Improvement suggestions for my Youtube Video Reviews please

I would like to ask for some opinions about video reviews in general and for some improvement suggestions for my video reviews in particular.

On January 12, 2020 I have opened my Youtube channel Alllightson Reviews As of now I can proudly announce to have 4 followers. :sunglasses:

I have posted 4 video reviews of different flashlights. They are between 6 and 8 minutes long. There is no talking, just background music and written comments.

My video reviews usually consist of the following parts:

Introduction screen - Flashlight model and one special feature
First look - Turning around the flashlight in front of the camera
Unboxing – Taking the flashlight out of the box
What’s included – Showing all the accessories
Specifications – Text from the manual
Battery and charging – Showing the battery and the charging
Modes and UI – Beam on a white wall, clicking through different modes
Beamshots – Shining around outside in the dark
Warning – Do not disassemble your flashlight
Disassembly – Unscrewing the bezel to show internal flashlight parts
Current measurement – Tailcap current measurement with clamp meter
End screen – Thank you for watching

So here would be a few of my main questions:

Which parts of the video reviews would you eliminate, what would you add?

Do you like the unboxing in a 3x time lapse or can I leave it away completely?

Are video reviews with background music and no talking ok for you?

Should my video reviews be shorter?

Are video reviews boring and if yes how can I make them more entertaining?

And forgive a Youtube newbie the stupid question: How can you get more followers on Youtube?

All comments and suggestions are welcome! Thank you. :slight_smile:

Lower the volume of the music, and go with something mellower like classical, lo-fi hiphop/jazz beats, soundtracks etc.

Go with a cleaner/more contemporay font, try to keep a consistent color on screen at once, and between different slides unless dark vs light background necessitates you switch.

No scrolling text, it looks terrible with youtube’s compression and even at 60FPS. You viewers will likely have to pause the vid to read it anyway.

LOVE the disassembly and current measurements. Far fewer video reviewers do this compared to the text reviews here on BLF and the other site.

Flashaholics makes some very clean videos with a format similar to yours and they’re worth a watch.

1 Thank

I just watched your last one.
No long intro - Excellent. I hate those.
The outdoor beam shots were a bit short.
Perhaps a side by side of the review light vs. some of the others. It’s always good to move the beam off center so we can see the spill.
Finding free music is tough. Seems like a lot of videos sound the same. At least yours is not too loud or continuous.
Looks like you are making a good start.
All the Best,
Jeff

Sorry for the late reply, almost forgot my own thread. :person_facepalming:

I really appreciate your comments and suggestions, BurningPlayd0h and jeff51. Thank you very much. :slight_smile:

BurningPlayd0h, I will follow your advice about music and text. I know Flashaholics and I also like the format with music and text instead of too much talking.

jeff51, in my next video review I will try to move the flashlight around more outdoors and directly compare it to some other flashlights.

Just subbed. Nice channel.

Next headline: “In an astonishing new find, yellow light causes cancer.” :smiley:

I am not a fan of reviews that just use text and music. I am frequently doing other stuff when I watch Youtube, like exercising, cooking, house hold chores so I can’t stop to just read the screen. From a production standpoint work on your lighting too.

I was trying to find some guys here on the forum who have youtube channels. Well, I found. And you know? Your Alllightson Reviews channel is great! Keep doing what you do. By the way, what applications are you using for your video editing? I’m personally using the Movavi - https://www.movavi.com/suite/ Pretty good for my requirements. :wink:

i always want a transcript

i can scan that in 10 sec and see if i want to spend 10 min on the video or not

i think there are auto generating sites, that can make transcripts from youtubes

wle

I thought they were gonna put a post requirementioned on links to stop these dormant spam bots that sign up and wait to be activayed

I think making an Intro video is important too. Video will give users info on who they are watching and gives some branding for your video topic. :slight_smile:

