A common misconception on the web is that viewers watch videos from beginning to end. The reality is they often don’t…rather, they fast-forward though videos, jump around or watch the first few seconds and then leave.
YouTube and similar sites have fueled this misconception with their “view” counters, which show how many times a video has been viewed. What people don’t realize is that a “view” doesn’t mean the entire video has been viewed, it usually means only the first 2 seconds of a video has been viewed. In other words, people tend to watch web video like they do TV…they are channel flippers.
So here are 3 simple tricks to help keep people watching your videos from beginning to end, in no particular order:
1. Keep in short and sweet. If your video goes on for more than 3 minutes, statistics show you will have lost over 90% of your viewers. Short video works better on the web. If you can explain a concept in 10 seconds, then don’t stretch that concept out to a minute.
2. Keep your video moving. This means don’t have a single shot of the same thing on the screen for the entire video (for example, your talking head). Viewers will get bored of looking at this quickly and stop paying attention or just click away. Instead, use multiple camera angles/shots or place related graphics in the video…and mix them all in intermittently throughout the video.
3. Use background music. Music effects people emotionally. And if they like what they’re hearing, they’ll want to keep listening to it…which means they’ll keep watching your video. You can also use music to help emphasize key points in your video. Or to put in another way, video becomes more powerful when music is attached to it.
Hollywood movie trailers are the perfect example of how all three of these tricks are used in combination…where a 2 hour movie is summarized in 2 minutes…and you’re glued to the video the entire time.
Want to see these 3 tricks in action? Then just watch the movie trailer below: