Navigating the Maze of YouTube Retention Graphs

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Audience engagement metrics on YouTube aren't always what they seem, and retention graphs can be misleading if viewed in isolation. We explore why "good" retention varies drastically based on content length, traffic sources, and viewer behavior across different platforms.

• TikTok has reportedly surpassed Twitch to become the second most streamed platform after YouTube
• Retention graphs look different depending on video length, with shorts typically exceeding 100% while long-form content rarely does
• High-view videos often have lower retention percentages than creators expect
• Search traffic typically has shorter view duration than browse or suggested traffic
• Breaking down retention by traffic source and subscriber status reveals more useful insights than aggregate data
• YouTube doesn't currently track "hover behavior" when viewers preview but don't click
• Platform differences significantly impact engagement behaviors (TV vs. mobile vs. desktop)
• Mr. Beast has set unrealistic retention expectations for many creators
• Viewer disclaimers and overexplaining opinions have become increasingly common in content

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five-star review and join us next time when we'll be sharing more about ourselves as creators.

Transcript

TikTok Surpasses Twitch in Streaming

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome back to the only podcast where one of us has great taste in candy and the other doesn't. I'm not going to say which is which. I'm Travis and I'm here with Jen yet again.

Speaker 2 0:08

Hello everyone. Hello, I have the great taste. That's the spoiler. It was me.

Speaker 1 0:14

Great taste, less filling. Welcome to the only podcast in the world that talks about both candy, youtube growth and everything else. My name is Travis. Of course, jen is here and we'd love to help you grow your YouTube channels. We're going to do a quick hit here. Some news came out. I don't know if this is true this thing is. It's hard to verify something like this, but let's talk about it anyway. Allegedly, tiktok is now the second most streamed platform, above Twitch in this first quarter of 2025. Youtube being first, apparently TikTok second, and then Twitch being third. This is very interesting. Whether or not it's true is hard to verify.

Speaker 1 0:50

A little hearsay, hearsay A little hearsay, but the fact that there's any data at all that would even back that up is interesting. I guess I didn't even realize it. I guess I knew their TikTok had live stream, but I didn't use it. I know you've ticked the occasional talk.

Speaker 2 1:04

Yeah, tiktok, lives are like where it's at.

Speaker 1 1:08

What happens on a TikTok live.

Speaker 2 1:10

Anything Like, literally anything Like. People go live all the time doing all kinds of stuff. You don't need any kind of relationship to that person to like watch what they're doing. It's so disconnected and of course some are not but it's literally like an unfiltered youtube video in that sense where you're discovering content and you're just watching it live do you think the way they do their live streams in some way is better than the horizontal or vertical format on youtube?

Speaker 1 1:43

live streaming is it? Is it it feel entertaining or does it just feel like a bunch of people just doing things that don't make any sense?

Speaker 2 1:50

I've never seen a YouTube vertical live.

Speaker 1 1:53

Okay.

Speaker 2 1:55

I've had creators that have experimented with them, so I've seen that, but I've never been on YouTube because I don't watch shorts. You're probably not the only one who have never seen one, right.

Speaker 1 2:05

You're probably not the only one who have never seen one. Right, you're probably not the only one. So, with that being said, what about tiktok? Lives are interesting to you, because I want to understand this as a viewer of them, occasional viewer. Uh, like, what's the what's the thing? Like, what makes it interesting or cool, or whatever?

Speaker 2 2:20

all right. You're just kind of like it's so passive. You're just kind of like popping in seeing what's going. You're just kind of like popping in seeing what's going on and then leaving.

Speaker 1 2:25

Oh, very disposable.

Speaker 2 2:26

Like it's not yeah, that's what I'm saying Like there's no community, there's no viewer connection, like it's just an unedited video.

Speaker 1 2:34

Yeah, I feel like I've said this for years that short-form content really leads to. I mean, it's very hard to have an actual community behind it leads to. I mean, it's very hard to have an actual community behind it. You can have followers and stuff, but really they haven't really built a connection to you in most cases. I think there's a ton and more. Quote large TikTokers that have a very empty audience. They don't really have a genuine connection to them.

Speaker 1 2:57

Then there are smaller YouTubers that actually have an audience that really cares about them because it's so disposable, it's so quick. It's like I've watched you for 30 seconds. What kind of connection can I have with you in 30 seconds? I don't I connect with the content. I might think it's funny.

Speaker 2 3:10

Maybe there are the occasion people have like that genesis yeah, I think you could stumble upon people that you're just like, oh, I just like vibe with you but, right, all in all, like it's not really the point, you're really watching for whatever they're doing or saying and like how many times have you thought of like a funny tiktok or real or short, and then like you couldn't find that to save your life like you would have?

Speaker 2 3:35

no, this has happened to me so many times right where, if you didn't send it to someone, like that's gone on the internet, you're never gonna find it again.

Speaker 1 3:42

Yeah it's interesting because, like, as you're talking about live stream on TikTok and just kind of anything, I'm like it might be kind of fun to just randomly do some live streams and just whatever, but to what you just said, it's like if you can't even find them later not that they can't be found, but like it's harder for the average person to find them. It almost feels like even the live streams are disposable and for me I always go, then what's the point? That's always what I come back to. Money, to be clear. Well, okay, money, but like how much money can like a smaller creator? And I don't know the answer to this. I'm not saying this to be a leading question, but how much money do you think a smaller creator could make? Live stream on TikTok?

