How This 1920's Soviet Psychologist Can Help With YouTube Retention (Open Loops)
Most of your favourite YouTube channels are already doing this.
The Zeigarnik Effect
In 1927, the Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik discovered a fascinating pattern in human behavior in waiters and waitresses. The staff seemed to remember orders if they were in the process of being served, but once these orders were delivered and customers were happily eating their food, they would forget about them immediately. It became known as The Zeigarnik Effect.
Essentially, we will remember unresolved issues much better than resolved ones. As humans, we have a natural desire for closure, and this extends to stories and essays. If there is an unresolved issue or issues at the beginning of your video, the audience will naturally want to see how these issues get resolved.
You can do this through an ‘open loop,’ a loop you start, leave open for an extended period, and then close it towards the end or after a certain time period. Here are three examples.
A Mission Video
This is basically every Mr Beast video. Something is happening, and we will see how this pans out at the end of the video.
Asking A Difficult Question
Many educational or self-help videos will ask a pertinent question, and this will be asked throughout the video. YouTube is most people’s go to guide for problem solving, like this video below titled ‘Why Your Subscribers Don’t Watch Your Videos.’
Teasing Further Information
Many YouTubers don’t fully explain some information but promise to return to it later in the video. Watch the intro of this video and how it makes you wait for its secret to get you more subscribers.
Below is the transcript.
“As a small YouTube channel, one of your big goals is to get 1,000 subscribers, and that's hard to do. But you are probably making this task even harder by ignoring one of the most important subscribe buttons on YouTube. (Points at video subscribe button) Spoiler alert, it ain't this one.”
Present Unresolved Information
Introducing cliffhangers, unresolved mysteries, or complicated problems will naturally encourage your viewers to keep watching to see what happens.
The video below presents a simple unresolved problem at the beginning.
”Monaco, the richest country in the world, has a problem - it’s full.”
This is my first post about ‘open loops,’ but there are earlier posts I made about writing intros, boosting retention, and using cliffhangers that could also help generate these loops.