Me neither. Soon as it comes on, the video goes off.
Not knocking those who do it like that as it’s up to them, but imo if you are going to review it - do that otherwise to me it’s just specs and video with usually terrible music. Text only explains 1/20th of what people say on proper reviews, where they explain their findings and so on.
If you don’t like hearing people you can always mute it lol, but the same can’t be said the other way around. I find people who speak their reviews are much more engaging for the viewer.
Also liquid retro, I know you are new here (review wise), but your sort of review is the type I like, and I have forwarded your name and several others to a large manufacturer who I am talking with at the moment about running promotions for, I hope you don’t mind (they asked for names of reviewers I liked)

I rarely watch video reviews and haven’t seen these. As general comments about the format:

1) any music at all in video reviews is annoying, just get rid of 100% of it please. A video review at any moment is either conveying worthwhile information or it is wasting the viewer’s time. If it’s playing music it is almost sure to be wasting time. Even if there is something on the screen that should be viewed, if there is nothing useful to add in the voiceover then just leave the audio channel silent.

2) Video in general is inferior to text for conveying information quickly. There are a few situations where it helps. So I’d rather see a text review (maybe in the pinned youtube comment) that contains links to specific segments of the video that give worthwhile illustration to certain points.

3) Reviewing (summarizing the useful evaluation of a light), photography, video making etc. are all a lot of effort which I appreciate. I assume reviewers have a finite budget of effort that they can put into a review. Therefore, the higher quality the video or photography or music is, the less of the effort budget is left for presenting actual useful info. That means I prefer reviews whose video or photography is just good enough to convey whatever it was intended to do. Crappy lighting is absolutely fine. That said, I prefer photos that are at high resolution and have good closeups, so I can zoom in on small details like the markings on electronic parts.

Here is one of my favorite quotations about information gathering. It’s from the book “Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson, in a part where the main character (Randy) is trying to learn something about scuba diving so he can dive after a sunken treasure:

This is the kind of thing I want in flashlight reviews as well.

I just kindly recommend you to never touch the battery terminals, nor the flashlight electric contacts. Most Youtube reviewers do that and I never understood why. Grease, dust and acids may be on our fingertips. Touching electric contact may start the process of increasing resistance and worsening flashlight efficiency. Noticed doing it in your SP33 V3 review 1:27

I have a couple thoughts to add.

Are you still uploding videos? I note your last review was 8 months ago. Unfortunately, Youtube prioritizes consistent and frequent uploads, so you’ll have to upload videos more often if you want to reach a larger audience. Just trying one video per month for several months will make a big difference.

I highly recommend you add “chapters” to your video, which adds those little segments in the playbar which make it easy for viewers to find parts of the video they want to reference. You can create these by adding timestamps in the description of the video, starting at 00:00

This video explains it in detail

Based on your format, your description would have a portion that would look like this:

Introduction screen: 00:00
First look: 00:10
Unboxing 00:30
What’s included: 00:40
Specifications: 01:00
(etc)

I would probably remove the “Unboxing” portion, it’s not really needed and gets in the way in my opinion.

Text-based reviews are fine, but they’re very visually focused and if that’s your goal, you need to improve the production quality of the videos. Learn some better lighting techniques, these will go a long way to improving the look, and you don’t need to do anything too difficult :slight_smile:

This video shows you how to put together an excellent cheap lighting setup

Honestly though, I don’t think text-based reviews are the way to go, you’re better off writing reviews here if you want to remain text-based. I would recommend actually providing commentary in the videos, it’s more insightful for a video format and far more entertaining.

When making a video review, there are two important things to remember:

  1. DON’T WASTE THE VIEWER’S TIME! - People have a million other things to watch and read, so any one video has to be efficient and helpful if it’s going to have any success. When editing, consider literally every second of runtime and remove what isn’t needed. (Don’t go too crazy though! It has to be slow enough to still be understandable)
  1. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE VIDEO FORMAT! - Otherwise a written review is better. Video allows for a better understanding of the light in hand and in use. Show different angles, mix up the shots and backgrounds, and utilize movement in a meaningful way, especially for beamshots. Moving beamshots give a better idea of the actual beam in use.

