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Ask HN: Why did this video do so poorly?

4 points by xky ↗ HN
A friend of mine is working on a video content startup called PLGRM (plgrm.com.au). They are struggling to get a consistent amount of views and can't figure out why.

I am trying to encourage the founder to seek more feedback from viewers so I thought I'd post this to get some honest opinions and possibly shake up his perspective.

Here is their latest docco that has had less than 1,000 views in 5 days. Why did this video do so poorly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6qsYAYUyns

15 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 41.6 ms ] thread
greenyoda
I thought this documentary was well made. One reason that it might have gotten a low number of views is that nobody knew about it. How do you publicize your content? What's your target audience?
pandacushion
I thought the story arc was confusing. I wasn't sure if it was a promotional piece for the guy, or a call to action. If it was a call to action, they didn't really explain how I could help.
kam93
That is good feedback.

Do you feel like a call to action is a must if the topic is of a socially conscious nature?

pandacushion
Yes - unless you want people simply to watch rather than take action and impact the real world.
kam93
And if they are simply watching - do you think leaving the audience with an empowering undertone leaves an inherent 'promo' undertone as opposed to other documentary style that is more critical, fact finding in essence?
detaro
How where people supposed to find it?/How was it promoted?

The title isn't great (sounds like an ad and the actual title might get cut off in compact views) and the thumbnails all only show the logo. The name and logo probably are not well known, so they don't give any motivation to click it, even if I would see them somewhere.

xky
They post their content on their website www.plgrm.com.au then link to it on Twitter and FB mainly.
kam93
The video is promoted social media mainly. Website traffic is still low for platform influence.

Do you think it might be obnoxious having 'PLGRM presents' in the title to attract a wider audience who has no connection, or hometown interest in the small network?

detaro
If I don't know who you are, "PLGRM presents" is just noise and IMHO distracts from the actual title/thumbnail, which might capture my attention. Worst case, something shortens it to fit in a box and a user only sees "PLGRM presents 'The..." and the title is completely lost.

If the name means something, I'm hopefully already following you on Twitter/YouTube/... and get info that way, or recognize the channel name. Or if you want to keep it in the titles, put it at the end. ("$Title, by PLGRM" or something)

Also Twitter: The last few tweets ("I just added $video to $group on vimeo") are IMHO useless or even annoying, but what I see before looks good: eye-catching picture, good teaser-text, ...

billconan
I checked some of the videos, I'm not quite interested in the content.

who are the targeted users? why would people be attracted to the videos?

xky
Looking at who follows their FB and Twitter, it looks like socially conscious Australians between 22 to 28. Similar to VICE's target market in Australia. Not completely sure though.
kam93
The videos are targeted at Millenials (18-34) as a response to the inherent and ironic 'disconnection' the digital age has presented to people.

What is it that specifically does not interest you? Is it the genre or style in the way the stories are told?

billconan
I don't think I'm disconnected, do you have proof that this is indeed a problem? In fact, I can easily find connections that I like online, for example, deviantart is where I find connections with artists I like.

And the process of finding connections is really cheap, all I need to do is peeking at the hottest art submissions and clicking into the artist's page. Only few seconds to build up a new connection vs watching 5 min video of a stranger that I'm not interested.

the skate girl video, for example, doesn't interest me. If I were really interested in this topic, a simple youtube search gave way more content to follow: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=skateboard+awes...

honestly, I also easily get aesthetic fatigue with the style too. the videos are of good quality for sure, but after watching few of them, I can't remember who they are anymore.

kam93
That is a good point. So the assumption that people are in fact disconnected and are looking for connection with other human beings through stories is an assumption that needs to be challenged.

Do you prefer photos over video content? Ie. A photo series of 10 powerful images that convey an easy message as opposed to a 5 minute video?

In relation to aesthetic - are you in need of different styles per different topic to break down this aesthetic fatigue?