With today’s millennials having shorter and shorter attention spans and higher and higher expectations for videos, it is hard to keep a high viewership and capture people’s attention. There are seemingly small tips and tricks to heed while editing, though, that will definitely increase the appeal of your videos and hold onto viewers.
Check out the following five recommendations for editing videos to improve your viewership!
1. Keep the language simple.
The language -that is, the words you say on camera- doesn’t need to be unnecessarily flamboyant or scholarly. You’re appealing to the masses, so keep your voice colloquial and conversational. Remember that you’re speaking to normal people like yourself and don’t need to use grand words to impress anyone. Speaking simply will make it easier for viewers to follow along and understand what you are saying, which is the ultimate goal of every video and the channel in general.
Pay attention to the simple language and conversational tone of the YouTuber below. Doesn’t it make the video much easier to watch and learn from?
2. Make use of jump cuts!
Young people these days have shorter attention spans and even smaller patience levels. They want you to get to the point and spit out everything on your mind, not a second of their time wasted by empty space. In fact, the little voice in everyone’s head talks quite quickly as well, and your thoughts bounce around with an animated speed that keeps the wheels in your brain turning. Jump cuts mimic this quickness of thought and speech, as editing out even milliseconds, which seems a petty and tedious task, can, in fact, add to your video and heighten its appeal.
One of the most subscribed-to YouTubers, NigaHiga, skillfully utilizes jump cuts in all of his videos, editing out all of the extra space where he would normally pause for breaths. This rapid-fire talking keeps viewers on the edge of their seat and evokes an excited and more lively feeling. Including jump cuts in your videos will make it appear more clean-cut, and it will give the video an overall more lively, animated feeling.
Watch how NigaHiga uses jump cuts in every frame and manages to keep an excited air throughout the video using this editing trick.
3. Add sound effects and other small effects.
This will give your video more character and life, and it will make your production quality higher as well as increase your credibility as a content creator. It is important to note that you don’t need any fancy or expensive editing software to do this; work with what you have and rely on your creativity and innovation to polish the video.
Remember that throughout your videos, you must keep viewers entertained. As much as what you say is important, the ornaments, per se, are also a significant aspect of your content. It will be quite boring to watch someone just talking and droning on and on about a topic; however, adding different sound effects to liven up the conversation and add moving text, for example, on your screen will also help to entertain the viewer and keep him or her drawn to what you’re saying.
4. Keep it brief.
The longer a video is, the more daunting and tedious it is for viewers to watch. People are more likely to click on a four-minute YouTube video than a twenty-minute video. Shorter videos will also ensure that people watch the video all the way through, rather than skip through sections or just watch the first few seconds (and this does not count as a “view” on YouTube).
Don’t hoard your footage, and don’t be afraid to cut out sections of your videos. Less is more! Just as a writer should cut out sixty percent of his or her writing upon final revision, a video editor should also cut out the unnecessary “fat” of the videos and just leave in the main points.
The following beauty YouTuber made a three-minute makeup tutorial, which would take many other beauty gurus tens of minutes to make. Wouldn’t you feel much more inclined to click on this video than a fifteen-minute video about the same thing?
5. Have an introduction screen and an ending screen.
This will make your video look more professional and the editing more put-together. Viewers will then have more trust in you and your abilities to edit and upload videos. Having an introduction and ending screen unique to your channel will also show viewers that you have experience and aim to put out your best work for your channel. This will also help you brand your channel and keep it unique to you and your subscribers.
YouTuber LaurDY has her unique introduction screen that signifies to viewers that the core of the video is about to begin, and she also has an ending screen with previous videos that tells viewers her video has ended.
In addition to creating content for your videos, it is important to also keep in mind the entertainment aspect of YouTube. Especially for viewers today, it is hard to maintain their focus and hold their short attention span.
Take extra steps to bolster the entertaining aspect of his or her video as well as increase the overall appeal quality of the video by heeding the above tips. Remember that while the talking is important, so are the details revolving around it and the video.
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Angelina Hue enjoys listening to wide variety of music, from instrumental movie scores to alternative indie to Korean pop music. She also likes to make short films and write fiction.
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