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I stopped editing my videos for a week and my watch time went up, not down
I did an experiment last month where I posted 4 videos with zero cuts, no music, and no b-roll, just me talking to the camera in one take. My average view duration went from 2:40 to 3:55 because people were actually following the story instead of getting yanked around by a jump cut every 3 seconds. I am not going back to the old way, has anyone else tried stripping their edits down and seen the same thing?
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robin_henderson811mo ago
That matches what I've been seeing too, and I'd take it a step further: the jump cuts might actually be training your viewers to leave. Like every time you chop the frame, you're giving their brain a tiny exit ramp, a little moment to think "ok I could click away now." With one long take there's no seam to slip out of, so they just stay locked in because leaving feels like interrupting something. I've noticed the same thing with thumbnails too, the busier ones do worse than a plain shot of a face, so maybe the whole point is less stuff competing for attention, not more. The hard part is trusting that a boring edit is actually working when it feels like you're doing nothing.
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