YouTube Creator Stories: How the Slow Mo Guys Made Every Second Epic
Four years and multiple burns/scars later, Gavin Free and Daniel Gruchy (otherwise known as The Slow Mo Guys) have grown their channel to over four million subscribers. Mixing science and comedy with their powerful high-frame rate cameras, they’ve shown us everything from slow motion airbags to mousetraps. The Slow Mo Guys is just one project for the duo, with Gavin busy as an employee of Rooster Teeth (a U.S. production studio) and Daniel as a Lance Corporal in the British Army. How have they built such a huge following with such constraints on their time, while living on different continents? Here, we outline five key strategies that drove The Slow Mo Guys to their current level of success:
#1: Consistently deliver the goods The Slow Mo Guys are unusual YouTube creators in that their content strategy has remained mainly unchanged from the first video. This consistency means you know exactly what you’ll get when you subscribe. The Slow Mo Guys deliver nothing other than slow-motion videos! Although their uploads are much less frequent than those of other YouTubers with a similar size following, this consistency has served them well every time they upload a new video.
Views from The Slow Mo Guys’ Paint-themed videos, March 31–April 30, 2013
The evergreen nature of their content means that when they upload a video, their back catalog receives a bump in views as people get hooked into watching more. #2: Tell the full story Beautiful high-frame rate, slow-motion footage is included in every video, and it usually makes up around 30–60 seconds of videos that are on average 3.7 minutes long. So what are they doing, and are people watching?
Audience Retention of “Mouse Trap Finger Challenge” video
As shown in the audience retention graph above, their viewers like to rewind and watch the high-speed footage again. However, their engaging personalities mean that the story of how they get the high-speed footage itself is also hugely compelling. The stress, persistence and sometimes physical pain that Gavin and Daniel (usually Daniel) go through to make the videos are just as big of an attraction as the stunning slow-motion visuals. The channel could have simply been a video repository of 60-second clips of high-speed footage, but by also showing the viewer the guys behind “Slow Mo,” they’ve turned their audience into a loyal fanbase. #3: Perfect the basics The Slow Mo Guys know the power of compelling thumbnail and title combinations, and bright, high-quality, high-contrast thumbnails have been a fixture of the channel from the start:
The biggest traffic driver for The Slow Mo Guys is YouTube’s Suggested Video recommendations, accounting for 31% of all views. Ensuring the thumbnail and title are eye-catching and compelling is a key factor in driving long-term viewership of such videos on the platform. #4: Create shareable content With 5.3% of their views coming from external websites and embedded players, this is content that people like to share and discuss. Their first video to go viral was “Giant Six Foot Water Balloon.” The video was funny and scientific but also inherently technical by the nature of the high-speed footage. This meant that the video was shared on a wide range of blogs and websites, from howstuffworks.com to Gizmodo and Buzzfeed, and it drove a large amount of traffic from social media sites such as Facebook and Reddit. Covering everything from super hydrophobic surfaces to slow-motion footballs hitting a face, they draw in many disparate audiences under the umbrella of slow-motion video. This also means that they can work with a wide variety of brands extremely effectively and are not restricted to collaborating with a particular vertical. From demonstrating “cold spray” for General Electric, to celebrating the release of EA’s Battlefield 4 game, these collaborations have allowed them to make videos they may not normally have had the resources to make and resulted in compelling and engaging content for their fans. #5: Respond to audience demand Unsurprisingly, living in different countries has a huge impact on the number of videos Gavin and Daniel can create together. To combat this, they often block shoot videos to ensure they have enough content to upload on the channel during the months they are apart. However, they are active in the conversation and engaged with their audience, sometimes letting them guide the editorial.
This kind of content resonates very well with their subscribers; the Cinnamon Challenge video got twice the views from the YouTube Guide in the first two weeks compared to the duo’s usual output. Featuring content that their superfans love as well as videos that appeal to a wide range of audiences has helped spread the word and cultivate a loyal following. Conclusion The Slow Mo Guys were pioneers of slow-motion footage on YouTube. Coupled with a consistent and entertaining format that allows the audience to get to know the presenters, optimized thumbnails and titles have helped ensure the channel’s success. Read more here
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