I Analysed the Biggest Travel Vlogger’s Video.

Today we’re going to mix it up a bit. I am going to analyse this video from Eva Zu Beck. Eva runs the biggest solo female travel channel on YouTube with 1.8 million subscribers. What better way to learn, than from the best?

The Packaging:

The video is titled, “I Visited the Loneliest Place in Europe”.

This title works for a few reasons. For one, it appeals to a broad audience. It doesn’t tell you where in Europe this is, and therefore, it keeps the possibilities and potential audience big. How many Europeans or people interested in Europe are asking themselves, “Well, where is the loneliest place in Europe?”

The second thing this title does well is it goes to an extreme, “The Loneliest”. Extremes always pique curiosity, and I recommend using them in your titles.

Then we have the Thumbnail, which I’ll be honest, at a glance, doesn’t seem to match the video. BUT, when you look closer, it definitely leaves you asking, “WHAT?”. It’s so extreme that it makes you want to know where the heck she is and how she ended up in a bathing suit in the snow. This thumbnail plays a double role of teasing the location and foreshadowing an event to come in the episode.

The Intro

Now that we are curious about the video, Eva starts out by immediately confirming the promise of the video almost word for word. You’ll remember from this post just how crucial this it to the success of your video.

She then uses a clip to confirm how lonely the place is, saying she hasn’t seen any cars, and she has been driving for a while. Here, she is once again confirming the promise and showing you that you’re about to watch exactly what you thought you were watching. You see, viewers are super worried about their time being wasted and promises being broken. Too many YouTubers have used clickbait and so they are ready to click away. Confirming the promise fast and in multiple ways helps reassure them you value their time.

After confirming the promise, Eva goes on to solve the first mystery by telling us where she is, in Scandanavia, but brilliantly, she immediately takes us into the next mystery. You always want an unanswered question in your viewer’s mind! Eva poses the question, “What’s it like to live out here in the loneliest place in Europe?” This wasn’t even a question that was in the packaging, and yet, somehow, we are drawn into the question, and therefore the story.

To end the intro, Eva goes on to tell us the structure of the video and what she will be covering. You’ll remember my post about the importance of foreshadowing, aye? This one element is incredibly important to getting good retention! You need to verbally and/or visually show your audience what is to come, so in the low moments when they are bored or seemingly in an unrelated scene, their brain knows what they are holding out for. The unknown is why they click away, so make everything known by showing your viewer the structure early on.

The Meat

Eva then starts to give us the context. She shows the area to us visually through drone footage, verbally through telling us its cold, and through voiceover telling us about population. This is all context to understand the story and in what conditions she is operating. It’s background info.

Then Eva switches gear and starts to being us into her personal world. This is something she always does really well throughout her videos. She spends a good portion of time just getting ready for the day and talking us through some thoughts she has, that are seemingly unrelated to the story but her authentic experience. It allows us to see a personal side to her, which is essential for overall channel loyalty.

Now that she is ready to get moving, she brings us back to the story by telling us where she is going and the people she is about to meet. She is reminding us of the question she posed. It’s important to note, though, that part of the reason we are willing to sit through getting to know Eva in the previous scene and her telling her own personal WHY for the trip is because she foreshadowed that she will be meeting other people and learning about their life. That foreshadowing before her personal scene is essential to retention.

Eva is a queen when it comes to drone shots, and she has taught me how important it is to reeling people into a story. These shots make Eva’s videos quite calming and relaxing, while also bringing us into how she must have been feeling alone and vulnerable. As someone who personally has a drone but finds it terrifying to fly, analysing her video is reinforcing the fact that I need to get over it and put the drone up!

Upon arrival, Eva continues to show her personal reflections and experience, but then she shifts the story from herself to the characters she had hinted at/foreshadowed. She gives us context around Janita and why she is important to the story. As a creator, you’re constantly answering the question, why does this matter to this story, and then shaping your decisions around the answer. Eva then ends her voiceover with the big question, “What is it like to live here?” Again, it is essential for viewers to always have an unanswered question in their heads in order to keep watching.

At this point in the story, it becomes about Eva and her interactions with Janita. Viewers love to see YouTubers interact with new characters. And again, Eva is constantly asking and answering the questions the audience likely has. Once all the questions are answered, the story ends, so this process is important. Strategically, once the question of loneliness is answered, Eva moves us to a new question we didn’t even know we had, “Does everyone feel this way? Or is this just a one-off experience?”

Once again, Eva has foreshadowed what is to come (meeting more people), which allows us to watch her go about her own life and show us who she is without the viewer worrying that the video will get boring. We still have an unanswered question in our heads – we can’t leave! So, we just experience life with her and get to know her. This is so essential to her success.

And so, we watch.

The next morning, Eva takes us right back to the question she left us hanging on. She gives us a bit of context about who the people are we are about to visit, and then starts taking us on her journey. She is re-hooking us in, always cognizant of the balance between showing personal experience and keeping the viewer hooked on an unanswered question related to the overarching story of, “the Loneliest Place in Europe”.

The spa scene follows the rest of my commentary, which is basically, we allow it because we have an answered question. However, it also has an additional element of being a curious and beautiful experience. Any time you are about to do something unusual or involving beauty (the female body), your viewers will be interested. It doubly helps that in her case, the experience becomes quite extreme when she jumps in snow in a bathing suit.

But Eva keeps circling us back to the unanswered question and spends the next scene going back and forth between questions and answers. Eva’s video always has focus – she’s always reminding us of the overarching question, “Do you feel lonely out here?” The promise is never broken.

The Outro

At this point, the question is answered. We know the people in the loneliest place in Europe don’t feel lonely.

But were not ready to leave. Eva has strategically endeared us to her personal journey, and we want to hear her thoughts on what she discovered. This is called the denouement. It’s her reflections on the journey she has just taken us on. It’s a stage in the story, which is both necessary, but also can’t go on too long. Eva’s denouement is less than a minute.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this! If you did, let me know if it’s worth doing again! Thanks! 🙂