Speaker 1 4:26

And I guess, when I say smaller 10 000 followers, I go, I don't, I don't know, I don't know, like the monetary rates on tiktok, but can't the people like gift things and stuff. Yeah, have you ever gifted anything to a live streamer?

Speaker 2 4:31

no, on any platform oh yeah, I send like super chats to my friend and stuff like all the time oh, your friend, but this is your friend uh, yeah, never a stranger interesting see.

Speaker 1 4:42

I've super chatted a lot of people on YouTube. I've super chatted. A lot of creators I've watched for various reasons. Just depends on what it's no.

Speaker 2 4:49

I've never like crowd participating, crowd funding, anyone that I didn't know, actually.

Speaker 1 4:56

So you're basically money laundering.

Speaker 2 4:58

I am money laundering to all of my creator friends, which is wild. Except they don't get to take home half of it.

Speaker 1 5:04

That's what I'm saying. That's the funny thing You're actually paying YouTube to pay your friend, which is kind of wild.

Speaker 2 5:09

What happens is it starts to train. If I send a $20 Super Chat, the Super Chats are flowing in. It's a strategy.

Speaker 1 5:18

It's not like here's $20.

Speaker 2 5:20

You're so poor.

Speaker 1 5:22

Very smart. How often does this work?

Speaker 2 5:27

you're so poor, right? No very smart.

Speaker 1 5:28

How often does this work? I mean anytime, like my friends are live on any platform, so we all do it for each other like it's a community tactic wait.

Speaker 2 5:33

So then other people naturally seem to oh yeah I believe that I mean back in the day all of us were financially crowdfunded. We did not make like an income from like ads.

Speaker 1 5:48

Yeah, you were basically like, it's almost like. Yeah, you're basically doing like a pyramid scheme between each other.

Understanding YouTube Retention Graphs

Speaker 2 5:55

It's crazy. It's crazy Like people are like oh, like you hear those stories where, like smaller channels and stuff, like they make so much money, or like maybe you want to go sign up for a course or something. It's like I've made twenty thousand dollars with ten thousand subscribers or something but like it's true it happens, like it's just not, it's just looking past outside adsense very smart, uh, and I guess you could do, but that's also like deep community, like yeah you have to have a strong community which is interesting because we just did an episode on community, so you need to watch that.

Speaker 1 6:28

That was, and we didn't talk about crowdfunding yeah, so we kind of left that out. That's all right, but that's why you watch one episode to watch the other so every episode is like, unofficially, a call to action to the previous one. Yes, usually what you do in a lot of youtube videos is you do point back to an older video. We do it on accident. You're supposed to do it on purpose. Yeah, we do a complete accident because we forget to talk about things. Yeah but I feel like so crazy.

Speaker 2 6:54

So I mean the live stream on tiktok. I don't know, I would. I just I believe it. I don't know, do people like scroll on twitch, like who's discovering things on Twitch?

Speaker 1 7:05

Twitch is definitely more about communities.

Speaker 1 7:07

And a lot of people who stream on YouTube and Twitch tend to like the way the community is built on Twitch better than YouTube. But ironically, I think the reason for that is one of the strengths of YouTube, which is there is a discovery engine for YouTube. Many times I have been recommended live streams of people that are only like 10 people streaming only 10 people watching. You almost never see that on twitch. Like everything that's on the side of like you might like these are all like hundreds of people, so like they're bigger channels. You see this on youtube all the time. You'll see I see smaller youtubers live streaming all the time. I always get that.

Speaker 1 7:39

but the problem with that is I'm a random person going in there and if I'm a mean person I might just say mean stuff true which, a couple episodes ago, talking to Trisha Hershberger, she mentioned the like algorithmic audience and how she feels sorry for those people, which is why she mainly streams on twitch to her community, because when she streams elsewhere, there's so many quote random people, um that, and a lot of those people tend to be toxic, which is really interesting. So, um, the question is is, is TikTok really second? But even if they aren't now, they could be later, but it sounds like the community-based streaming in some ways is best on Twitch. Let us know what you think of that. Certainly, send us a message, but we actually have a question from one of you and you can always send us a question from the Boost by emailing us at theboostvidIQcom, and this one is from Jace.

Speaker 2 8:23

Yeah, so this one is going to kind of set off the whole, well, portion of this episode at least, talking about retention. Ah and pretty much to sum this up is is your retention good or bad? It's terrible, and how do you know? How do you even know what's good or bad? And I saw this so much in coaching because retention graphs are like a sacred thing. It's not even like I love them.

Speaker 2 8:52

They're so secret, they're just like not talked about, though, right, they feel like a sacred thing, like who's going around, like starting a you know, I don't know group chat, just sending each other retention graphs.

Speaker 1 9:04

I would. I, you know, I don't know group chat, just sending each other retention graphs I would.

Speaker 2 9:06

I love retention graphs. That's a tough one, so it's hard to know what is actually the same way. It's like what's a good CPM, what's a good RPM? Like it's so different depending on the content and the creator and there's so many variables that go in it it's hard to know what's good or bad. So what is a good or bad retention graph? Where do we start?

Speaker 1 9:27

what's? Let's explain. So in this one, jace is talking specifically about shorts. So we got to be really specific about the fact that, depending on the length of video, good means something completely different. So in these screenshots he shows he's showing things above 100 okay it's important to know.

Speaker 1 9:42

You're almost never going to see that on a long form content video, it's very rare you're ever going to see something above 100. But in shorts you should almost always see something above 100 if you want a good performing short. So to understand like what good is is very relative.

