Are You Paying Attention to Your Video Metrics? You Should Be.

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Posted on by Jason Cook
Categories: Analytics & Data Visualization Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s one thing to create videos – but what’s the point if those videos aren’t driving social media engagement and expanding your overall reach?

By now, our regular viewers should familiar with Facebook Insights – and how to find them. If you’re a first time viewer, or would simply like to revisit our recent content, remember that you can find all of our videos (complete with transcripts) right here at wikimotive4.com.

Facebook Video Insights

Today’s talk begins by selecting ‘Insights’, ‘Posts’ and then ‘Post Types’. As some of you might recall, this gives us high-level visibility of the ‘Reach’, ‘Post Clicks’ and ‘Engagement’ for the different types of Facebook Posts that you’ve created. It’s also a place where you’re likely to see whay why we’ve placed such a focus on video content in recent weeks. Video posts tend to have far more impact than text-based status updates, image posts or any of the other post types. But even the most successful videos leave room for improvement, and to find out how, you need to dig deeper and explore your individual video metrics. 

Having selected ‘Insights’ and ‘Posts’, you can scroll down to the ‘All Posts Published’ section which gives you an overview of all your recent posts. Each post can be easily identified by (i) Date Published (ii) a Thumbnail Image and (iii) an abbreviation of the text which accompanied it. Here you’ll find high-level analytics of any post’s organic and paid reach, as well as its engagement – but clicking on the Post itself is how you find the good stuff, and you’ll find it under Video Details.

Total Video Performance

To the right of the screen, you’ll find an 7 unique metrics listed under Total Video Performance. These will help you to understand your audience retention – or lack thereof – and to the right of each metric, you’ll find an arrow which expands the view, allowing you to interpret the information in greater depth.

Minutes Viewed

This provides an understanding of the total amount of time that Facebook users have spent viewing your video since the date it was originally posted. It then gives you the means of understanding how viewership of that video has changed over time. By scrolling down you can find a split between (i) Organic and Paid Views (II) Viewership that occurred as a result of your post, versus those that came from other people sharing your video and (iii) how viewership is split between your Page Followers, and non-Page Followers. This information is collected over the first 28-days of each post’s lifespan.

1-Minute / 10-Second / 3-Second Video Views

Using a similar format, this metric provides an understanding of how many times your video has been viewed for 1-minute or more. This distinction is important because – depending on the length of your video – this is likely to present a weighted split between those that are viewing your video in its entirety, and those that are signing off after the 1-minute mark. When viewed in context next to the Unique Video Views, you gain a better understanding of how engaging the first minute of your video is to the audience. Once again, you can find the breakdown of Organic Viewing vs. Paid, as well as whether your video is being viewed with Sound On or Sound Off. The latter, of course, is important because the ever-increasing number of ‘Sound Off’ views emphasizes the growing importance of video captioning to audience retention.

You’ll find the same view provided for both 10-Second and 3-Second Video Views as well. To understand the value of these metrics, think of your own scrolling habits. How often do you either view a video before deciding that you’re not interested in viewing it in its entirety, or accidentally click on a video before deciding to close it out. Termination of views drive that video’s total viewing metrics down and people are likely to be doing the same to your videos.

But, this information is still valuable because it can help you to shape content that’s more immediately engaging, more likely to increase your audience retention, all while helping to build a wider audience in general.

Average Video Watch Time

Within the context of your Video Duration, Average Video Watch Time helps you to understand (i) the point in your video where you’re losing the general audience, (ii) the average percentage of your video that’s being viewed and (iii) the point in your video where you’re losing the interest of your Page Followers.

Audience Retention

This is expanded visually under Audience Retention. How successful is your video at retaining your audience over it’s running time? Videos will normally begin at 100% viewership then taper off. There may also be spikes later in the video, representing those well-trained viewers that choose to skip over any intro content. Understanding this will help you to “trim the fat”. Also, depending on the configuration of your Insights, you may find the option of viewing ‘Absolute’ Retention vs. ‘Relative’ Retention. The former assesses your video on its own merit. The latter compares your videos metrics to other Facebook videos of similar length.

Audience and Engagement

Last but certainly not least, you’ll find a summation of the number of times viewers have engaged with your post, and the option of expanding that view to show (i) the total number of reactions, (ii) what those reactions were, (iii) comments and (iv) shares. You’ll also get a look at your Top Audience for that particular video, helping you to understand the audience that’s connecting with your content, including their geographic location.

Remember.

Viewing metrics will be deflated by accidental and/or terminated views, but low numbers don’t mean your videos are worthless, and high numbers don’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. By combining the insights you receive on both your audience, and their viewing habits, you gain valuable insights that will help you to refine your video content strategy to better capture your audience’s attention, and keep it.

Which just about wraps things up for this week. As always, be sure to join us next Thursday and every Thursday, for more SEO and Digital Marketing Insights right here, on ‘Just the Tip’.