3 easy steps to get your users to press play in Screenr

David Anderson makes Screenr screencasts that always look awesome.    His screencast below had over 250 views in just over 24 hours.  If you are looking for advice on how to get people to watch your ENTIRE video, this post won’t cover that.  This post WILL show you 3 easy steps to get viewers to press play.

This screencast gets me to press play

View this screencast at Screenr

Here are 3 simple steps that will increase the views of your screencasts:

Step 1: Use a custom Twitter profile pic

Every time I see someone still using the default twitter profile picture I figure that they can’t figure out how to set their Twitter pic, they are too lazy to change it, or they are they are using Twitter to send me spam.  Why would I want to view a screencast by any one of these people?

Part of the beauty of Screenr is that it allows you to show some personality to a screencast through narration.  A good way to not show personality is by using the default Twitter profile pic.

See how David’s pic adds some personality to the banner above the screencast?

Adding a custom Twitter profile pic tells me that you:

1. Know how to use a computer
2. Aren’t a robot
3. Aren’t lazy

Step 2: Use a good description

Eliminate excessive words, and remove “How to…” from the beginning of your screencast descriptions.

Back in the Web 1.0 world it was generally thought that adding more text to a web page increased the usability of the page.  People soon figured out that this was not the case, and icons became popular.

People hate reading excessive amounts of text, this is why NOBODY EVER reads a help file or FAQ.  As an example, check out Screenr, there are less than 100 words on the Screenr home page (excluding screencast descriptions).  Yet, despite having very little text people aren’t having a tough time figuring out what Screenr does, or how to use it.

Use fewer words to describe your screencast, it will make it easier to quickly figure out what your screencast is about.

Look at the description of David’s screencast:

Create a Polaroid, page curl image effect in PowerPoint 2007

What if it had been:

How to create a Polaroid, page curl image effect in PowerPoint 2007

Or even worse:

How you can create a Polaroid, page curl image effect in PowerPoint 2007

The top description allows me to almost instantly figure out what the screencast is about without having to READ the description.  I can quickly just parse it and figure out, hey, this is about creating a Polaroid effect in PowerPoint 2007.

Note: Articulate’s Adam Schwartz pointed out in the comments that there is a lot of reseach that shows that words like “How to” actually increase conversion rates.  So the words “How to” may actually help more than they hurt.  It is important though that you remove excess words, especially in the Twitter world.  The longer the description the more difficult it is to ReTweet.  The quicker someone can parse your description the more likely they will be to view the screencast.

3. Use an interesting thumbnail

Two reasons why David’s screencast thumbnail rocks:

1. The thumbnail displayed looks compelling
2. It shows the finished state of the demonstration

Don’t make the thumbnail be the record instruction page.

The thumbnail displayed in Screenr is the first frame of your recorded screencast.  Avoid this by minimizing your browser before starting the recording.

In David’s screencast the first frame he captured was the end result (i.e. the result of following the demo).  This way I know what I am going to get by viewing the screencast.  I don’t have to wait till 3 minutes into the screencast to decide if it is something that I am interested in learning about.