Speaker 1 9:58

Very relative it's relative to the content, the length of the content, the style of content, where the content was watched, and the only thing that really matters in the end is did you get more impressions? I feel like, because you can't control views. Views are a matter of someone choosing someone's choosing to click your thumbnail and title based off the topic you selected. You have control over the thumbnail, title and the content. Youtube then looks at all that stuff and how people interact with it and gives you more impressions. You can say I want more views. Really, you want more impressions.

What Makes a Good Retention Rate?

Speaker 1 10:32

Views is something that's out of your control. Impressions are too, but you really want more impressions for what you're putting into YouTube. Once you get those and you get more views, if you get more impressions, you've succeeded. Your content, your thumbnail title and everything matched your retention is the thing you look at after the fact to go. Did people even care or was this like a clickbait? Did people click the first 10 seconds and go? This is what I wanted to watch. And then they watch and they're like why am I watching Joe the Plumber when I wanted to watch a chocolate cake video?

Speaker 2 11:09

That's true. So it sounds like we're kind of debunking a lot of retention myths, a lot of retention expectations, and, starting with getting familiar with your retention graph, we'll even just like back it up and explain, you know, for people that are, you know, new to even looking at these, what we're actually looking at. And this graph is, of course, your video, and the line going through is how many people are still watching it, and the dips are people skipping ahead or abandoning, and then, of course, the spikes are people clicking back, and all these things can kind of be for good or bad things. So spikes don't necessarily mean a good thing. It can actually be like a frustrated viewer who can't understand what you're saying.

Speaker 1 11:48

That's true.

Speaker 2 11:50

It's just clicking back for whatever reason. Maybe you had text on screen that was not long enough and someone couldn't read it, so, while it may give you a spike, it might not be a positive viewing experience, but typically spikes are something that people re-watched or skipped ahead to watch. So a lot of times retention graphs, depending on the type of video, have an entirely different line. Like we're not looking at a standard slope if we're looking at a video.

Speaker 1 12:18

If we put out a video that was like here's 10 ways to grow your youtube channel, everyone's going to skip ahead to every single reason and it's going to look like this and we put timestamps on all our videos, and so you'll see these little tent-looking things at the timestamps because people are clicking around figuring out what they want to watch Yep. So yeah.

Speaker 2 12:37

So does that make it good or bad?

Speaker 1 12:39

I think, yeah, it really depends. It's not necessarily a bad thing. And, by the way, people go well, won't that hurt your average view duration?

Speaker 2 12:47

Oh, I love this.

Speaker 1 12:48

Well, yes, but does that mean that it hurts your impressions, which is what you really want? To get more views, not necessarily.

Speaker 2 12:54

No.

Speaker 1 12:54

As a matter of fact, if you are giving people what they want, there are other signals that YouTube takes a look at when someone's watching something, to indicate whether they're gonna get you more impressions. When we say something's a good video, it's relative, right. So I guess really what I'm saying is you're getting more impressions to get more opportunities for views.

Speaker 2 13:09

Yes.

Speaker 1 13:10

So if someone skips to the middle of your video but everyone skips to the middle of your video and then watches a whole long section and then maybe comes back to your channel later but doesn't watch the out of that video, even though they didn't watch the whole thing, that's okay. Most videos that get like tons of views the average view duration retention is bad. It's very bad because it's being shown to new people, which is a good thing, right? Yes, the more new people that see your videos, the worse your retention becomes.

Speaker 2 13:46

And the more people in general who just see it, the worse it becomes. Yes, we see this a lot, where people send in like these beautiful, beautiful retention graphs and you know they finish at like 50, 60 percent and there's barely any drop off but it has, you know, 50 views and those are like the 50 most loyal, most dedicated. You could put out any single video in the world and your retention graph is going to look the same. That doesn't mean you've earned the right to more impressions.

Speaker 1 14:11

Yes, you can have excellent retention and not get any more impressions, and people will often say, well, okay, my retention is really good, it's higher than ever before, but I didn't get hardly any views. I have a video. I wish I could remember what the exact number is. It's so impressive. The retention was so good because I specifically went out to try to make it high retention high retention at the end. I think. It was like it's like a four or five minute video and I think I had like 70% of the people at the last 20 seconds of the video, which is insane, one of my lower performing videos, despite the fact that, like it had been targeted well and all this other thing. It just didn't work out that way. So why?

Speaker 1 14:47

There's a lot of reasons, and some of which goes back to the thing that Jen and I say a lot of times is some things are just what they are and you can't worry about them. There's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing you can do about it. Did you do a good job? Congrats, congrats. You get your 12 views. It is what it. But I think you can learn things from it. So I learned something early on from retention graphs when I used to watch, when I used to make videos and look at the retention graph to see what was I doing wrong. Right, I found that if I was off the camera too long, my retention dropped, but if I was on the camera too long, my retention would drop. So I had to find this balance between showing b-roll and then showing myself in this balance that people seem to like. If I was away too long, I think maybe they weren't connecting with me as much. If I was on too long, they weren't understanding what I was talking about because I wasn't visually showing it.

Speaker 2 15:32

Okay.

Speaker 1 15:33

So the mix seemed to work out after I figured that out, and that's where you can use retention graphs to help elevate yourself.

Speaker 2 15:39

I like that. I like that you used it as a creator, to how to better yourself as a creator, yeah, and keeping your audience in mind. But you know who I want to blame for this, mr.

