What kind of content is successful on the Internet?

Steve Barton:   What we see with a lot of video viewing is there a drop off and after seven or eight seconds.

Grant Leboff:    We’re in trouble then?

Steve Barton:   Yeh, we probably are! I’ll pause now for an edit…

You get bounce rights on websites, where people go in and say; “Oops, not the right website for me” and they’ll leave and they’re usually upwards of 50% – 60%, of people bouncing, or even higher.  Similar with video, they’ll watch seven or eight seconds and “not for me”, so you get a drop. Then you get another drop at 30 [seconds], and you’re really down to low numbers, from memory like 10%, – 15%, very few.  Then there’s the long tail people who’ll watch… anything! That suggests that keeping it short, and answering a specific question, is incredibly important and you don’t have to do everything in one video. You could have multiple videos.

So what is successful? Views and ‘pass on’. And if possible, sometimes this is difficult; specific engagement and comment. I think that’s really wonderful to have, but if you’re getting a lot of viewers, that’s great but the ‘pass on’ is really the key one, because if they liked it enough to pass it on to a friend, it’s a personal recommendation, they would only pass along if it was funny and valuable, because it reflects back on them. So that’s the ultimate measure I would say. Whether it’s a PDF, a blog, a video, whatever – content that’s worth sharing.

Grant Leboff:    I like that. Lets finish with that, because I like that idea and I do say to all my clients as well, that one of the key measures they’ve got to look at, is sharing. Because that’s one of the great things about digital today. In the old days, if you had a database of a few thousand people, that was your greatest hope. You sent them anything in the post or you called or whatever. The greatest hope is you’d reach those people.

Today, of course, your customers and your prospects are helping you reach a far greater network.

Steve Barton:   True.

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