4 Essential Tips to Improve Viewer Engagement

Consumers are easily distracted. Data scientists and media analysts believe the average consumer has an 8 second attention span. This highlights the challenge facing video service providers in creating platforms that engage the media hungry consumer.  

Stakeholders focused on video consumption continue to prioritise user experience, yet almost 75% of consumers express frustration at finding something to watch. This is not due to lack of content. This is a sign that the data describing available content is not doing its job. 

The user interface (or electronic program guide) is the primary method of understanding what content is available to watch. These guides allow service providers to promote new content, highlight trending programs, and make recommendations based on subscriber consumption patterns. However, how can they meet subscriber expectations and keep them from getting distracted or losing interest?  

It all starts with a robust data schema. This will define elements, attributes, usage, format and required or optional fields. A metadata strategy and metadata management platform that supports a range of data types, formats and sources is essential for fulfilling user expectations. 

Our tips for improving viewer engagement include the use of:

1. Images – With an attention span of 8 seconds, it is important to get subscribers to take action quickly. The old saying “a picture speaks a thousand words” is not only relevant, it’s a requirement for attracting and engaging viewers. Even if the program is unfamiliar to the subscriber, they may be attracted to a picture of a favourite actor.  This may cause them to click to see more information about the program, thus retaining the attention of the subscriber. 

2. Context – Helping subscribers quickly understand the setting of a film or series enhances their decision-making process. Every piece of metadata enhances the user experience by adding context to content catalogues through descriptive terms and tags that identify genres, locations, themes, moods and more. Additional context may be provided via deep links to reviews 

3. Deep Links – As subscribers navigate the user interfaces, they expect to see a range of data such as programme synopsis, cast, crew, length, release date, or brand. However, they may also want more details about the brand, series or episode. Deep links take a user to such details. 

4. Personalization – Engaging viewers requires aligning with their interests. For example, if a subscriber frequently watches a specific genre such as British crime drama, it is beneficial to recommend programmes with the same or similar genre classification.

The future of TV requires video service providers to engage their viewers by providing a contextual, informative and entertaining user experience. To improve viewer engagement, active metadata management is required to provide real-time insight about available programmes. Active metadata enriches passive metadata to improve content management systems and help them provide more meaningful data to subscribers. Without high quality metadata, the efficacy of the user interface is diminished. 

We elevate the value of metadata by using Atlas, our cloud based active metadata management platform to aggregate and normalise the descriptive metadata needed to captivate your subscribers. 

Interested in a platform that pays for itself in 3 months? Click here to book a meeting and learn how we can help enhance your metadata strategy.