Speaker 1 15:49

Beast, beast. I knew you were going to say it. Mr Beast started this crap. The Mr Beast editing yeah.

Speaker 2 15:53

Mr Beast started like if your video doesn't finish at 50% retention, it sucks. Yeah, everything sucks to him though, but that's one in unrealistic expectation it is. I have seen several I even still have screenshots of over 1 million view videos that have the retention between 4%.

Speaker 1 16:15

Wow, I've never seen that before.

Speaker 2 16:16

To 14%.

Speaker 1 16:19

And what's the length of the video generally?

Speaker 2 16:21

16, 17 minutes.

Speaker 1 16:22

Wow.

Speaker 2 16:23

And like I'm talking steady through, like 12 through the whole video three percent through the whole video, immediate click off and continue to be surfaced wow insane, and I mean there's always an exception to the rule for like that extreme, but I would say on average. I've seen like million plus retention graphs in the 20s, if they're lucky.

Traffic Sources and Viewer Behavior

Speaker 1 16:47

Now here's another thing a lot of people don't talk about when they talk about retention graphs. The problem with the general retention graph you look at is it's aggregate, and this is not necessarily helpful. Here's what I mean by that it's taking in all of your sources and all of your audience and putting it into one graph when that's not really necessarily a great way of looking at it. The better way is to knock it down by traffic source and or subscriber version, so, for example, we might look at subscribers versus unsubscribes. I look at those average view durations all the time because I wanna know what new people think of the content versus the people that come here all the time.

Speaker 2 17:21

Yeah, remember, the old people are gonna watch it.

Speaker 1 17:25

If that's for some reason lower than the new, then something's going on, something's off, you're right. You made them mad or you've done something that they're not down with, which is interesting, but you want to kind of have your new viewer duration as close as possible to the people that come and watch you all the time, for obvious reasons. That means that people who don't know who you are still connect with your content. If you could see that within a minute.

Speaker 2 17:46

I feel like that's a crazy goal. It's amazing. I feel like that's a crazy goal, like that's a like that's really good. And we're talking about on desktop, when you can break down your analytics a little bit. You don't have this access on mobile, but these are the things like, if you want to take it to the next level, when you're talking retention graphs, these are the things that you're looking at because I mean, we have, we're all YouTube obsessed and we're all you know. This is fun sometimes. Should you let it dictate all your decisions? No, no, don't get carried away.

Speaker 1 18:14

Right.

Speaker 2 18:14

Enjoy it if it's fun for you, If it's not stay out of the Seamore component. This is deep. This is the deep swamp.

Speaker 1 18:21

We're going to go into the deep swamp. So not only do you have to think about the fact that it's aggregate, whether it's uh, you know, your subscribers unsubscribe, there's also traffic sources.

Speaker 1 18:32

So search which we've talked about before is very intentional, those tend to be shorter. So, in other words, if your video is about a review of something, uh, you'll notice that, generally speaking, when you look at the average iteration from search, it's going to be shorter than everything else, and the reason for that is someone searched for something to get an answer. Their intention was only to get the answer and leave. They weren't there to watch. Whoever you are to talk about, whatever you're talking about, browse is usually higher and suggested is usually higher because-.

Speaker 2 18:59

I was going to say I think suggested is the highest. I'm glad that we agree it can be.

Speaker 1 19:02

It can be. Yeah, Because browse generally is home screen, which means YouTube algorithmically knows that viewer is likely to like your content. Suggested tends to be in a binge session, so nine times out of ten that person's already watching a bunch of videos and is there to watch videos, right? So, you tend to get longer view duration.

Speaker 2 19:21

You get the more dedicated viewer, but I think you get the bigger compliment with browse.

Speaker 1 19:25

Oh for sure, 100%, 100%.

Speaker 2 19:28

Browse is like oh my gosh, you picked me it really feels that way and then suggested was like I was up next.

Speaker 1 19:34

And you like me, you like this. I got something else for you.

Speaker 2 19:37

Those are those moments where you're watching something and you're like I've never found this creator before.

Speaker 1 19:41

Yes.

Speaker 2 19:43

That's like that binge session.

Speaker 1 19:44

And it's so hard? Because I think in the last episode we talked about someone said they changed their strategy To go from search to browse, which is not necessarily easy, because I think in the last episode we talked about someone said they changed their strategy to go from search to blog yes. Yeah, which is not necessarily easy. It's easy to understand, once you understand it, that intention of a viewer and how you either give them their answer and let them go, or try to hook them to have them stick around.

Speaker 1 20:08

Once you understand that, then you can look at these graphs and go. I understand why this worked and why this didn't work. Another thing about retention graphs is and here's a little known thing once upon a time, youtube was testing showing you when you were getting subscribes and likes and all this other stuff.

Speaker 2 20:25

They were testing it to see if they were that's a fun little thing.

Speaker 1 20:27

It was amazing. I wish that they would have released this. They did not. I did get to test it for a while.

Speaker 2 20:31

It's an interesting thing, I wonder. I mean, maybe it just wasn't worth pursuing, so they try to give me Like, what do you really do with the information it?

Speaker 1 20:38

was really good information, but I will say this it rarely changed, so let me give you some information. Was that I got away from it? Number one number one thing I found out about using this is when you ask for subscribes, most people subscribe. That kind of surprised me somewhat In that, previous to that, previous to the actual data being able to see it, there was this thing that says if you ask for people to subscribe, they might subscribe, and then there was a lot of people saying no, that's not, that's not, that doesn't really work, whatever. Well, I've seen the data. 100% it works. Yes, it does. It is definitive that more times than not, if you ask for subscribes, you will get subscribed. Now, does that mean you should always do it? Well, that's a different question. I'm not answering that question.

