Was at a local creator meetup in Portland when a guy showed me his analytics dashboard from last year

He was pulling in like $8k a month just from long form videos. Not shorts, not tiktoks. Full 15-20 minute deep dives. I had been so focused on trying to get viral on short form that I forgot people actually watch longer stuff. He said his average view duration was like 70% which is insane. Made me rethink my whole strategy.

2 comments

2 Comments

bennett.noah1mo ago

But what kind of content was he making exactly? Like was it tutorial stuff or just him talking about random topics for 20 minutes? I keep hearing about these long form guys making bank but every time I try to watch one I get bored at the 5 minute mark and swipe away. 70% view duration on a 15 minute video is nuts though, that means people are actually sitting through almost 11 minutes of it.

riley_west1mo ago

Man that 70% figure is wild, had a buddy who does woodworking builds on YouTube and he kept telling me the same thing about long form. Dude will film himself sanding a table leg for 45 minutes and somehow people are glued to it. Watched one of his videos out of curiosity and next thing I know I'm an hour deep watching him explain why he uses a low angle block plane instead of standard. His comments section is full of people arguing about grain direction and finish types. Bet that analytics guy's community is just a bunch of folks who treat his long videos like background noise while they fold laundry or whatever.