6 Tips to Make Your YouTube Videos More Engaging

In the modern age of content creation, it has never been more important to produce high-quality videos that skillfully grab the viewer’s attention. YouTube has become the #1 platform for businesses and other content creators to share their messages with their intended audience. The question remains, how to make YouTube videos more engaging when there is already so much content out there?

Creating unique and outstanding content for YouTube may sound daunting, but it is not impossible. The key to good YouTube video production is high-quality content that taps into the psychology of video. Let’s get into some tricks for how to do this!

#1. Make Your Viewers Curious

People are naturally curious beings, and triggering that feeling of curiosity is critical for hooking your viewer from the get-go. Whether it be in the title of your video or the first few seconds, identify a gap in your viewer’s knowledge and suggest that you may just have the answer…if they keep watching, that is.

When you use attention-grabbing, ambiguous titles, you get your viewer thinking, “I want to know more”. You can also pick out some of the most thought-provoking or exciting bits of your video and include a reference to them as an introduction to your video. This will get your viewer curious to learn more.

#2. Catch the Attention of Your Audience

Hooking your audience is vital to keep them engaged in the rest of your video. If a viewer hates the first few seconds, it’s all the more likely they’ll click on something else. Research shows that the first three seconds of a video are the most predictive of whether the viewer will watch the video through to the end.

To address all of these problems, catch your audience’s attention within these first few moments with a quick preview of your video, sort of like a pitch for why they should keep watching. Use and cut between bright and exciting visuals to keep your viewer watching.

#3. Make Your Videos More Visual

One of the keys to the problem of how to make an engaging video is good visuals. People rely on their sense of sight to process the world around them from birth, so never neglect the visuals of your content. It is the combination of sight and hearing that makes video such an effective way to learn, after all.

Visual storytelling is at its best when featuring captivating and enriching visual elements. In professional video production, we use helpful graphics and colorful images to accompany your message. Whether you’ve taken a clip from a film or a graphic representation of certain statistics, make sure your narrator’s words are backed up with visuals.

#4. Tell a Story

Our minds are most drawn to content framed in the form of a narrative, so try to craft your video around a story-like structure. By composing a narrative rather than just spitting information at your viewer, you allow them to plant themselves within the story.

When viewers break down the boundaries between themselves and the media they consume, it is called immediacy. They can now picture themselves as a character in your narrative rather than just an external observer. This is the power of storytelling when making engaging video content.

#5. Try to Capture a Niche

Once your videos start to gain some traction, your goal is to keep and grow your subscriber base. Your subscribers have come to your channel for a reason — they liked the videos you already posted. Because of this, you’ll want to avoid making videos on completely unrelated topics. This could drive the people you’ve attracted away.

Instead, try picking a theme for your content and sticking with it. Although you can still diversify your topics of interest, you should think about making good content for YouTube that addresses what's trending in the community you’ve found.

#6. Add a Call to Action

There are many ways for viewers to interact with YouTube videos to demonstrate that they found your content interesting and significant in some way. Other potential viewers use these “engagement signals”, comments, likes, shares, and number of subscribers, to determine whether your content is worth watching.

It’s a numbers game and, other than making good content for YouTube in itself, remind your viewers to engage with your content by finishing off with a Call to Action. At the end of your video, don’t be afraid to ask those watching to like, comment, subscribe, and share if they like what they see!

Conclusion

Our Wisconsin video production company, Gillespie Productions, is excited to help you master the art of how to make engaging video content for your viewership. At Gillespie Productions, we specialize in storytelling through powerful visuals and dynamic video editing.

Whatever the project, our skilled team is here to offer our expertise in content creation, whether you’re in the Wisconsin area or elsewhere nationwide. Contact us today to get started on your video production project!