Analytics – The Real Information
Once you have a few videos published on your channel and they are receiving views, you can turn to YouTube Analytics and see what is working and what is not.
YouTube offers several reports within analytics: Overview, Reach Viewers, Interest Viewers, and Build An Audience for your channel as well as analytics for each individual video: Watch Time, Views, Subscribers, Audience Retention, and Likes (vs. Dislikes).
You want to analyze Audience Retention so you can see exactly where you gain viewer interest during your video (displays how your video performed vs average viewership on YouTube).
Step-by-step:
- Navigate your YouTube account.
- Click into the Analytics section and look at your top videos over the X time of your account.
- Once you’ve identified your top videos, type each video title into the search bar so you can the Audience Retention for each video.
- Analyze the Audience Retention graph and look for positions of the graph where you had an increase (or bump) in retention. Take note of the times these increases occurred.
- Watch the video and fast-forward to the portions of the video where you recorded an increase. What were you saying or doing just before the increase? What you are looking at is the content that works for your viewers and your goal is to understand what works and make more of it.
- Repeat this process for the remaining videos.
By regularly analyzing Audience Retention metrics, you stand a greater chance of creating the content your views want.
YouTube success begins with understanding your audience. Analytics provides the “data” behind decision making – and the more you know, the more successful you with be. For a deeper understanding onb YouTube analytics, read this article publish on SproutSocial by Brent Barnhart: How to Use YouTube Analytics to Optimize Video Performance.