Speaker 2 21:19

That's interesting.

Speaker 1 21:20

I'm answering. If you ask, will they, if you build it, will they come?

Speaker 2 21:32

Yes, secondarily the vast majority of likes on a video happened in like the first 10 seconds. Ooh, I have something.

Speaker 1 21:35

I definitely want to talk about when it comes to likes.

Likes, Comments, and Platform Engagement

Speaker 2 21:39

I have a friend visiting for the weekend you have friends a couple someday I want one, so they're visiting. Technically I should say it's my husband's friend oh, I was gonna say friend, friend by association yeah right contractual friendship by legal yeah and we were talking about youtube, and he is. You know, a youtube watcher can do a lot of youtube, never likes a video I rarely do either his viewing behavior which obviously I dug into okay was he only likes the video, doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 22:20

if you tell him doesn't matter, like it has to exceed his expectations, okay in why he clicked on that video, that's fair for a thumbs up. You know what that's. That's fair For a thumbs up, you know what I think that's insane to me because, like as a cultural thing, we like videos before they even start.

Speaker 1 22:35

So I don't you what. First of all, I didn't know this was a thing until I saw this, this metric.

Speaker 2 22:41

Oh my gosh, I'm so curious how our audience has like split on this. This is wild.

Speaker 1 22:45

Yeah, leave us a comment or an email and let us know do you like a video? At the very beginning. So all that to say. When I had access to this tool and I was like, why are people liking things? At the very beginning, I realized that it doesn't even matter if you ask for likes, because the people who are going to like it are already going to like it. This is different from a subscribe. The subscribes always fell within 15 seconds of asking for a subscribe. I was able to see that on the retention graph, but likes were always bunched around the beginning. So people were doing it as you say, just like at the beginning. Yeah, and I was like it's a cultural thing.

Speaker 2 23:18

Like I like a video before I start watching it, it's like a YouTube like culture. That's how I would describe it.

Speaker 1 23:25

That's wild, is that?

Speaker 2 23:28

even to today? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 23:30

Now, is this only for people you're subscribed to, or just any video? Well see.

Speaker 2 23:33

I think what happens is now that my viewing has changed to like only TV. I'm not doing that behavior because I'm not liking on TV.

Speaker 1 23:42

Sure right, you can.

Speaker 2 23:43

But yeah, that's just yeah, I'm just going to say like I don't have, like, the remote in my hand and I'm not clicking up to the side. It's just a little much. It's a little much. So it's not doing anything for you. You're fine without it, but other than that, if I'm watching on desktop or on my phone, 100% still to this day.

Speaker 1 24:04

Even channels you're not necessarily familiar with.

Speaker 2 24:06

Unless I search something. If I search something, then it's a test.

Speaker 1 24:12

Then you're waiting.

Speaker 2 24:13

Then it's genuinely a test.

Speaker 1 24:14

You got to earn this.

Speaker 2 24:15

Because I feel like search videos are like, just they're sketchy.

Speaker 1 24:19

They can be Like you don't?

Speaker 2 24:19

they're so click-beating like you don't know if you're actually going to get your answer.

Speaker 1 24:23

So here's what I I think Rob Wilson brought this up. This is really interesting that you say this. I, wilson, brought this up. This is really interesting that you say this. I wonder if and YouTube could be doing this. We don't know if they're doing this next thing or not when they see Jen watching on TV, which they can tell.

Speaker 2 24:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1 24:38

They know that you're watching on.

Speaker 2 24:41

TV, of course they can tell, they say welcome back.

Speaker 1 24:42

Yeah, welcome back on TV, and you do take the time to like. Yeah, do you think that's? Weighted hyper like right, is that? Like well she actually she almost never likes on tv. That's actually weighted heavier than her overly liking on phone, which she does all the time.

Speaker 2 25:00

She's just, she's a strumpet for likes yeah, right, yeah, she just gives it away. Oh, my god, she doesn't dislike or not like anything, she just loves all content so they don't even pay attention to that. And then on TV. But oh my God, she likes something. Oh my God, this is new super chat.

Speaker 1 25:17

It really is.

Speaker 2 25:18

I'm just going to start commenting, just want to let you know I liked this on my TV, but I feel like, but doesn't that? Don't you think that's actually even?

Speaker 1 25:25

a good way to wait If someone said that to me. I would be like what you actually hit up on your remote and then over and then.

Speaker 2 25:32

I would be honored, like nobody's doing that.

Speaker 1 25:35

No one's doing that. No one's doing that. But I wonder if YouTube's doing that.

Speaker 2 25:39

They're like that would be really interesting, though, and I feel like it's probably something. I feel like TV platform integration, everything the user experience is something that we're going to see a huge, huge change with now that it's doing so well the world is different when it comes to this year alone it's doing so well.

Speaker 2 25:57

And I think that we're going to see. I don't know what those changes would be, but I think that's going to be a really, really big thing, because the things we're talking even leave me a comment. I don't leave a comment If I'm watching on TV.

Speaker 1 26:06

I, if I'm watching on TV, yeah, I don't, if I really have to.

Speaker 2 26:10

I will go back on my phone at some point and leave a comment, but like it's got to be so funny, or like some, so do you?

