YouTube Opinion Do having "Parts" (parts 1 and 2) Help?

[AuroraB]

I'm wondering if anyone has had success with this. Posting videos in parts, ie: part 1, next week part 2, does this help at all with adding subscribers or view counts?

 

[DamoΓÇÖs Paintings]

Well I can say they actually donΓÇÖt do a whole lot of good for me, as painting stuff is something viewers want from start to finish, but sometimes, well for me at least, I do a part 1 just to show that sometimes a painting just canΓÇÖt be done in one sitting, and that whatever is painted is what that is, but I do notice that when uploading part 2, the views roll in a lot more, but thatΓÇÖs just from my own experience as an oil painter, others probably have better success.

 

[AuroraB]

Thanks for your input!

 

[Ater]

For me the amounts of views drop of by a lot for each part, but the audience retention go up a lot. Which makes sense, you only watch part 2 if you really liked part 1 and you only watch part 3 if you really liked liked part 1 and 2.
This is how it looks for a 3 part tutorial I did a few years ago:
Part 1 - 33,887 views, avg view duration 6 min 40 seconds.
Part 2 - 12,385 views, avg view duration 7 min 40 seconds
Part 3 - 7,621 views, avg view duration 11 min 25 seconds.

I see the same in my let's play series, but then you have so many parts it goes to the extreme. It's hard to compare part 1 with part 60.

 

[AuroraB]

That makes a lot of sense! I dont see my videos going for more than 2 parts. They are walking videos and I'm trying to find a sweet spot as far as length goes. I thought I'd try splitting them up into 2 5ish minute videos instead of one 10 minute vid. Don't know how it'll go quite yet. But i really appreciate your information!

 

[Ater]

That makes a lot of sense! I dont see my videos going for more than 2 parts. They are walking videos and I'm trying to find a sweet spot as far as length goes. I thought I'd try splitting them up into 2 5ish minute videos instead of one 10 minute vid. Don't know how it'll go quite yet. But i really appreciate your information!

There is no harm in testing. Only way to get better is to try different things to find out what works best for your channel and audience.

 

[SILTHW]

I really think it depends on the topic, because I've had two very different experiences with it. One was a single topic broken into two videos. It didn't do well. They other was something composed of 3 sections. It did well with my subscribers, which was the intention of that specific video, but hasn't done as well with unsubscribed viewers.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

It does nothing for subscriber counts... and in and of itself it does nothing for anything else. That having been said the use of the 'To Be Continued...' trope in order to provide a cliffhanger and drive traffic to a second piece of content (particularly when it is needed to fulfil time obligations) is something that has been happening in media for decades. Used wisely it can help assist with the view machine in much the same way a playlist does; it links two pieces of content thereby doubling the views and topic exposure.

So; be careful to craft a good reason for one topic to be carried between two videos. You don't want to alienate your audience for the sake of an additional view... but done right you can utilize this tactic to help increase your views and watchtime.

 

[Beanie Draws]

My part 2's always do significantly worse than the part 1. Some can do it successfully, but those people are also really good at telling a story and ending a video on a cliffhanger.
I honestly wouldn't put "part --" in a title or video anymore. If there needs to be a part 2, I'd simply treat part 2 as it's own video, with maybe a "previously" quickly at the start, but people won't generally watch a part 2 if they haven't seen the part 1. I should experiment with the part 1, part 2 theme, but without actually treating them as separate parts. Actually, I may very well just go through my old "part 2" videos (back in 2015) and re-name them in the title and thumbnail and just treat them as their own unique video to see if it boosts things.

I think "part" videos are older classic YouTube mentality. Maybe for gaming it might work, but I don't think it works that well for my niche.

 

[AuroraB]

I get ya. Mine are just walking videos. I felt like I needed to split them up cause maybe they were too long? Idk. I'm gonna give it a try with this one, but if people seem to prefer 1 longer video instead a 2 shorter ones, then I'll just go back to doing that.

 

[talanajordan]

personally, from what i have seen having a second part will get less views on part 2, but that's just me!