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Do you recognise this?
This screenshot is taken from the analytics page of YouTube Studio where it shows you your audience retention rate (or viewer retention rate).
When social media first began, viewer retention probably didn’t really mean that much. Do you remember back in the early 2010s during YouTube’s early stage when all everyone cared about was views and subscribers? Seeing our favourite Youtubers cross 1 million subscribers or 10 million subscribers was something to cheer about because your subscriber count was a milestone metric that translated to success.
Nowadays, a creator or brand’s follower or subscriber count means very little to how successful they are, and it’s not the main metric that social media geeks (including us) focus on, which is why today’s topic is all about retention video editing.
What is viewer retention rate?
Viewer or audience retention is defined as how much of a video is watched by your viewers, normally presented in percentage, to its total views.
Say you upload a 1 minute video and your viewer retention rate is 50%. That means that on average, your viewers stop watching your video after the 30 second mark, which is 50% of your entire video length.
Why is it important?
If Instagram tells you that your video got 1000 views, it might not mean a lot because you only know how many people saw your video. Another thing to take into account is what counts as one view? If someone stumbled upon your video on TikTok on their For You Page but swiped away one second later, does that count as one view? If 1000 people do that, all you know is you got 1000 views, but you would not know that every single one of them did not watch the entire video and were not interested.
It is like walking into a restaurant, seeing the menu, and walking about without even tasting the food.
A high viewer retention rate means that you are keeping your audience hooked. A low viewer retention rate means very few of your viewers cared and did not receive any or much value.
Hence, knowing and analysing your audience retention rate gives you a clearer picture of whether you are creating content that your audience cares about. We’ll talk about this deeper another time.
The Rise of Retention Editing
Knowing this, a rather new style of editing has surfaced, known as retention editing. It is the art of making the video as visually and even audibly as exciting as it can be, to ensure viewers do not click away in order to protect the video’s performance.
Probably one prime example of a creator that uses retention video editing is MrBeast. The fast-paced and visually exciting way of how his videos are edited is one of the many reasons why he was able to stand out from the crowd and achieved success.
In fact, so many other creators have adopted this similar style of editing to their own videos and some people online have coined this as the “MrBeastification of YouTube videos”. It has gotten to the point where certain YouTube channels are literally a cookie cutter version of MrBeast’s videos.
It makes a lot of sense to be doing this and it is certainly helpful to some degree, but is it the only way to succeed on social media? Do you really need to spend all your time and effort to invest in bombastic post production?
The Truth: You cannot rely on video editing alone
Here is a quote from the YouTube channel, Cutting Concepts called “The Terrible Truth About Retention Editing” that really struck me. “If people aren’t clicking off, it just means they’re still watching, not necessarily that they’re entertained.”
They are right.
If people are still watching, it does not mean that they fully grasp what you as a creator are trying to convey. It does not mean that they found your video valuable or entertaining. It certainly does not mean that they will follow or subscribe to you for your future videos.
The truth is retention editing is just like any other editing style. It is a tool. If you only rely on retention editing, and ignore other aspects of how to create a video that your audience cares about, your video will just be “fast paced” and “attention grabbing” without any valuable substance.
Continue doing this aimless retention editing for long enough, and your viewers might feel like your videos are getting repetitive, unentertaining and borderline tiring to watch because the pacing is too fast. A result of over relying on psychological stimulation can definitely be a loss of viewership.
Here are a couple of factors that we think are more important than retention editing.
1. Video topic
Let’s face it. If your audience does not care about your video topic in the first place, it will not perform well and no level of god tier video editing can save it.
You need to pick topics that either answer a certain burning question, feed your audience’s curiosity, educate them on something you are knowledgeable or passionate about, entertain them, etc. because at the end of the day, content creation is all about keeping users on the platform. If people like the things you talk about, your audience will like you, and the social media platforms will like you too.
VOX does an incredible job at choosing the right topics that their online audience is interested in. Notice how their videos cover a question or topic that sparks curiosity and gets you excited to know answers to.
2. Storytelling
Your skill of being able to craft a well written and well delivered story to your audience is one of the most powerful things that can bring your videos to the next level.
Take Ryan Trahan for example. You will not find exciting and over the top video editing on his videos, but he is a brilliant storyteller, with his most popular series on his channel being his penny videos, where he challenges himself to survive in another country for a number of days starting with only a penny.
