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On YouTube, there is a wealth of information to help creators grow their channels, but most of it is a dangerous distraction from what really matters.
A video breaking down how to improve YouTube audience retention by studying Shelby Church's storytelling, B-roll use, hooks, and personal narrative, rather than chasing a single magic percentage.
Key Takeaways
- Focus on continuous improvement of retention rather than hitting a fixed percentage.
- Use dynamic B-roll that supports the A-roll narration to keep viewers engaged.
- Build a personal story into your videos to create a sense of journey.
- A simple, minimal setup is enough to produce engaging, high-retention content.
What the video covers
- Argues that most YouTube advice is a distraction; viewer retention is the metric that truly matters for growth.
- Says there is no magic retention number; the key is beating your own previous personal best.
- Analyzes Shelby Church's (1.6M subscribers) intros and hook, showing how she teases what the video will deliver.
- Explains B-roll as footage that plays over the narration, and notes Shelby uses roughly 19 clips in the first 60 seconds.
- Suggests keeping on-camera talking (A-roll) to about a third of a video, with the rest covered by B-roll.
- Highlights storytelling, including personal journey narratives that jump between past and present, as a strong retention driver.
- Recommends telling a story while demonstrating a skill, talking to the camera about what you are doing and where you are in the process.
- Shows that a simple, tidy, minimal home setup can look professional and engaging without expensive gear.
- Notes that the example video was shot on a Panasonic GH5, but the techniques apply to any camera.
- Advises understanding what viewers care about and matching video content to those interests.
Chapters
- 00:00Why most YouTube advice distracts from retention
- 00:45Retention percentage and beating your personal best
- 04:35Analyzing Shelby Church's hook and intro
- 07:10Using B-roll and the A-roll ratio
- 09:15Storytelling and personal journey techniques
- 12:00Simple setups and filming tips
- 15:00Understanding viewer interests and wrap-up
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Arguments about tags and wondering if you should or shouldn't ask people to subscribe and not fixes for your problem. Getting better viewer retention is. So, if you're sitting there frustrated that everything you do seems to change nothing, then it's time to
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Arguments about tags, wondering if you should or shouldn't ask people to subscribe, and not fixes for your problem.
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information is the important part of this because retention should be about always trying to improve your videos, not just aiming for a single magic number. So, I set out to try and find a way to show you some of the best
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Getting better viewer retention is.
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and her name is Shelby Church. Now, whether you've heard of Shelby or not, pulling apart her videos with me are going to let you in on some of the top retention techniques big YouTube channels use all of the time without you
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So, if you're sitting there frustrated that everything you do seems to change nothing, then it's time to shift all of your focus to making videos that keep your viewers' eyes glued to the screen.
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this number doesn't matter at all. What matters is how you react to this number when you see it. A good audience retention percentage is always about trying to beat your previous personal best. So, I dedicated quite a lot of
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Now, I'm not going to sit here and say I have 80% retention on every video because that's just not true.
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incredibly important when it comes to getting a high viewer retention percentage and keeping people interested. Now, you can simply tell a story by just saying one like I did at the start of this. Remember this, but just telling a story is only scratching
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But it is possible.
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managed to make a really impressive video without leaving her bedroom, which meant I had to watch the same video over and over again. So, let's kick this off by analyzing how Shelby creates intros and in particular her hook.
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And just knowing that information is the important part of this, because retention should be about always trying to improve your videos, not just aiming for a single magic number.
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So, the line here is these days of everyone being stuck at home, you might be looking for a way to make more money online. Now, I mentioned in my watchtime video that you want to work out what your viewers really care about within
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So, I set out to try and find a way to show you some of the best retention tips going.
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not only that, but watching her videos, there was clearly another layer to her storytelling, and that's that she tells her story using B-roll. So, let me get you up to speed with what B-roll is exactly. me right now talking to you.
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And that's when I remembered a YouTuber with 1.6 million subscribers, someone who smashes out hit after hit and is one of the best at keeping you interested in her content.
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The important thing here is your B-roll needs to work with what's being said by the A-roll. So, the opening line, "These days, with everyone being stuck at home, you might be looking for ways to make money." Then, shows Shelby at home
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And her name is Shelby Church.
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that. It could have been about the 10th time of watching the video's intro when something else stuck out, like a sore pair of eyes that have been watching the same video over and over again. And that was the pace. Shelby has 10 different
Speaker A
Now, whether you've heard of Shelby or not, pulling apart her videos with me are going to let you in on some of the top retention techniques big YouTube channels use all of the time without you even realizing.
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Now, this is often a place that kills retention and slows things down because people feel the need to elaborate as to what their channel is about. And then some people love to show logo stingers and a montage of video clips that just
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But right now, you're probably wondering, what is a good retention percentage for a video?
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a bunch of ways people do this with YouTube, podcasts, Amazon, even Airbnb." by talking about the past. What she was really doing was letting people know not just what she's about, but what else is on her channel that they can watch
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But I'm afraid to say, a good percentage isn't 50% or 60%.
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Everything else is B-roll. In fact, there are 19 clips of B-roll in the first 60 seconds here. So almost 2/3 of her opening minute, she's not on screen talking, which tells you just how important it is to add other video clips
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It's 85% in the case of MrBeast.
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A-roll. And then try to get as close as you can to only ever being on screen for a third of the video. So I felt like 20 views of the first 60 seconds of this video was probably enough. and I moved
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What I want you to realize is this number doesn't matter at all.
