How to Enhance Use Engagement When You Create a Video Streaming App
YouTube has been the king of video hosting sites for years now. Every day, users upload approximately 500 hours of videos per minute to its site.
For end users, it would be an utter mess trying to sort through a slush pile of so much content. Yet when you open YouTube, you see a bunch of curated videos just for you. This is because YouTube learns from your watching behaviour and creates personalised recommendations.
As you create a video streaming app, you need to do the same. Without customer engagement from interesting video recommendations, your app audience could head for greener pastures.
In this guide, we take a look at ways you can enhance user app engagement for video streaming.
Use Dynamic Content-Recommending Algorithms
The secret sauce behind the scenes is the YouTube algorithm. This mathematical function sits in the background, taking note of how every individual user watches videos. It tracks metrics such as the following:
- Likes and dislikes
- Subscriptions
- Watch duration
- Comments
With this information, it learns (without human input) what sort of content a person likes. Over time, its recommendations get smarter and smarter. A person can click through a YouTube “rabbit hole,” getting ever-more-precise recommendations that they are likely to enjoy.
Make sure that you build an app with an effective algorithm. Conduct A/B testing and parse user analytics to make sure it is effective. Test it yourself and see how quickly it figures out your preferred content.
Optimise Your User Interface
A key component of effective app development is UI or the user interface. It’s more of a psychological game than one of programming. The best UIs are intuitive, easy to use, and visually appealing.
One thing you’ll notice in the UI of most streaming apps is the Recommended Video section. This might be to the side or below a video. Or similar videos pop up in the viewing space after completing a video.
Include a recommended section; make it clear and visible, and easy to use. If users dislike your recommended video section, they may close the app and do something else.
Implement User Feedback
Sometimes, humans are difficult to decode. Even the best algorithms may struggle to maintain live stream engagement, leading them to recommend unwanted content. Or, as happens quite frequently, they recommend something outside a user’s typical content bubble.
Allow the user to take part in the content recommendation pipeline. That is, let them teach the algorithm to be more effective at its job.
YouTube does this with a simple two-step process. The user can select the “not interested” button to stop recommending a specific video and all related content. Then, if they so choose, they can tell YouTube why they did so to further improve recommendation accuracy.
Create a Video Streaming App with Builder.ai
Video and streaming apps are extremely popular these days, but they live or die by customer engagement. The key is to have working algorithms and a dedicated recommended section. In addition to this, your app should incorporate some means of feedback to improve algorithmic precision.