Each video he makes is well thought out and aims to bring us the viewers along with him on a journey. His entertaining and engaging way of storytelling is the reason why he has more than 3 billion views on his YouTube channel at the time of writing this, with each video surpassing millions of views.
3. Video title and thumbnail
In our opinion we value the title and thumbnail miles more than video editing. This is because a well crafted video title and thumbnail is the key to get users to click on your video to watch it.
Think of creating content as if you’re creating your profile on a dating app. Your goal is to attract someone and you are competing with millions of other people with the same motive as you on the same platform. Below is how many videos are uploaded every single day on the two most popular video platforms in 2024.
YouTube - 3.7 million videos
TikTok - 34 million videos
Think about that for a second. Every. Single. Day. That is how cutthroat it is. So your first impression probably matters quite a fair bit here.
A prime example we can all learn from? Take a look at how MKBHD titles his videos and designs his thumbnails.
4. Branding
A good video and thumbnail strategy gets viewers to click on your video, but phenomenal branding gets viewers to remember you, and this matters whether you are running a multi-million dollar brand or if you are just starting out.
We’re not asking you to create the best logo or come up with the catchiest name for your Instagram handle or YouTube channel, because that is not what branding is all about.
Branding is not your logo. A part of branding is how you choose to communicate with your audience.
Do you want to be seen as serious and well mannered? Young and vibrant? Sleek and upper-class?
Speaking about your audience, who are you exactly trying to reach? Consumers? Business people? Teenagers?
If you ask yourself these questions your content will be more consistent with your brand, and in return you are clearly telling the algorithm who you are targeting, which means your content will reach out to people who will most likely enjoy watching your stuff.
As you see from the Gary Vee YouTube channel, his videos have a similar format, speaking style, even thumbnail design. Consistency in your brand voice, messaging and how you look online builds a strong brand and it is not created overnight.
5. Interacting with your audience
This sounds cliche but lots of people forget about it. To succeed on social media we as creators or brands need to think of it as a two-way channel of communication and not a one-way transaction. We are reaching out to and connecting with real humans behind the other screen.
Ways to keep your audience engaged:
Ask questions
Respond to questions
Provide a prompt to leave a comment
Encourage them to like, share and save your video
Ask for their honest feedback
Ask for suggestions on topics they want you to cover next
Consider live streaming
Direct them to your other social media channels or other videos
Bobby Parrish is an American home cook and YouTube creator. He has a series of videos that gets hundreds of thousands of views on his channel, Bobby Parrish, where he tells us what foods to get when shopping at popular US large chain stores like Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, etc.
Putting aside that he gives really insightful nutritional advice and oftentimes lets his viewers know when something good is on sale to save some money, his videos are interactive where we as the viewers feel as if we are shopping with him.
6. Consistency
The reason why we put this point last is because it is the simplest piece of advice which is the hardest to execute.
When we first start creating content, our first couple of videos are going to be bad. That is a hard pill to swallow but we just have to face it. Why did I bring that up? It is because many of us (even us here at TCP) strive for perfection. It is part of human nature, and there is nothing wrong with having high standards. However, perfection is the enemy of progress, and quality is the result of quantity. By uploading regularly, you are subconsciously training yourself to be better and better at your craft. Not only that, you are telling the social media platform and your audience how frequently they can expect a new video upload from you, which builds trust and authority in your niche.
Take internet stars, Rhett and Link for example, who run multiple YouTube channels under their company, Mythical Entertainment, but most notably their main channel, Good Mythical Morning which is where they air their daily morning internet show with the same name.
The first episode of Good Mythical Morning aired on the 9th of January 2012, with episodes airing from five days a week, Monday to Friday. What is impressive and respectable is they have never missed an upload ever since and their show is still going as strong as ever today.
As of writing, Good Mythical Morning now has over 2500 episodes. If you add up all the number of episodes of Family Guy (as of March 2024) and The Simpsons, and doubled the number, Good Mythical Morning would still have more episodes. Rhett and Link are examples of creators that have been creating long form content successfully for years, to much of their brands' benefit in fact. So if you want to know why long form content might just be as important as short form content, read last week's blog to find out.
In a nutshell:
Retention editing is a tool, not a requirement, and like all tools, it is ultimately neither good nor bad. You may use it wisely whenever necessary, but take these six tips into consideration as well.
The Creative Pistachio was founded with a mission to help people like you share your ideas online by creating valuable content for your audience. We are constantly finding ways to help you get creating.
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