Stop promoting on facebook and instagram because it leads to lower audience retention?

[Steps to Happier]

Hello lovely people,

I've been lurking around on this website for a few weeks now and have come to the point that I would like to ask you all a question. I started my channel about a month ago. The first 3 video's I just send to my relatives and that was that. But I felt like, why not post a link to my facebook and instagram. I have about 400 fb 'friends' and 180 on instagram so it's mostly people I know, not an influencer whatsoever ;p. However, I do notice a significant increase in views for videos that I 'promoted' and did gain around 9 subscribers from doing this.

Now my dilemma: while views and subs increased, audience retention decreased... From 3 minutes for an 11 minute video to around 2 minutes. Which I feel like is pretty bad audience retention. The beginning of my videos is also way below average. So obviously I do want to make some changes and try to get that audience retention up, but I am not sure what to do about facebook and instagram.

Should I keep linking my videos to those platforms and just try to make my videos more interesting to keep watching.. Or should I still try and do that but also stop linking to Facebook and Insta? Which would probably mean a big decrease in views but those views will be from people that probably do want to watch more of my video. Instead of just clicking on it to see what I am up to . Would love to know your thoughts!

Sorry I don't have an avatar.. The website will not, for the life of me, let me upload one.

Edit: I added a third audience retention pic from my least watched video (not promoted) -> the Nonbelief one

 

[Crown]

Yes, you are correct.

Yes, promoting on reddit, facebook etc etc will result in views with low audience retention due to lots of "curiousity clicks" - People just having a quick look but without any real intention or interest. For a small, growing channel with few subs and few regular viewers, those views probably make up a large proportion of total views and so consequently the overall audience retention for the channel will be pushed down quite significantly. The consequence of that is the algorithm is less likely to promote those videos in "suggested videos" and in search.


For quite a while now, I've been advocating not actively promoting videos for the exact reasons that you mention. Here are some of my posts on this subject over the years that might help you:

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"Have you ever seen the analytics of traffic sources of a large successful channel? On a big channel with lots of daily views, most of them aren't coming from social media, email. They're not coming from the sub feed either. No they're coming from the suggested videos list on the right hand side of the screen. How / why do they get there? The algorithm puts videos there which have a higher than average audience retention. And the overriding factor in getting a high audience retention is to make good content.

Posting links to vids all over the interweb in the name of "marketing" is not a sustainable strategy. It will give a short-term boost in views but they'll have a terrible audience retention which will kill off your chances of ever getting in the suggested videos list. It's a manual time-consuming process. All it will do is boost the views on your latest videos, but all the older ones won't get any traffic. Then once you get fed up of posting links all over the place, those views will stop."

Source: http://yttalk.com/threads/how-do-so...in-a-short-amount-of-time.158965/post-1465818
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"Social media and forums etc isn't organic because it's not automated. As soon as the creator stops posting to social media, forums etc, promoting, then the views will dry up. Also these sources tend to bring in views with lower than average audience retention because you are pushing your content. Organic growth has better audience retention because people are actively searching and clicking out of choice. Poor audience retention from the non-organic sources will harm your chances of getting decent traffic from the organic sources (because the organic sources are driven by the algorithm which looks at the view time)"

Source: http://yttalk.com/threads/drive-organic-traffic-for-your-channel.249888/post-2140152
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In the short term, it will result in slightly fewer views than if you promote like mad. Those fewer views will however be considered "better quality" because typically they will have better audience retention. Consequently, in the longer term (the time it takes the algorithm to gather enough of a sample), the daily views on those videos will increase over time.

The problem is that most new Youtubers are too impatient and just blast their videos all over the place. That results in very low retention and that results in very little chance of climbing the search results and/or getting suggested. "

Source: http://yttalk.com/threads/organic-views-with-no-promo.268125/post-2231262

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My advice for a new Youtube would be to concentrate and spend their time on making good quality videos and good SEO so that they start to appear in search and "suggested videos" all by themselves. Progress will be slow at the start but when the algorithm kicks in, the views will increase exponentially. Literally when the algorithm notices a higher audience retention over a significant sample of views, the number of daily views can double overnight and keep doubling every few weeks. When it happens, you realise what a waste of time it is for people to spend hours per day posting to social media to get a few views. ^^

It's a classic example of the "hare and the tortoise" - The "hare" is the channel that promotes. They start off well and leave the "tortoise" (channel with no promotion) for dust but in the longer term, the tortoise wins the race.

