My first video had a 15 minute intro because I thought I needed to explain everything

I used to film my craft tutorials in my kitchen and spend the first quarter of the video just talking about my tools and the weather. Last year, a viewer from Portland commented 'get to the point already' and it clicked. Now I cut straight to the project and my average watch time went up by 3 minutes. Anyone else have a bad habit they had to break to keep people watching?

3 comments

3 Comments

sage_ramirez421mo ago

Cutting the intro is huge, but maybe the watch time went up because people actually liked the content enough to stay.

nancybailey1mo ago

Oh man, that reminds me of my friend who ran a gaming channel. He used to do a ten minute lore recap before every match. After a comment basically said what sage_ramirez42 pointed out, that people stay for good stuff, he chopped it. He just jumps into the action now with a quick two sentence setup. His views on fight tutorials doubled. Guess we all learn to stop explaining the whole universe first.

claire_ramirez29d ago

idk, I feel like cutting the intro helped but maybe it was also about figuring out what people actually wanted. @sage_ramirez42 mentioned that people stay for good stuff, and I think that's spot on. Like, if the content is solid from the start, you don't need a 10 minute backstory. I mean, my buddy tried the same thing with his cooking channel, used to explain every ingredient's origin, then just started showing the recipe right away. His views didn't double, but he got more comments from people who actually tried the dish. So maybe it's not just about chopping the intro, but making sure the intro actually hooks you into the good part.