Use your creativity, show us something we haven’t seen before! There’s a million other channels out there, so you’ll have to stand out in some way.

Yeah hard disagree on that one. Music can be a very valuable asset in videos, it can add dynamism and excitement, it can help obscure unclean audio if needed, and when carefully chosen it can be used to convey the emotion behind the review. Admittedly this isn’t done very often, but if you’re conscientious about it, the music can quickly and efficiently give the viewer idea of the reviewer’s opinion on a product, just like it helps to inform the emotion of any video.

More simply, it just makes the silent spaces less awkward and makes the video more entertaining. It is subjective, but most viewers tend to prefer music of some sort in the background.

Ultimately Skylight, you’ll have to find your own style and learn what it is you want to do, and how to do it. We all have different preferences, you can’t please everyone, so it’s best to find a niche and a style to pursue if you want the videos to find an audience.

As for HOW you gain subscribers? It’s a hard process, and a very discouraging one. I’ve started a few channels, and have never had great success. My advice:

  • Post frequently, YouTube’s algorithm really cares about this and will or will not promote your content based on your posting habits
  • Post about relevant topics, the biggest driver of traffic on YouTube is people clicking on “Suggested” and “Recommended” videos. Uploading relevant videos allows yours to appear to those interested in the topic.
  • Post about searchable things (especially when small) - sadly YouTube has absolutely butchered its serch function, but nonetheless it’s an important driver of traffic. I recommend researching SEO (Search Engine Optimization), it can give your content long-term viability
  • Put the quality of the content first - whatever aspects of quality are most important to your channel, whether it be technical information, production quality, humor, whatever, prioritize the content itself. When it comes to YouTube, for better or worse entertainment value is king.
  • Sharing your videos in relevant places like here or reddit helps give a small boost, but eventually your channel will grow with a sort of snowball effect.

Many thanks for all the useful suggestions. :+1: This could be valuable advice not only for me but for everyone who wants to start a Youtube channel.

editor, thanks for reminding me, I will pay attention next time. I wipe the contacts of my flashlights from time to time, especially if they start flickering.

Forsythe P. Jones and LuxWad, I appreciate your elaborate advice. I didn’t upload anything during the last year because I have been rather busy and video reviews are quite a bit of work. If I want to upload a video again I will keep your comments on hand. :student:

I am not very confident about my English because it’s not my native language. So I don’t comment on my videos. Maybe I should.

Subscribed to learn and there are plenty tips here :+1: Thanks!

As for English speaking, we see many non-native doing reviews and many of those lights are interesting and cannot be found in the mainstreamed “natives’ ” channels .
So, don’t be ashamed for english speaking. You probably know one language more than the english speakers only :wink:

I lost the shame and now my reviews are spoken, not just “silent” demonstrations. I don’t have editing tools or time, so they are done in one take only, though :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for the thread and for the tips written above :+1:

Don’t let that worry you :+1: I know people have issues ‘hearing’ themselves on recordings (I can’t stand my voice) but you know, other people don’t hear it like that lol!
As for not being confident in English - well I bet you speak English better than most NATIVE English speakers! you’d be surprised how many younger people here can’t even speak it properly, sad but true.
I’m quite articulate with ‘olde’ English words (of which some are beautiful imo), but often when speaking to younger people (sub 25’s) half the time they don’t even know the meaning of the words I use and look at me with a puzzled gaze on their face and I have to explain the meaning. :person_facepalming:

Here’s an excellent channel for free music. You just need to credit the artist, some you can’t use on a monetized channel, but this is always mentioned in the description. I got into the habit of emailing a lot of artists from this channel and was given permission to use more of theirs

Scam account - reported