Robert Scoble says short videos get about 30% more clicks than long ones, but engaged viewers will watch long videos for hours if the content grabs them. He uploads full recordings with minimal editing and relies on YouTube's retention metrics to see where people drop off.
I don't know. I have more recorded more than an hour. How would you, you would upload it in one or. How much do you edit?
Well, this kind of thing I would edit a bit because it's sort of. I ramble. I don't know. I don't know. I, I usually put it all up.
Okay.
But I'm, I'm a lazy editor though, so. And I don't like editing. You know, I, I don't like editing. Part of that is, part of that is my style is very conversational and I just want people to hear the conversation. I don't want to hear the sound bites because sound bites reduce context, I think, you know, But I don't know. I don't know what I would do with this.
Okay, but you would get more clicks if you would not necessarily make something.
Not necessarily. I found, I got, when I did short videos and long videos, I got about 30% more. Partly because there's, there's an audience that wants just the facts and then there's an audience that wants to see it all. But I found that if people actually started playing the video that they would watch for hours, you know, if it's interesting, if it is still delivering what they wanted out of that click. I mean, I was at startup school for eight hours, right. I sat in a chair listening to speeches for eight hours. And I was not, I was very happy to do that. Felt good. And so, I don't know, I've always resisted the, the thing to cut it up into two minute videos because that's the rule to get a lot of hits. I found it doesn't get a lot of hits. It does get a little bit more, but not dramatically, not three times more, 30% more, you know, so you have.
More minutes if you upload to longer video. So if you have only 30% more clicks.
But yeah, that's true. I don't look at it that way. I just look at. Are we having an interesting conversation?
Yeah.
And if we are having an interesting conversation, put that up. Yeah, people will, will figure out where they're not interested anymore and they'll drop off. Right.
And you can see it in YouTube.
Yeah, yeah, on YouTube you can see where they dropped off, you know, and, and yeah, I think that's cool. I, you know, I've listened to talk radio all my life and I dive into a show and listen for a couple minutes and then dive out and go to music or. And I think it's just fine. Telling me that talk radio, 24 hours of talk radio would only be shortened down to 22 minute segments. It's ridiculous to me. It would never be fun. You know, it would be like McDonald's eating McDonald's all day long. You know, it's like. It's fine when you need something short, like a news brief. You know, this Egypt is blowing up. Fine, make that short. But if you want to have a Charlie Rose conversation with the prime minister or the president and go into depth, no, you need an hour.
