OTT: How to increase video content views
Streaming service operators are always striving to boost user engagement within their service and, more specifically, increase video content views. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways operators can leverage their content, service, and even experience to optimise discovery for their users, including maximising their metadata for search and running external marketing and social campaigns.
Optimising the User Interface and Experience
One of the best ways to increase video content views is to optimise the interface and enhance the user experience within the streaming service. If users have a positive experience, they’re more likely to return and recommend it to others.
There are several ways operators can optimise the user interface, including making quality content easy to find. Curating rich categories of entertainment and positioning content high up on the discovery page of the service is one such solution.
Magine Pro-powered streaming services allow operators to curate the discovery page thoroughly, including content category curation and selecting content to hero within the top carousel. Our partners can also use the CMS Console to select what artwork and poster sizes are presented and add engaging and informative titles and descriptions to entice users to choose particular movies or series. Adding additional content, such as trailers and even editorials, will also help expand the discovery experience and give users a clearer idea of what’s available.
Making the Most of Metadata
Another way operators can help to increase content views is to ensure metadata is as SEO-friendly as possible. Metadata is data that defines and describes the data object it is linked to. In this context, metadata describes, via text descriptions, the content of a video, making it readable for search engines.
Ensuring that metadata is SEO-friendly will help content appear much higher in search results both inside and outside a streaming service. To do this, providers should focus on using keywords throughout metadata descriptions, including attention-grabbing and descriptive titles, and adding content summaries that accurately reflect what users will see.
Using the Magine Pro CMS Console, our partners are able to upload, manually edit, and even use custom metadata to help enrich their user experiences and improve search results.
Running External Marketing Campaigns
Service operators can also look to increase discovery and views by running external marketing campaigns focusing on select content instead of the entire streaming service. A strategy like this works particularly well when the chosen content is well-known, sought after, and/or exclusive to the service itself.
Utilising digital channels is a fantastic way to generate interest and track a campaign’s success. Google ads and sponsored social media on audience-relevant platforms are great starting points. And can build out further to partnering with trusted companies or influencers who will promote the content to their loyal audiences and help penetrate new markets.
Magine Pro’s Data Insights toolset gives our partners a clear 360 view of their service’s performance, enabling providers to follow the entire user journey from marketing attribution to engagement throughout the customer lifecycle. Data-led insights like these give operators a complete view of a marketing campaign’s performance and whether focused external content strategies are cost-effective and capable of producing the desired outcome.
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At Magine Pro, we offer a flexible OTT platform that can be customised according to your OTT business needs. Create a video streaming service with us and monetise your live events, linear and VOD content seamlessly through subscription, advertising, and/or transactional business models. What’s more, we have a team of experienced experts on hand who can help you launch and grow your OTT business successfully.
For more guidance on increasing content discovery, views, and engagement, check out our blog. And if you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you build and launch a successful OTT business, get in touch with us today.
Finding the UX/UI Sweet Spot: Designing a template for VOD and Live TV services
Today’s viewers can enjoy a wide variety new digital video-on-demand and live TV services on a range of different platforms. At MaginePro, we enable content owners and service providers to effectively engage their viewers by offering a series of customizable UX templates that meet their business needs and user expectations. Our templated solutions are designed to provide the best possible experience for both sides.
In this post, we walk through some aspects of our design systems and cover how finding the ‘sweet spot’ enables us to define the template platform UI to meet our partner’s requirements and user needs.
User Behaviour & Content Discovery
User experience and behaviour differs considerably between linear TV and VOD services.
Linear TV services, for example, are low friction as users get instant access to live content; only needing to interact when actively choosing to change channels. As live TV events have a start and end point it’s crucial that users can find what they want to watch as quickly and as easily as possible. Finding content on a video-on-demand service doesn’t require the same level of urgency, but browsing a big library of content without any context can be overwhelming. Video-on-demand services require more interaction as users need to browse the content catalog in order to find what they want to watch.
At Magine Pro, we focus on building platforms that make it easy for all users to discover content that appeals to them. For example, linear TV service users can catch up on missed live shows such as sports events (when supported by content rights) and create a personal list of their favorite channels, making them easier to locate after signing in. Catch up and VOD content is also presented in modules (movies/genres/series etc), enabling users to interact and explore further details such as trailers, synopsis, and cast etc. This gives the user a deeper understanding of the content and allows them to make an informed decision when selecting something to watch. Curated recommendations on the start page, and recommendations based on previous viewing preferences, also make it easier for new and returning users to discover great content.
Design Approach
At Magine Pro, we frame every design problem in a job story, focusing on the triggering event or situation, the motivation and goal, and the intended outcome:
As an example:
“When there’s an interesting live sports event, I want to find it quickly, so I can watch it from start to end.” – Service user
Breaking this down there are three parts we need to consider:
- “When there’s an interesting live sports event” – This is the situation, it describes when this happens.
- “I want to find it quickly” – This revolves around the motivation and why the user wants to do this.
- “So I can watch it from start to end” – Users expected outcome and what we need to focus planning and design around to deliver.
Job stories give us context and enable us to focus more on user motivations. Having a clear picture of user behaviour and needs also prevents us from implementing unnecessary features that reduce the usability of the product. We work closely with our partners to assess the impact and only implement agreed features that don’t add complexity to the template or create friction for the user.
Finding the Sweet Spot
Video-on-demand services enable users to browse and consume a vast content catalog with great discovery features, such as recommendations and related content to boot. Because of this, providers and viewers are drawn more to building and using VOD over linear TV services. At Magine Pro, however, we believe there is a sweet spot nestled between traditional linear TV services and full-scale VOD services. We combine the simple, elegant user interface of traditional linear TV with the power of choice found in VOD, creating a richer experience for users.
Our design approach is focused on creating true value for users and service providers. We leverage our experience and understanding of good UX to build products that successfully fulfill our partner’s needs and provide exceptional experiences for viewers around the world.
You can learn more about Magine Pro’s professional video solutions here. We would love to hear from you if you would like to discuss our products, find out more about our services or get started.