Speaker 1 26:18

How often are you leaving comments?

Speaker 2 26:20

in general, I leave a comment on like I feel like See, it's hard to say If it's not. If it's on TV, then Well, forget about TV.

Speaker 1 26:27

for me, no, if it's not on TV.

Speaker 2 26:28

I'll leave a comment on every single video.

Speaker 1 26:30

I watch you just give away everything, all your engagement. Your engagement is almost meaningless.

Speaker 2 26:35

You just give it away? No, because it's not like a generic comment.

Speaker 1 26:38

You get into what you watched.

Speaker 2 26:41

Yeah, like I would. The nicest viewer no it's always like a very specific part, like if there's no part of the video that like gets me in any way, then I'm like okay, this wasn't a good video for me, number one, but I won't leave like just a made-up comment do you like it if it wasn't connecting with you?

Speaker 1 26:57

is it too late? Do you take it off? Do I do, I retract do you ever retract the light? Have you retracted your like?

Speaker 2 27:03

um, I would do that on the search base, but I've done that on search base content, just if I've noticed, and it was like a bad video, like I wouldn't thumbs down it, but I would be like so do you not?

Speaker 1 27:13

I unliked but do you not thumbs down I?

Speaker 2 27:16

don't thumbs down anything because I think content is like subjective, like just because I didn't think it was good, like that thumbs down. It's not going to alter my home page.

Speaker 1 27:24

I'm going to say I'm not interested if that services, again I'm going to say I'm not interested, so that YouTube is like got it Okay, so we'll try not to, but I'm not going to hurt the creator for like what they think is good content. And certainly I don't. We talked about not all content is for everyone, it's for anyone. I never leave like a hateful comment, Like I don't even understand the point of that.

Speaker 2 27:44

Oh my gosh, that's crazy to me.

Speaker 1 27:45

It's crazy to me, it's just wild to me, because I mean, we don't get a lot of that. Every so often someone will say something, but it's like you literally spent the time to say something Like if you didn't like it, why did you just stop watching it?

Speaker 2 27:58

Yeah, I don't know. I don't really understand the mentality of like leaving like a I mean definitely hateful content. I get constructive feedback. Yeah, that's fine. I gotta be able to handle stuff, if you want to put yourself on the internet, absolutely. And people are welcome to their opinions, especially if you open the door for that. If you tell people let me know what you think, well, you better be ready for when they tell you what they think.

Speaker 1 28:23

Be careful, what you're asking for, you might get it, goodness gracious.

Speaker 2 28:28

But I don't get that. But you don't leave comments. You got to start leaving comments.

Speaker 1 28:32

Every once in a while. It's pretty rare for me to like or leave a comment, so if you do get one from me, that's a pretty big deal. There must be a reason.

Speaker 2 28:41

It's so funny, I do talk in live streams.

Speaker 1 28:42

Though I will chat in live streams from time to time Actually more frequently than I'll leave comments.

Speaker 2 28:48

I mean that's good, but like comments. Are you shaming me. I am comment shaming you actually.

Speaker 1 28:55

Are you viewer?

Speaker 2 28:56

shaming my habits, unless you're watching content that is like. I mean you're just watching like million plus video after video after video when like at that point, and depending on how old the video is like, is it really even going to be noticed or acknowledged? So what's?

Speaker 1 29:09

interesting is it depends on what content I'm watching that there was a time when I was hot and heavy in my content that I stopped leaving comments on other creators in my niches content, not because I didn't want to, but because it became a distraction in the comment section because viewers knew who I was in that niche. So then they would comment to me and stuff Not always nice, sometimes nice, but sometimes not and I'm like that's just a distraction. Now I feel like I'm being distracting and I don't want that for that creator.

Speaker 2 29:42

Like I was leaving a quote like this was great. Whatever See, it was a generic comment.

Speaker 1 29:45

No, no, I mean I was being specific, I'm being generic now. Back then I was being authentic, I was being gen-yuen, right, but so I stopped. Outside of my niche I would leave comments pretty freely, but within my niche I wasn't. And it was something that was really interesting because I had never, in all the things that were in the non-existent YouTube handbook of like things to expect as a YouTuber, that was not one of them. It was not in there To like. You know, people are, for better or worse, going to recognize you in your niche and if you, no matter what you do, someone's going to be mean to you. So, for example, in these we're talking about retention graphs a little bit here. We're almost done that. We're talking about other things now, but you might see drop-offs in certain things. You say something particularly hot take-ish, which I actually like people taking a definitive. I feel like in content creation, if you want good performing stuff, you take a hard line on something, you pick a lane.

Speaker 2 30:40

I think that's true.

Speaker 1 30:42

And you will find that you'll get more success there. But when you do that, just know people out there are coming for your neck. So when you say something, your attention graph might go everything's great, everything's great. Candy corn's good, oh, it's down.

Speaker 2 30:56

Everyone left.

Speaker 1 30:57

And you know we take those because as soon as we say cat breaks are great, it goes right back up. And then we brought everyone back.

Speaker 2 31:05

My favorite now are the YouTube disclaimers everyone's making before they say an opinion or after it. It's like, oh, just say what you want to say. Everyone's like oh, my gosh, that's like me being like well, I love candy corn, but it's okay if you don't like candy corn and if you kind of like it oh yeah, that's also okay, but if you've never, had it. I don't want you to feel bad because you've never had it, so I didn't want to offend you if you don't have the opportunity to try it because you live overseas, so I think candy corn's good though yeah, it's too much.

