My team and I constantly create and test video content across different platforms to determine what we should focus on. We firmly believe that it is equally important to learn from what doesn’t work, as much as what does. You need to learn from all variations.
On a recent call with my content creation group, we viewed and analyzed two videos my team and I tested:
1. A video that performed well
2. A video that did not perform well
Here are the lessons we shared:
Naveen, my creative director, summarized it nicely that even when you’ve found a formula that works, you still need to constantly test things to validate your methods. You must also find new ways to keep growing your audience. If you approach your content with a willingness to test and learn, you have nothing to fear if your content doesn’t perform.
As with all video, our first analysis is in the first three seconds:
- Video 1: On a very basic level, the question in the video title bar is a universal question most people can ask themselves. Starting the video with a store camera video gives the viewer a journalistic feel that can drive immediate interest. The dramatic thumbnail of seeing someone lying on the stairs also tells the viewer something interesting is coming.
- Video 2: This video starts as a quote card, based on the common thesis that quotes do well on social platforms. However, the video didn’t perform well. We believe that it didn’t inspire urgency to watch the video, likely because most audiences are accustomed to quote cards requiring less than three seconds of attention. Viewers left before watching the full video. We’re going back to the drawing board on this one to test other ways to draw people in.
What did the numbers say?
- Video 1: The video hit a view rate of 41.3% with a share rate of 1%, which is optimal in the range of metrics we seek.
- Video 2: The video had a view rate of 21.6% with a share rate of 1.3%, half the view rate of video 1, with only slightly greater share rate. The viewers who did continue to watch the video past the first three seconds validated that the video as a whole is good. However, if few people watch it, the content’s quality doesn’t matter.
Both videos demonstrate the importance of the first three seconds the viewer sees!
We then went on to discuss the ideation of the concepts behind the videos and how we created and produced them. It included the importance of content having elements that can evoke emotion, how to vary energy, tone and other attributes. These small nuances of your videos can matter, and can be why a video performs or doesn’t.
I hope you found great value in my sharing the recap of our discussion here, and that I can continue to help you reach your growth goals.
