“I look at my retention stats every day because it’s a good gauge of whether people are liking your videos, and if it’s not retaining folks then you can dive into why not?” she says. “I use this a lot when I’m trying out content styles and keeping that in mind when I come up with future ideas.”
For example, she’s used retention data to figure out whether 60-second videos are even too long on Shorts, and whether she should bump them down to 30 seconds. Or if folks are leaving half-way through a video, she says these drop-offs can indicate that you can insert quick cuts or zooms to build engagement.
But while those stats can be helpful to ensure you’ve found a good rhythm and balance between transitions, narrations or intro and outro lengths, Sydney reminds everyone that stats aren’t necessarily the end-all be-all.
“Don’t get caught up in the stats to the point where you become a robot and get too stuck in a box,” she says. “I’ve done this where I get too caught up in getting the exact format to feed the algorithm and you’ll just lose your sense of creativity.”