Anatomy of a video's views (Patreon)
Content
I keep an eye on this stuff to help me promote my videos and pick topics. I find it interesting, so maybe you will too!
Okay, let's look at the Shovel Knight video. It's been out for a while now. How did that one go down?
It's had 78,344 views. 28,000 on the day it came out, 12,000 the day after, 5,000 after that. It's had around 1,000 a day since then but has petered off recently. A few hundred views a day.
Not bad, but I need to figure out how to give these things longer legs*.
Audience retention for this video was great: The average person watched 61% of it. The graph shows a few people ditching the video early, then people mostly watch the whole thing and drop off at the credits (sorry $5 people - not everyone reads your names :P).
This is the stat I'm most proud of, and it's higher than most videos online. I try really hard to keep people entertained and watching from start to finish. That involves writing a script that flows nicely, keeping people interested to see where I go next, and keeping things on screen fresh and exciting. It's hard work, but it pays off.
Also of note: people didn't sharply drop off when I called Shovel Knight progressive. They might have gotten angry in the comments (there are 228 comments overall) but they didn't stop watching. That's all that matters!
The video was watched overwhelmingly by men. Now, we have to remember that Google is often guessing your gender based on what you do online. And maybe they think anyone who searches for video games is a dude! But still, my videos are routinely watched by men. A shame, and not sure what I can do to fix that. As for ages: most viewers are 25-34.
As for geography, the video was most popular in the US. Lots of views from the UK and Canada. And then plenty of views from Germany, Australia, Netherlands, Brazil, and Sweden. It was seen in at least 73 different countries, including Kazakhstan, Iceland, and South Korea!
The views were split almost in half between people who subscribe to my channel (53%) and those who don't (47%). Almost everyone watched on YouTube - just 141 people on YouTube Gaming. Oh dear. I don't think that platform has been a huge success for Google.
How did people watch the video? 87% of people watched it on YouTube itself, and only 13% as an embedded video on another website (mostly Polygon.com). 52,000 people watched on a computer (and 81% of them on Windows), 17,000 used a phone (66% Android), and only 4,000 used a tablet (65% iPad).
1,600 views came from PlayStation consoles, 500 from Xbox devices, 222 people watched it on a Wii, 18 people watched it on a Nintendo 3DS, almost 2000 people watched it on a Smart TV or set-top box.
How did people find the video? That's really important for me to know. Let's break it down:
- 14,415 - Subscription box
- 12,729 - YouTube's home page (!)
- 11,724 - My YouTube channel
- 6,038 - Polygon.com
- 3,175 - Searching on YouTube
- 2,533 - Digg
- 2,425 - Reddit
- 1,514 - Twitter
- 172 - Patreon (That's you!)
Woah, Reddit is low on that list. Reddit is an absolute king maker for videos - get on r/gaming or r/videos and you're in View City. I got on r/games but to see it beneath Digg is surprising.
Google even tells me what people searched for: Shovel Knight, Game Maker's Toolkit, Yooka Laylee, Nostalgia, Mighty No 9, "How to Make Shovel Knight in Game Maker" (Good luck!).
I got an extra 1,200 subscribers from Shovel Knight, but lost 28. It had 5,421 likes and 42 dislikes. People added it to 3,289 playlists but removed it from 2,081 of them. Presumably "I will watch this later" type playlists. 72,000 of people watched it without subtitles, 5,200 with the official English subs, 458 in Spanish, 138 in German, and 122 in French.
Hoo boy, that's a lot of stats. Probably boring but hopefully someone found it useful or interesting. Let me know if you have any questions!
*The video "What Capcom Didn't Tell You About Resident Evil 4" is one of my only videos that's made a comeback. It had around 30,000 views around launch but in September it randomly got 56,000 views in one day! It's now my most-viewed vid at 300k views. Looking at the stats, it seems that YouTube pushed that video to lots of people as a recommendation on their home pages. Sweet! More of that, please Google!