and my avg retention is still about 5 minutes.

I do not think it will really help you on retention... BUT if it helps you on consistency, it might be good to try the shorter vids. Once you get into a consistent rhythm perhaps you can work on longer vids later, if you want.

 

[Abdullahx9000]

I was making like 15 minute vids with about a 4-5 minute retention. So... I decided to make shorter vids and see if the same 4-5 minute retention would help, with only a 5 or 6 minute vid. Hoping for it count as a higher percentage. It kind of backfired on me. All i got were less views and numerous complaints. I found that I have a small, but active, base. They do watch the whole vid, and were complaining about the shorter vids.

I went back to my regular, longer format, and they were happier. Now my vids are 15-20 minutes usually, and my avg retention is still about 5 minutes.

I do not think it will really help you on retention... BUT if it helps you on consistency, it might be good to try the shorter vids. Once you get into a consistent rhythm perhaps you can work on longer vids later, if you want.

Oh, I was expecting that if people watched 3 minutes of a 10 minute video, they could easily watch 3-5 minutes of a 5 minute video xD

It definitely will help in consistency. I will do that for a while and see if there is any change to audience retention and overall views. Consistency is a HUGE issue on my channel. I was able to consistently post every week for a month or so (some time ago) and the overall views of those videos kept going up. The opposite happens when I take a break/fail to upload for some time, I loose a LOT of views on the newer videos and it takes a while to even get back to where I was

 

[Tito Tims Videos]

Consistency is key for me. I try to stay ahead by scheduling my releases for Mon & Fri. I try to have 6 or 8 uploaded and scheduled. I am about 3 weeks ahead, right now. My next vid will be scheduled for 3JUL

I took a 2 month break to go visit my kids, in the US and ran out of scheduled vids. Nothing posted for 6 weeks. It took almost 2 months of regular posting to get the viewers back. Guess they thought I quit... They are back now and I am really trying to stay on schedule now.

Check out your analytics (the YT beta is awesome for analytics). I found that about 50% of my views drop out in the 1st minute (most in 30 seconds). Looks like they just did not like what they saw (but my thumbnails & titles got the clicks). BUT almost 30% of my viewers watch the entire vid. So the average stays low... but most of my active audience does watch all, or most, of each vid. It makes me not worry so much about the actual retention number. As long as my base is watching, I am doing ok. I think YT would promote better if my retention was higher? Maybe? But such is life.

 

[Abdullahx9000]

Consistency is key for me. I try to stay ahead by scheduling my releases for Mon & Fri. I try to have 6 or 8 uploaded and scheduled. I am about 3 weeks ahead, right now. My next vid will be scheduled for 3JUL

I took a 2 month break to go visit my kids, in the US and ran out of scheduled vids. Nothing posted for 6 weeks. It took almost 2 months of regular posting to get the viewers back. Guess they thought I quit... They are back now and I am really trying to stay on schedule now.

Check out your analytics (the YT beta is awesome for analytics). I found that about 50% of my views drop out in the 1st minute (most in 30 seconds). Looks like they just did not like what they saw (but my thumbnails & titles got the clicks). BUT almost 30% of my viewers watch the entire vid. So the average stays low... but most of my active audience does watch all, or most, of each vid. It makes me not worry so much about the actual retention number. As long as my base is watching, I am doing ok. I think YT would promote better if my retention was higher? Maybe? But such is life.

That is a lot of scheduled videos! It sounds like a great idea so you can relax for some time and record more. I will try do it this way. I think youtube promotes videos with high audience rentention

 

[Momentum Productions]

I am experiencing issues/problems with Audience Retention which is really low in most of my videos at 20-50%. They are usually 10 minutes long with a lot of Epic and Funny Clips with editing, zoom and subtitles. I put around 10 hours on each video and it kinda makes me sad that it feels like I spent all that time on little. I am also having some problems with video upload consistencies. As I am barely able to upload a video every few weeks sometimes multiple months'.

Would it improve my Audience retention if I decrease the length of upcoming videos to around 3-5 minutes? I feel like this can help with the audience retention and upload inconsistency.

I tried shortening my videos and it didn't really help with my retention

 

[GameVestment]

NOOO don't do it,, I did that mistake thinking the same but actually I believe it hurt my channel more than I thought it was going to help.
The answer is pretty simple, YouTube really focuses on Watch Time now, making shorter videos gave me less views because since watch time was lower, YouTube stopped recommending my videos so I stopped getting subscribers, from gaining 200 subs per day I was getting only 20.

Lesson learned and now I only upload 7-10 mins videos

 

[Tristanstulce]

NOOO don't do it,, I did that mistake thinking the same but actually I believe it hurt my channel more than I thought it was going to help.
The answer is pretty simple, YouTube really focuses on Watch Time now, making shorter videos gave me less views because since watch time was lower, YouTube stopped recommending my videos so I stopped getting subscribers, from gaining 200 subs per day I was getting only 20.

Lesson learned and now I only upload 7-10 mins videos

Would you argue that even if view retention is kind of low, it still is beneficial to have longer content?

 

[GameVestment]

Would you argue that even if view retention is kind of low, it still is beneficial to have longer content?

I don't know, I still need to test retention... so far I've only seen an impact on Watch time and CTR. I'm starting to think AR will also have an impact but I believe Watch time and CTR are more important, time will tell I guess

 

[DIY Reid]

4-5 minute retention is pretty good for a 10 minute - 15 minute video.