How to Engage YouTube Viewers to Increase Audience Retention and Watch Time

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Even though most YouTube content is no longer than a few minutes long, there are still plenty of barriers to the goal of having a viewer engaged to the very end of one of your videos once they have clicked on it, and that will put a heavy dent in arguably YouTube's most influential analytics - audience retention and watch time. Reasons for viewers not watching to the end of a video include:  

  • Video unexpectedly buffers early on
  • Viewer sees more appealing suggested video in sidebar
  • Video does not get to the point or be clear on what it will contain

It is the last bullet that I want to focus on for this blog. Once you have attracted someone to click on your content with a great title, description, and thumbnail image, it is so important to set expectations  or hook the audience in the first few seconds of the video. Here are two ways this technique can be used:

In how-to videos, show off the finished product first

No one wants to sit through even a few minutes of video instructions if they don't know what the end result will be, so if your video is a tutorial, show your audience what they will achieve at the end of the video in the first few seconds. 

Create intrigue to compel your audience to continue watching

Whether he pops onto screen with a fascinating fact or intrigues his audience with his tone of voice and location, Vsauce  does a great job of compelling his audience to continue watching, even though his videos are - in YouTube terms - very long. 

Similarly, you could use a teaser clip of a scene coming up in the video or a spoken line ike, "Want to know that links a pot of jello and a punch in the jaw? Keep watching to find out!" to hook in your audience. 

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The Facebook Passion Page Project Part 1: What is A Passion Page?

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What is the Passion Page project? 

The Passion Page project is a multi-part blog post series in which I'll be telling the story of the launch, growth, and hopeful monetisation of a Facebook Page, with very  little investment, both monetary and time-wise. My hope is that this will be a success, and that you will be able to replicate the process too.

In this first part, I'd like to introduce the concept of Passion Pages, explain how they differ from ordinary Facebook Pages, and why they could be lucrative for you and your brand. Without further ado, let's go... 

What are Passion Pages? 

Chances are that you have already encountered plenty of Passion Pages on Facebook, and you might even interact with them regularly. They're Pages that, rather than focus on a specific brand or product, instead post content that is centered around a specific theme or idea, either serious or silly - but mostly the latter. Two popular examples include "Welcome to the Internet" and "I fucking love science"

Why should businesses care?

Passion Pages are home to some of the most liked, commented-on, and shared content on all of Facebook. As a brand, it can sometimes be hard to juggle to image that you want to convey of yourself on your Facebook Page against the desire to post content that, however shallow (cute cats, sarcastic quotes, random funny images) will garner attention, and hopefully earn you some return on investment. This is where Passion Pages come in.

Passion Pages allow brands a separate space to experiment with different types of content - often light-hearted - without the risk of upsetting their existing fan base, but also provide an opportunity to subtly nudge viewers in the direction of your core Page or to introduce new revenue streams on the Passion Page itself. 

Think of Passion Pages as the Pinterest-y board side of Facebook; a place where companies can shine of the spotlight on the wider culture of their niche, however weird and wonderful that might be. To make up an example or two, McDonald's could launch a Passion Page called "I hate gherkins in my burgers" or one from Home Depot could be called "Epic DIY Fails." 

Coming up: The story of my own Passion Page

I launched my own Passion Page on Facebook in June 2013. With a very small initial investment, at the time of writing has over 2,500 fans, nearly 3,500 engaged users per week, a weekly reach close t 40,000 people, and attracts over 50 new fans per day.

 In the next part of this series, I'll be lifting the lid on my Passion Page, with a story of its history up to the present day.

 Will you be joining me on my Passion Page journey? Let me know in the comments below!

Andrew Macarthy is the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips, available for Kindle and in paperback.

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5 Ways to Use Facebook Embedded Posts for Effective Business Marketing

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The introduction of embeddable Facebook posts allows brands and individuals to quickly and easily lift posts from their Pages and profiles to give the content a new and extended lease of life elsewhere on the web. Here are5 Ways to Use Facebook Embedded Posts for Effective Business Marketing :

1. Make blog posts more social

Post by 500 Social Media Marketing Tips.

In times gone by, if a blogger wanted to highlight Facebook content on their site - whether their own or someone else's -  the best they could do was snap a screenshot and upload an image into their post. With embeddable posts, however, it is now easy to feature the content in question and allow readers to interact with it. 

2. Share positive endorsements

Post by Swansea Bay 2017.

If a customer happens to post something lovely about your product or service and you happen to come across it, grab the comment, highlight it in a Facebook post, and embed it on your website. Visitors who see it will be able to boost the customer's sentiment by liking, commenting, and sharing the original post.

3. Make your posts as shareable as possible

Post by Oreo.

Us social media folk are always harking on about making the content you post as eye-catching and engaging as possible, and embeddable Facebook posts give you another reason to keep on doing it. It goes without saying that the more attractive your posts, the more chance they have of being embedded by others... hopefully lots of times!

4. Keep the good stuff at the start

Post by Swansea City Football Club.

Similar to how long posts display in the News Feed, embedded Facebook posts will feature a "See more" link if the text of the status exceeds a certain character limit. If it is inevitable that your post will need one of these links, at least try to make sure the most imperative information is before the cut-off point. 

5.  Interactive press releases

Post by PlayStation.

Press releases are notoriously boring for journalists to digest, even if the wall of text facing them contains exciting information. Why not use the help of an embedded Facebook post to help make your next product announcement more exciting and interactive?

What ways will you be using Facebook embedded posts? Let me know in the comments below! 

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Andrew Macarthy is the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips, available for Kindle and in paperback.

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When is the Best Time to Post on Facebook? Here's How to Find Out!

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It's one of social media's oldest questions, and one that many a marketer has struggled to answer - when is the best time to post on my company's Facebook Page? The answer used to be a little difficult to decipher, but the recent overhaul of Facebook Insights now gives everyone a much clearer idea. 

Whoa! Watch out for time zones

Here's a screen grab from my own Facebook Page's Insights. And the first thing to note is that the data shown is from your own computer's local time zone.  This means that if, for example, you are advising a client in a faraway country on the best time to post on their Page by looking at their Insights, what you see as the best time won't  be the best time for them if they're several hours ahead or behind you. Be sure to do the maths and adjust the timing accordingly!

What days are your fans on Facebook? 

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The next section takes your fans and tells you how many of them are on Facebook at any  time on any  day during the past week. In my example, Facebook tells me that 1.3 thousand of my fans (my current 'like' total is around 1.4 thousand) are online each day... not sure what happened to Tuesday!

What time of day do most of your fans see your Facebook posts? 

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The last section of the page shows you the average number of your fans who saw any posts on Facebook in an hour - I'm assuming this is over the seven days shown above. Hover your mouse over the graph and you'll get figures the the one above, which shows me that the time that the most of my fans saw a post from me in the past week was 636 people at 3pm, on average.

Conclusion

Of course, taking just one week's figures and using them as a basis for all of my posting on Facebook would be unwise. However, by checking Insights regularly, I can begin to get a more detailed idea about when my fans are online, and optimise my posting strategy to catch as many eyes as possible. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Andrew Macarthy is the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips, available for Kindle and in paperback.

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