YouTube Question Time stamps for viewers

[BeautyHabitue]

I see A LOT of people offering the times stamps to sections of their video. This seems counter intuitive to me. I understand people may drop off before getting to it, but is there any data to show that providing the time stamp is more helpful than not? That is just and extra step that if there is no data to support the trend, I dont want to spend time doing that, I would rather focus on proper tags, description tags etc.

What do you recommend and why?

 

[TubeBuddy]

I see A LOT of people offering the times stamps to sections of their video. This seems counter intuitive to me. I understand people may drop off before getting to it, but is there any data to show that providing the time stamp is more helpful than not? That is just and extra step that if there is no data to support the trend, I dont want to spend time doing that, I would rather focus on proper tags, description tags etc.

What do you recommend and why?

Moved to YouTube Discussion. Please read section descriptions, or your thread will be removed.

That said to answer your question. I like it as an option to be featured in google if people need help, plus some might come for the answer, but others might come back for a specific section. Really depends the type of content

 

[BeautyHabitue]

Moved to YouTube Discussion. Please read section descriptions, or your thread will be removed.

That said to answer your question. I like it as an option to be featured in google if people need help, plus some might come for the answer, but others might come back for a specific section. Really depends the type of content

thank you, I apologize I put it in the incorrect thread. I did not realize I was in the wrong place.

 

[Beanie Draws]

I have no data personally on this YET, but there's a new chapters feature being introduced to YouTube which I think may help my channel long term. I have a large drop off in my video starts, and I figure it's people people don't want to see any introduction, or they don't want to see my face. They want to get straight to the content. If I see a video where the introduction is too long, I'll simply leave. My past videos have annoying introductions which I wish I could edit out, but unfortunatly the start of the videos might not make sense, so I'm thinking about putting timestamps to the relevant parts that people want to see. I think this could potentially BOOST my watch time as people skip through my videos to find the parts that are relevant, rather than wasting their time making them HOPE I cover parts.

With anything, the only way to know is to try and experiment. which is why I plan on doing this, and It will be interesting to see how the data reflects.

I sense for how to instructionals, this will be invaluble.

 

[Ameen]

Basically to help get what they want faster like having an hour vid with timestamps is way useful then a 10 min vid with time stamp depends on niche and much more

 

[TubeBuddy]

I have no data personally on this YET, but there's a new chapters feature being introduced to YouTube which I think may help my channel long term. I have a large drop off in my video starts, and I figure it's people people don't want to see any introduction, or they don't want to see my face. They want to get straight to the content. If I see a video where the introduction is too long, I'll simply leave. My past videos have annoying introductions which I wish I could edit out, but unfortunatly the start of the videos might not make sense, so I'm thinking about putting timestamps to the relevant parts that people want to see. I think this could potentially BOOST my watch time as people skip through my videos to find the parts that are relevant, rather than wasting their time making them HOPE I cover parts.

With anything, the only way to know is to try and experiment. which is why I plan on doing this, and It will be interesting to see how the data reflects.

I sense for how to instructionals, this will be invaluble.

I HAVE been collecting data. The REWATCH ABILITY ALONE is INCREDIBLE the places I have chapters, which is what YT calls them have REALLY high playback which is GREAT and helps a ton. However, most of who I have talked to have high quality content and had the videos do well before the chapters, but since chapters we have seen increases in certain sections of their content.

 

[Tito Tim]

I have not added them on my shorter vids. I have tried adding some to longer ones (like over 20 minutes). I was wondering if people would just click to the part they want, and leave. That could hurt retention time. But I figured if they were not going to hang around, they would click away anyway - may as well let them find the content they want first.

I am hoping it will encourage people to watch key sections again, and helped retention. Time (and analytics) will tell.

I find with my viewing, I tend to rewatch certain sections again. Especially on the Creators Insiders channel - being an official YT channel they get all the cool toys first. I especially like the way the timestamps will add chapter marks on the scrub bar.

 

[Aaron]

From everything I've heard timestamps are quite the double edged sword. Personally I like them because in a long video it helps people get where they want but it also destroys your watch time to have a huge video and have them skip through.