Becoming A YouTube Sensation

How Richard Wiseman Keeps Over A Million Followers Engaged

Since its launch over 10 years ago, Professor Richard Wiseman’s In59Seconds YouTube channel has grown to more than 1.4 million subscribers. In that time, Richard has developed a loyal fan base eager to watch each new video he posts. And we really mean eager. For a channel of Richard’s size, a 1.5% engagement rate would be good but Richard’s most popular posts average at 15.07%! Here are just a few examples that we’ve created for Richard:

So, how does Richard do it? The answer is short form animated explainer videos that inform his now devoted fan base and add value to their lives. 

What is a good engagement rate on YouTube?

It all depends on the size of your channel. Smaller channels should aim for an engagement rate of over 3.5%, but as your audience and subscribers start to grow beyond 100,000 achieving a 1.5% engagement rate or more is a mark of success.

Richard’s channel however has as an engagement rate 87.5% times higher than the entirely respectable 1.5%. To understand why audiences respond so much better to animated explainers than more traditional ‘talking head’ videos, we worked Richard on a research project.

 ‘Talking Head’ Videos VS Explainer Animations - The Research

We were inspired to work with Richard on this research after the success of the RSA Animates Series. The series took voiceovers from ‘talking head’ videos and used them to as the basis for animated explainer videos. The videos were instantly popular and to date, the series has had over 100 million views.

Recreating this, our research compared a ‘talking head’ video with an animated explainer video that used the same voiceover. We found that:

• Viewers were 66% more likely to share the animated explainer video

• The animated explainer video resulted in a 15% increase in information retention

• The animated explainer video was 33% more entertaining

And of course, we animated our findings!