Top 3 Travel Vlog Retention Issues

One of the great things about running an online course for travel vloggers is that I am constantly reviewing other’s videos. I start to notice mistakes that are being made in travel vlogs and see how they are often patterns across multiple videos.

The three mistakes I will talk about in this newsletter are the most common I see. The biggest impact that they have is that they reduce video retention.

Many of you will know retention is measured through “Average View Duration” or “Average View Percentage” in your YouTube Analytics. “AVD” as it’s called works alongside your Click Through Rate (CTR) as the two most important deciding factors of whether or not your video gets pushed within the algorithm.

So now that we understand why this matters, let’s jump into the top 3 mistakes that travel vloggers make!

Too Much Context

When a story begins, we need some context to understand what is to come and to get us hooked into the story.

However, many YouTubers front-load their context, making for a long and cumbersome intro that bores their viewers.

Go through your intro with a “Is-this-really-needed-to-understand-the-story” lens and eliminate anything extra! If you need a lot of context to understand the story, instead of putting it all in the intro section, jump into a short action scene to get the story moving. Then, swap back to another context scene to add more information.

Long Scenes Early On

Unless you are a professional movie maker who has mastered storytelling, long scenes early on in your video are the best way to lose your audience.

This is because your audience isn’t invested in your story yet! They don’t care about your personality, thoughts, and opinions yet. They just want to know where the story is going, why it matters, and what obstacles you might face.

Keep the story moving fast in the beginning.

The leading YouTubers say you should cover about 80% of your story in the first 20% of the video. Keep initial scenes to 30-60 seconds and slowly lengthen them as the story progresses. Never never have long talking clips (especially without b-roll) in the first few minutes of your travel vlog.

That said, rules are always meant to be broken, but this is a good starting point until you know how to break the rules in a cinematic way.

Misplacement of Context

Sometimes, you will need to add context, introduce new characters, or tell your audience about the location you are in.

The placement of this information is important. If there is no unanswered question while you are giving this information, you risk losing your audience if you haven’t set up a strong overarching video goal. For example, if your episode is about saving your boat off a reef, then the overarching goal is big enough that people will stick around regardless of where you place context-adding shots. But if your video is just about visiting a Greek Island and you’re not sure what you’ll see around each corner, well…. context-adding shots need to be strategically places just after you have posed a new question to the audience.

One of the ways you can identify if this information is misplaced is if you have just finished a “story loop” and you haven’t started a new one. That means all questions have been answered.

Instead, only provide additional story context if you have introduced a set up, but you haven’t resolved it.

Action

Often times, fixing these retention issues is just a matter of rearranging scenes. Try not to get frustrated and think you have to re-edit your whole episode to eliminate these issues. But DEFINITELY go through a draft of your episode with a lens aimed at spotting these three issues:

• Too much context
• Long scenes early on
• Misplacement of context

By the way, these are just three of the retention issues I cover in my Storytelling Course (only $39!). And, as a bonus, I have added a potential add-on so you can get every single video reviewed by a professional creator (spaces are limited). You never have to put out a sub-par video again, and you can start getting the views you deserve!