YouTube HotSpots

A while ago YouTube added a report to “Director” level accounts that shows how “hot” a video is at any given moment in the video.  The idea is that you can tell when viewers are bored with your content and use this information to improve future videos.  When the green bit is above the red line then viewers are engaged.  When the green bit goes below the red line then viewers are bailing out.

From the graph above you can see that this video starts strong then fades out.  (This is a video I made with my son and not one of the ones I did professionally).  We can study this and see what content the viewers where interested in and where the content starts to lose the viewers.  Over time we can learn the “hot” buttons that keep the viewer engaged.

I do a lot of online video and find this report an interesting insight into how our content is received.  What I don’t know is how to apply the information.  I have another video shot coming up in Jan and before we shot I’ll take the script writers through these reports.  I’ll post a follow up to determine if there are learnings here that can be successfully applied to improve video engagement.