Speaker 2 31:35

It's too much, just say you like it and everyone else okay, like I get that there are things that can absolutely offend someone, but I think a lot of the times just kind of it's okay to just be like candy corn is the best right and if you hate it, you hate it, but like at the end of the day, it's still just candy.

Content Opinions and Viewer Disclaimers

Speaker 2 31:50

Yeah, it's fine but, like I, I just think that we have such a culture now where like that is becoming so popular. I see it all the time in content where people are just kind of hedging their bets oh my gosh, so much really oh my gosh really just like I would say.

Speaker 2 32:05

I feel like I just saw one recently, like in a fashion video, where it was like a trend and it was like, well, I don't like the trend, but it's okay if you do, and I can see why you would like it, because it could look good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But and then they just did this whole run around to being like okay, um moving on, I've you know what I actually think.

Speaker 1 32:32

I know why they're doing this because in certain situations I have done similar-ish things in older content and I almost guarantee you this is why they're doing it, because they say the thing yeah and then in their mind they're going this is the comment someone's going to leave, so they answer that comment yeah and then this is the comment that person can leave.

Speaker 1 32:44

let me answer that comment. Oh, and this is the comment, and let me answer that comment. So they're trying to answer the comments before they're left. Yeah, by saying well, it's okay if you don't, but if you do, but if you don't, but if you do, but if you don't.

Speaker 2 32:57

And then nobody cares and nobody comments, and nobody comments. It's almost worse, which is almost worse. I think it's a thousand times worse and I, you know I get not wanting to hurt someone's feelings, but if you do, it's totally fine. Just be a human and be like hey, sorry, I didn't mean.

Speaker 1 33:14

I didn't mean something by it. If your feelings are hurt about liking candy corn, then you probably need to be watching something else, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 33:19

I'm not apologizing for it.

Speaker 1 33:20

It's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 33:22

Why? That's where we were talking about dips, the retention graph, but let's talk about the intros retention graph okay, that's great, because are important.

Speaker 2 33:31

I feel like this is a real hyper fixation for so many creators, where it's like even people who would come into coaching and be like I just gotta work on my retention, I gotta work on my first 30 seconds, I gotta work on my hook. I work on my intro because it feels like there's so much pressure on that that like the rest of the video like solely revolves around that moment and what that percent looks like and what that drop off looks like.

Speaker 1 33:53

So let's talk about a couple of things that are real and then you can you can uh, as a viewer can consider these things into what you think is important. Here's a real thing If people are watching on um desktop and I do this if you mouse over, your video starts playing and a subtitle shows over top of it. So I believe this comes from back in the day when you used to hover over and people would hard code in the subtitles. But now YouTube kind of does it for you. So what people are doing and what I'm doing same thing is I've seen the title and thumbnail. I'm now hovering over it. I'm not even fully committed.

Speaker 2 34:26

Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, you have a hover step. I hover and I wait to see what it said.

Speaker 1 34:33

Video like what's going on, bro. I've seen so many, so many from back in the day before I was a creator and I was just a viewer. I hated seeing a thumbnail where I didn't see anything that was in the thumbnail in the video that that upset me okay, go back to this hover, though I'm, I'm I hover all the time about this, so when I'm on desktop, what are?

Speaker 2 34:48

you looking for the hover?

Speaker 1 34:49

I'm just trying to see what's going on.

Speaker 2 34:51

Okay.

Speaker 1 34:52

So, like if I see a video that's like I don't know 12 ways to be the best person you can be, I'm like all right, let me put my mouse over top of it. Let me see what he says and she says in the very beginning of the video and what kind of visuals are going on. Interesting. I only hover for like maybe 10, 15 seconds because I can read what they're saying because, it's all there. Youtube's putting the subtitles up, and if it's good enough then I'll click.

Speaker 2 35:16

Do you rewind?

Speaker 1 35:18

Sometimes, but I mean for the most part when you click it it's already to where you were watching.

Speaker 2 35:22

No, that's what I'm saying, like, if I hover and then I click, I go back.

Speaker 1 35:25

I sometimes do yeah, yeah. So I think that I'm not the only one doing this. The reason I think that is because the subtitling wasn't always there, but now, it is so I believe, and Tom Bupre from YouTube has said that, like this hover thing is a new kind of. It's not a click through rate. There's not. They don't even have a metric that shows to us which they should get around to doing, and maybe they will.

Speaker 2 35:45

Yeah, who's who's hovering, hovering Um, but that's important.

Speaker 1 35:51

But that's important because if I see the title I'm like I'm almost committed, but I need to see what's going on.

Speaker 2 35:57

That would be way better than our retention graphs, to be honest. It would be Because it's just like it's that final step where it's like you had your opportunities. This was the final straw and they still didn't click.

Speaker 1 36:10

Wow, you just broke my brain. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. They hovered and didn't click.

Speaker 2 36:15

Yeah.

Speaker 1 36:16

The hover did not click.

Speaker 2 36:21

Yeah.

Speaker 1 36:21

The hover did not click. Yeah, so we're talking title thumbnail and that opening hug. They were all not strong enough. I'm going to clip this part out and I'm going to send it to Rene Ritchie to have him watch this part.

Speaker 2 36:27

Okay, Rene so.

Speaker 1 36:27

I think that's.

Speaker 2 36:28

Get at me.

Speaker 1 36:30

Hit me up while I have his number, but I think that would be a really interesting thing because it would tell us if our hooks are working, so you get to see the click.