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Now, if you were hoping that you would only need to do 60 seconds of non-stop footage changes, well, I'm afraid it's not that easy this. Shelby maintains her storytelling and B-roll at the same pace throughout the entire video. The next 10
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What matters is how you react to this number when you see it.
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that stuck out was how Shel's retention busting video was a personal journey, too. And viewers love a journey. So, 4 minutes 36 seconds into the video, this is the part where the story really kicks off. And I just love what she does to
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A good audience retention percentage is always about trying to beat your previous personal best.
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Did you notice that? I'm going to play it again, but this is something Shelby absolutely dominates with. Okay, first things first. Time to write something.
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So, I dedicated quite a lot of time to watch one of Shelby's videos over and over again to analyze what it is that she does to make such engrossing content.
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And what Shelby does is she has a clip in the past. And in the past, she's wearing a different colored outfit and it's a different camera angle to what we've seen so far. And she says, "Okay, first things first, time to start writing
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And the first thing that stuck out more than anything else is that Shelby is an epic storyteller.
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And then straight after that, her voice comes in as the narrator and fills you in with what happened after that. The whole video just keeps jumping back and forths between past tense and present narrative. So, it's multi-dimensional content and that is just a beast for
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Story is incredibly important when it comes to getting a high viewer retention percentage and keeping people interested.
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So, the next thing to try for retention is to develop a personal story within your content. Record yourself doing the thing you were trying to teach and talk to the camera during it to discuss what you're doing and what stage you're at.
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Now, you can simply tell a story by just saying one, like I did at the start of this.
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still one thing on my mind. How can you guys make videos like this? So, I mentioned earlier that Shelby made this without leaving her home. So, she does an amazing job of keeping this visually interesting without really having much
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Remember this, but just telling a story is only scratching the surface of what's possible here.
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Now, with all respect to Shelby, there's nothing special about this setup, but at the same time, that's exactly why it's fantastic for you, because I think anyone could get this great look without it being overly complicated. So, here
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Really, you need to show it, the Shelby way.
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That's important because most people don't have giant filming spaces. But there are also no distractions. It's tidy. It's minimal. It's real. And she's not even hidden her wires or hard drives. So if you're spending ages on your setup every time you film, you're
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So, to learn more about retention, I focused on one of Shelby's videos that she made about how to make money using the writing platform Medium.
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Shelby's not actually using a really expensive camera here at all. She shot this on the Panasonic GH5. But actually, there's some things Shelby does that you can do no matter what the camera you have is or your budget that's going to
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Because she managed to make a really impressive video without leaving her bedroom, which meant I had to watch the same video over and over again.
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it comes to retention, this slight movement does keep people interested. I'll give you an example to show you what I mean with three static clips followed by the same clicks with some movement. The first thing you're going to notice is the static look okay. And
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So, let's kick this off by analyzing how Shelby creates intros, and in particular her hook.
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into your editing software and animate it slightly. You can do this on almost all editing software. If yours can't, I'm afraid it's time to upgrade if you're serious about this. Enlarge your image by about 15 to 20% so it doesn't
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These days, with everyone being stuck at home, you might be looking for a way to make money online.
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Shuffle down the clip. Add another key frame here. And then on this last key frame, move the B-roll to the right or the left. If we watch that back, you can see there's a very subtle movement. The other option is to zoom in a little too.
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So, the line here is, "These days, with everyone being stuck at home, you might be looking for a way to make more money online."
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looks fast, it looks rubbish. Now, as I watched Shelby's video, one thing stuck out as very smart. She clearly didn't have many options to film because there's a pandemic going on and she's got to stay at home. So, when you don't
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Now, I mentioned in my watch time video that you want to work out what your viewers really care about within the video you are making.
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visual story. Now, your camera angles are the next thing that going to help you make your content more interesting and boost retention. Now, I'm not going to go into cinematography here, but what I want you to think about is how you can
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And Shelby's intro hits her viewers' interest hard because it was released at the start of the pandemic, when people were worried about making money.
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your setup. You can then in the edit jump between these two, and that's going to help keep people interested and tell your story. And this is another retention attention keeper. So, Shel's screenshots and graphics are really well put together. And the great news is
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So, to the viewer, it's like she's reading their mind.
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Now, I've taken that clip and I've added a little bit of movement to it, which personally I prefer, and I think it just takes it to another level. The next thing here could actually just be a photo. And in the edit, it looks like
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But not only that, but watching her videos, there was clearly another layer to her storytelling, and that's that she tells her story using B-roll.
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works, too. She uses it to give you the timeline of a story by telling you what day she's on. And by the way, I don't want to ruin this for you. We don't actually need to film this over multiple
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So, let me get you up to speed with what B-roll is exactly.
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ruining the magic of YouTube here, but it really does save a lot of time. The text also backs up big points, and she fills the screen with it. It's another element that keeps it visual and moving.
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Me right now talking to you, this is known as A-roll.
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retention. She's just got this chilled beat going on and it gives it a little bit more energy. So, it's not just one song on repeat, but like a film, it's got its own little soundtrack.
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It's the narrative part of the video.
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videos. Cuz if you keep just making videos and wishing people watched for longer and never really change anything, then nothing's going to change. And if you spend all your time trying to work out how YouTube works and you don't
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B-roll is the footage that goes on top of the A-roll, and that helps to tell a story.
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have uploaded your
Topics:YouTube retentionaudience retentionB-rollstorytellingvideo hooksShelby ChurchYouTube growthvideo editingA-rollcontent strategy
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