Video Storytelling

Three years ago after my ex left our YouTube channel, I saw my views plummet. We’d just gotten out of telling a dramatic medical story, and I didn’t know where to take the channel. I spent heaps of time learning about video storytelling, editing, graphics, trends, and AI, but I didn’t see my views grow.

I was so frustrated because it felt like I was doing everything right, but I still wasn’t seeing the results I hoped for. It felt like I had wasted so much time planning, filming, and editing, and for what?! A few hundred views??

I thought, “Maybe I’m not cut out for this. Maybe I lack the vloggers formula.”

Now, three years later, I see vloggers going through the same experience, except this time I understand what’s stopping them. Turns out, it’s actually a pretty simple fix.

Imagine you are making a video where you are hiking across New Zealand (soon!). You enter a small town where you will be picking up some packages to top up your supplies. There are multiple ways you could frame this video:

“A town stop is more than just picking up packages”

“The journey to find the packages”

“The race to get out of the town as fast as possible”

If you were to choose the first option, your video storytelling would show a variety of activities you do while in town, without spending too much time on any one activity. The ultimate payoff would be understanding what a town stop is like.

If you chose the second option, you’d start with the moment you leave the trail and show every part of the journey, including hitchhiking, walking along the road, navigating streets, asking for directions, finally finding the post office, and any other obstacles it takes to get to the packages. The final pay off would be the moment you have the packages and we find out what’s inside.

And finally, the third option would be a mix of the first and second option, with everything relating back to getting out of town as soon as possible. The moment you leave the town and get back on the trail would be the ultimate payoff.

The common problem that stops YouTubers from being successful is they don’t have one single storyline with one clear payoff. Instead of just choosing one of those three framings, they do all three.

You enter the town, explore a bit, set out to pick up your packages, talk to your audience about your plans for the next two weeks, and then for explore some more.

This creates multiple problems. For one, how do you sell it in your packaging? If you sell it as “Exploring XYZ town” then you might attract people interested in the town, but uninterested in your journey to pick up your packages or your hiking plans, so they drop off when you get to those parts. If you sell it as “The journey to find the packages”, then you miss out on people interested in that particular town and you also lose viewers who came for the package journey when you delve into the town too much. If you sell it as “The race to get out of the town as fast as possible”, then you lose your audience when you start showing the variety of activities you can do in XYZ town.

An audience comes to a video for a particular purpose that you have outlined in your packaging (thumbnail & title). If you don’t stick with the promise you have made, you will see a steep and consistent drop off throughout your episode. What you show has to directly line up with what you promise.

The only way to get clear on the promise you are making in your packaging is to get clear on the storyline you are showing in the first place. But this is where most YouTubers struggle!

The best way to figure out what is that storyline is to look at your own goals. As you near that town, what are you thinking about the most? The things you will do and see? The packages you need to pick up? Or getting through as soon as possible?

What you are thinking about the most is likely the best single storyline for your video. Yes, you might do other things, but you need to always related them back to the storyline.

E.g: For the storyline about getting packages, you might say, “We’re going to take a quick stop to get some ice cream SO THAT WE HAVE ENERGY TO GET THE PACKAGES or, SO THAT GETTING PACKAGES IS MORE FUN.”

See how I always mention the packages? See how I take a random ice cream stop and relate it back to the goal of getting packages?

Stick to a singular storyline in your videos, and I promise you will start to see your retention increase.