Good luck.

Sorry I don't have an avatar.. The website will not, for the life of me, let me upload one.

If you're using an adblocker, you'll have to disable it.

 

[Steps to Happier]

Thank you so much for your reply! This is so helpful. I think what you've said is absolutely true. After doing a bit of research on analytics and such I had already come to realise that good audience retention is king. But on the other hand, lots of people advise to (and how to) promote your video's, bit of conflicting information which resulted in my question ;p. And I started panicking a little bit when I saw it go down so dramatically... Bit bummed that I did promote three videos so far but I am going to leave it at that. I think I'll just post a trailer to facebook, without a link. People that do really want to watch my video might go look for it on youtube, but I won't get those 'curiousity clicks' (great term btw).

And thank you for an answer to my avatar problem .

 

[tiktokchanz]

I see.. Now I understand why my views count keep dropping, thanks for the advice and tips! Much appreciate it

 

[wchap001]

i never promoted anywhere. Maybe reddit 2 or 3 times, but I have not done that in months. I just let it do its thing. you need to create engaging content for them to stick around. it is hard, but through some studies, it can come together

I am still working on mine, but I think I am doing pretty well. im usually above 70% 80% of the entire video and been growing pretty fast with that snowball effect all on its own.

I used to sit 50 - 100 views. now in about 2 or 3 days its about 200 - 400. notice retention is also higher on those video

so just keep doing your thing, improve and let YT automatically promote your videos

 

[thefourwinds]

so just keep doing your thing, improve and let YT automatically promote your videos

This is the correct strategy. Just keep making videos and one day something will stick.

 

[VicvideopIC]

Yes, you are correct.

Yes, promoting on reddit, facebook etc etc will result in views with low audience retention due to lots of "curiousity clicks" - People just having a quick look but without any real intention or interest. For a small, growing channel with few subs and few regular viewers, those views probably make up a large proportion of total views and so consequently the overall audience retention for the channel will be pushed down quite significantly. The consequence of that is the algorithm is less likely to promote those videos in "suggested videos" and in search.

Very interesting!
My channel is two years old, 4100 subscribers and an average of 500 view per day, with about 100 videos.
I promote on FB and Reddit a lot. My audience retention is not very good. I get a decent traffic, but traffic from suggested videos is less than 5%! Also the SV traffic keeps going down and it is much lower than when I started my channel.
Maybe I should change strategy

 

[CliffyBlyro]

Interesting topic! Sorry for my weak english skills, but I do have a question.

Is it actually possible to "damage" a youtube channel in the eyes of the algorithm with bad retention rate via twitter and other social media plattforms? Almost 70% of my views are a result of my twitter audience, the retention rate on the other hand is pretty bad. This has been going for at least 4 years now. Is it wise to start a new channel and start at 0 again or should I just leave the social media game and keep on pushing without it? I'm just kinda afraid that future attempts will be worthless because the algorithm "thinks" that my channel is not worth the recommendation. And should I create a new channel with a new google account (not sure if the algorithm sees my entire google account as a boring problem).

 

[OpiumSymposium]

If you want to promote your videos on social media, become a part of a Facebook group that will enjoy the kind of content that you create. Be engaged in the group, make some friends there and share your content every once in a while. It is much more likely that these people will actually watch your videos rather than click and leave.

 

[OpiumSymposium]

Interesting topic! Sorry for my weak english skills, but I do have a question.

Is it actually possible to "damage" a youtube channel in the eyes of the algorithm with bad retention rate via twitter and other social media plattforms? Almost 70% of my views are a result of my twitter audience, the retention rate on the other hand is pretty bad. This has been going for at least 4 years now. Is it wise to start a new channel and start at 0 again or should I just leave the social media game and keep on pushing without it? I'm just kinda afraid that future attempts will be worthless because the algorithm "thinks" that my channel is not worth the recommendation. And should I create a new channel with a new google account (not sure if the algorithm sees my entire google account as a boring problem).

I'd recommend leaving your channel as it is for now. Make a couple of new videos and don't promote them. See how it goes compared to your older videos.