Speaker 2 36:38

It'll tell us if our hooks are hooking, if it's complimenting, if you're professional hooking no.

Speaker 1 36:43

Yeah, I think less than I think, because you can kind of see that in the retention graph Someone actually clicks through right. Yeah, this is a different person, this is a person that's almost committed.

Speaker 2 36:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1 36:53

But they're just trying to decide whether or it's did you can? Yeah, it is. It is like it's your hook. Really good to convince, but did it push them over the edge? Because the person that's clicked, was convinced by your thumbnail title. For me, that's a different person than someone who's hovering A hover hasn't decided, a clicker has decided whether or not they, whether they click off or not, is a different story.

Speaker 2 37:14

They were like OK, they were committed.

Speaker 1 37:18

I want to know the people that are on the fence. Did I convince them or not? That would be a cool metric.

Speaker 2 37:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 37:23

You're welcome, renee. Yeah, all right, it's an interesting one.

Speaker 2 37:27

So now we just see when people click in and they click off, which you're going to see, no matter what. I've yet to see a retention graph with zero dip.

Speaker 1 37:41

Oh, yeah, yeah, Impossible.

Speaker 2 37:42

Like we're not looking for an actual straight line like that. I I have never seen that. I would love if there is some youtube like world breaking retention graph where it's just like straight across it was the best video ever. Like no one's ever clicked nobody's ever clicked off, nobody's accidentally clicked out, nothing nothing, yeah, impossible, impossible, all right.

Candy Tasting and Episode Wrap-up

Speaker 1 38:04

So, um, that was a lot. Let's, uh, let's get into our little fun little bit here. Uh, I believe the last time we tried some candy that I liked. What do you have, uh, for me today? Yeah, let's see because, uh, we're, because we are an unofficial candy, podcast. We hope that you enjoy.

Speaker 2 38:24

I actually have a candy. What time are we at, actually?

Speaker 1 38:30

We're good, yeah, we're good. We're what we're at 39. Yeah, we're good, we are good.

Speaker 2 38:35

And retention graph. I thought was going to be the most difficult.

Speaker 1 38:37

No, no, no, I told you See you worry about things, I going to be the most difficult? No, no, I don't know. I told you, see, you worry about things. I'm like, I'm not worried at all, like we just talk.

Speaker 2 38:44

I've never had these but these are what is that? Warhead taffies.

Speaker 1 38:48

Okay, I'm aware of warheads, tropical fusion.

Speaker 2 38:51

Yeah, I saw regular warheads.

Speaker 1 39:00

But you know I sister not only in all these podcasts but like outside of it.

Speaker 2 39:04

She sounds fascinating. My sister's awesome sounds.

Speaker 1 39:06

That's why, yeah, okay, do you want are they different?

Speaker 2 39:10

I guess I want paradise punch that sounds like me, or citrus surf those both sound great.

Speaker 1 39:16

Give me one or the other I feel like these are gonna be.

Speaker 2 39:19

I'll give you blue because obviously blue is always.

Speaker 1 39:20

No wait, I love blue.

Speaker 2 39:21

You said you like green, don't you?

Speaker 1 39:23

I like blue and green. Blue and green are my favorite colors. Oh well, you can get.

Speaker 2 39:25

I have more than in the bag All right.

Speaker 1 39:27

So what was the remind?

Speaker 2 39:28

me, I'll try the same one as you. What was the thing of Warheads Paradise acid? They're literally. That sounds terrible. It doesn't sound so much worse, really bad okay, but these are taffy. So I was like it's so funny too. I almost got the warheads, but I was like, oh, everybody's had a warhead. Little do I know these look good, though, actually I'll bring warheads for the next one, and I was also like these might be a little less sour than like a regular warhead very plasticky, but your flavor is good, but it's like plastic oh, it's very plasticky and very possible.

Speaker 1 40:10

Can you look up the percentage of plastic in this?

Speaker 2 40:12

well, I can almost promise there's definitely red 40 anyway, oh yeah, we go for the healthy stuff Around here.

Speaker 1 40:20

What does it say?

Speaker 2 40:22

Red 40.

Speaker 1 40:24

Is that one of the things that's going to be banned At the end of the year?

Speaker 2 40:28

I think it is. Why is this so hard to eat?

Speaker 1 40:30

Oh it's very hard to eat.

Speaker 2 40:32

It's like Kind of making me drool A little bit, it doesn't go away Right.

Speaker 1 40:37

Well, if you like the podcast, of course you can always Leave us. All right. Well, if you like the podcast, of course you can always leave us.

Speaker 2 40:41

Wow, I can't do the outro, oh my gosh, did you put the whole thing? Did you just commit to the whole thing?

Speaker 1 40:45

I didn't know. You weren't supposed to, are you not?

Speaker 2 40:48

supposed to? I don't know, I've never had them before, but I just took a bite.

Speaker 1 40:52

This is very difficult. All right, if you're new here, I don't know that you're here anymore.

Speaker 2 40:59

Today I'm on our channel. Now I'm eating taffy. We understand if you don't come back.

Speaker 1 41:06

I can totally understand if you never come back. We'll see you next time, jen, tell them goodbye.

Speaker 2 41:11

Alright, we'll see you in the next episode, but don't forget to leave us a five star review only. And actually I think the next episode we're going to kind of be going over some things about ourselves as creators.

Speaker 1 41:24

Exposed.

Speaker 2 41:25

Exposed.

Speaker 1 41:26

See you in that one.