MP3 Button Badge & an Experiment
You may have seen me mention that last week’s video about VHD was very well received by subscribers but didn’t seem to attract many views from anyone else. One factor I suspect was the 30 mins length…but I’ve another theory that I’d like to do an experiment with.
I’ve noticed that many of the most popular videos on youtube seem to use a very similar thumbnail picture. The formula for this is a composite of a person making a surprised face, the product being featured and a few words in very large text.
This week’s video seems like the perfect time to see what happens to viewing figures when one of my otherwise normal videos gets one of these formulaic thumbnail pictures.
So here’s the video a couple of days early for patreon viewers, but please bear in mind that it’s one of my simpler videos, the ones that I need to make after a long complicated one…just to give me a bit of a breather.
Comments (31)
Sure, having a pint on a Friday night, standing by
So Matt after a few days by your estimation does the thumbnail have an effect? Morbidly curious I suppose
Funnily enough - I was just about to post a post (?) - give me a mo.
That's what the Gear settings, Speed 2.0 is for. I use it for many videos 30 minutes or more in length. It makes Louis Rossman's ranting about MacBook repairs tolerable.
A fellow tuber, bigclive.com posted a 58 minute video today on building a clock: very uncharacteristic of him - he usually rattles off bite-sized vignettes, and that's part of his appeal. That's a serious investment in time for any follower to watch, and I think you, Mr. Techmoan may be onto something. Now I found your VHD video fascinating, and watched it avidly: but for someone who's not an 80's technojunkie 30 minutes that might be a bit long. That said, it's really easy to fall into the trap of watering down your channel for "mass appeal", only to hollow out the core of your niche audience instead. You'll exhaust the rich veins of 80's esoterica faster, and end up having to cover collectors edition tamagochi and Magic the gathering cards if you're not careful :o I'm sure your core audience love the esoteric detail and backgrounding that goes into your videos, and I'm sure you obtain enjoyment from researching it as well. If all you want to do is to chase that elusive snitch (with apologies to Harry Potter) of maximum views, then shorter videos may be a way to do that. But Youtube is chock-full of shallow, click-bait channels transparently peddling tat, unboxing videos and plaguarized content. Yours isn't one of those, and whilst I can't tell you how to position your very personable channel, I can only tell you what I like your channel, and why you are an esteemed member of my very small, patreon contributed club. Carry on! (Oh, and loved this video, too - I reckon no DRM was the killer for this: record companies seem terrified of things like this.)
The topics will remain the same. But if it does turn out that shorter videos work better (under 15 mins) for more people due to time constraints of watching on a phone on a commute etc, it would make sense to split any videos that have a natural break into two pieces. For example the video I'm working on at the moment really feels like two videos joined together...there's the history and a demo, then there's a how-to section where I show how to achieve much of what was shown in part 1 with some diy equipment. I haven't shot it yet, but I feel that if it's split in two, I'll be able to get part 1 out while I'm still working on part 2. Also any questions asked on part 1 could be addressed in part 2. I think it stands the chance of making things better, rather than worse.
At first I was like that's a rubbish idea,but I actually think it's quite cool as a novelty item/xmas present. At least that aren't selling for stupid prices.
Apparently the thumbnail is rather important. Attended VidCon ( a conference for YouTube and other video creators) in the US this last year and they had sessions on increasing views including a rather significant segment on how to create the right kind of thumbnail.
It will be very interesting to see tomorrow how a 9 min video that took about £20 and a few days to put together compares against a 30 min video that took a year and cost £1000 when it comes to viewing figures. Another thing I was thinking is the number of views that come from mobile devices..and the likelihood of maintaining a strong phone signal for half an hour vs a few mins.
If you want to grow your viewer base of 10 year olds, then you are on the right path, but you havent used nearly enough clickbait. "OMG! MP3 is dead?" "Look. Musical clothes!" "Illuminati tracking device??" Then lay down a bed of NCS music in the background <a href="https://youtu.be/Q_ojhcx-wrk" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/Q_ojhcx-wrk</a> and you're golden. But expect the 4chan type comments to grow exponentially.
There was one tech channel...and I forget who, but I looked on their feed and every video has a picture with a person basically doing the 'home alone' surprised face in the corner. But this is really just an experiment to see how much the video thumbnail affects views. I'm not a fan of this formula, but perhaps if it really does work, I'll have to re-think the way I approach this. I see many people who watch YouTube saying "ohhh I never watch TV any more...in fact I don't even have a TV...in fact I don't even know what a TV is, because I'm so modern. When the reality is that if I adopt more of a TV based structure and start a video with me talking to the camera with a TV-style "coming up on this episode of Techmoan" type opening, a lot of people say they prefer it. So to me however much people protest that they don't like `TV, it seems that if you take away too much of the established TV formula that has become ingrained in our psyche of what we expect entertainment to look like, it becomes too difficult to watch.
Did your clock in the background lose its WiFi connection at the 7:16 mark? Just what I need in a clock :)
In a way...the internet to the house kept being disconnected that day every few mins...so I decided to shoot video rather than do research or uploading.
For a second, I thought about disliking the video, just to see your reaction to being infiltrated by the hater army. ;-) Good video. Low quality but still worth publishing!
It is worth a try!
You've reverted to the 'reel to reel' as opposed to the oscilloscope intro? Although both are great, are you sticking to your roots or is that part of your experiment? Agree with your comments regards the Allman Brothers, a great album; but I wouldn't wear as a badge - sorry; PlayButton..!
I'm alternating intros...depending on how I feel on the day and whether I'm in the video at the beginning or not.
I just wanted to say, American here and I would call that a badge as well, although I get the pun they were going for.
But does the playbutton work on a turntable?
I think Zac's busy finding out if he can play a record on a microwave turntable.
I had a Pavlovian reaction to your music choice at 4:40 to expect the rest of the video to consist of car reviews.
Not being too familiar with the albums of the Allman Brothers...I knew that this was their tune but I was happy to find that it was also on this album.
I hope we see more of Jack Gobshite :)
He's only been seen once before, but a lot of people liked him. <a href="https://youtu.be/oRSp-KODVog" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/oRSp-KODVog</a>
I think you have something with the "placeholder" image. I'm about to watch.
Enjoyed it! Especially Dragons' Tank. Looking forward to future Dragons' Tank episodes with equally as whacky products.
That bit was a last minute addition. It's things like this that only come to me when I'm sat at the computer doing the editing and I realise something is missing.
:O Spoiler Removed as hadn't realised
It's just an experiment, not a permanent change. I definitely don't intend to appear in any more thumbnails unless I can use a frame grab from the video. These photos are a pain to shoot.
Yikes. Some of the YouTube thumbnail trends are not much better than clickbait. The other type that really bugs is a picture of something highly implausible, photoshopped, and usually not in the actual video, with a giant red arrow pointing at it. Once you've seen one once suddenly they're everywhere. For what it's worth I really enjoyed last weeks video. Though since I'm obviously a Patreon subscriber I'm only confirming your observations. :)
That red arrow thing drives me potty. Another one is the red ring on those click bait adverts - circling something irrelevant. "The secrets casinos don't want you to know" with a circle around the handle of a one-armed bandit.