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That conversation with a Twitch streamer about watch time made me question everything
I was talking to a buddy who streams games on Twitch, maybe 300 viewers average. He told me his videos blow up only when the first 30 seconds hook people hard enough to stay past the 2 minute mark. Said the algorithm doesn't care about total views, it cares about how many people stick around. It hit different because I always thought virality was about shares and likes, not watch time. Has anyone else found that focusing on retention changed how their content performed?
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blair7019d ago
My buddy runs a small car repair channel and he told me the exact same thing. He put out this video where he just jumped straight into showing how to fix a broken alternator, no intro or anything. That first 30 seconds was just him pointing at a car and saying "this thing is dead." The video blew up to like 50k views which is huge for him. His other videos where he did the whole "hey guys welcome back" spiel barely got 2k. He said the algorithm basically rewarded him for not wasting anyone's time.
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quinn16118d ago
But doesn't hooking them early sometimes mean sacrificing the context regular viewers need?
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