Keep viewers – and their families – engaged with streaming content discovery insights

Every Friday night is pizza and movie night at my house. We pick up our favourite New York-style cheese pizza and settle down in front of the TV to find something to stream. But with two adults, a teenager, and a pre-teen in the room, it can be hard to find a show or movie that fits everyone’s tastes. We spend 15 minutes or more going in and out of apps, up and down VOD catalogues, using search, watching trailers, checking parental ratings, and arguing… all while our pizza goes cold. 

And we’re not alone. As viewers use more and more streaming services and content rights migrate from one service to another, finding the right the show, event, or movie can be challenging. However, by transforming your data into application insights, you can find the best pathways that viewers use to discover video content and make the user experience (UX) more contextual, efficient, and personalised. 

Streaming content discovery should be contextual 

• Each device has different capabilities that uniquely influence video content discovery. The presence of a touchscreen or voice input on a streaming device leads to different feature usage patterns compared to that on a purely broadcast one. 

• The type of streaming content being sought can also influence content discovery journeys. Viewers looking for news and sports exhibit a different set of behaviours compared to those seeking dramas or documentaries. 

• Timing is another important factor when it comes to promotion and positioning of video content. Leveraging insights into seasonal patterns, can help identify the best times of the day, week, or year to elevate within the user experience events like sports (e.g., Olympics), awards shows (e.g., Oscars), and other timely topics (e.g., political races). 

Streaming content discovery should be efficient 

• Tracking streaming video content discovery journeys, as well as success rate, is critical to identify where in the user experience you might be able to streamline interactions to reduce the steps and time involved. 

• Success based on data can be defined not only by speed to viewing but can also show whether the journey resulted in significant consumption, i.e., viewing duration. 

• Understanding feature adoption and usage through app insights help not only prioritise product investment, but also improve the features’ design to make them more intuitive and user-friendly. 

Streaming content discovery should be personalised and localised 

• The way each of us interacts with TV is different. And although it may not be possible to deliver a unique user experience for each viewer, it may be valuable to address certain segments, such as children, with a UX that aligns better with their discovery preferences and usage. 

• Certain regions, especially multi-ethnic and multilingual regions, may also have discernible patterns that can be catered to with unique content discovery approaches. 

• Data-driven content grouping can play a big role in targeting content. UX concepts such as ‘Most Popular Now’ or ‘Trending in Your Area’ can bring a local flavour to content recommendations that reflect community trends. 

Keeping viewers engaged in your video service means helping them find compelling content quickly, so they spend less time searching and more time watching. Synamedia Clarissa turns your data into application insights on what is and isn’t working in your user experience. It can also uncover viewing patterns that you can leverage for a more personalised approach, and make sure that the content and features are relevant to the situation in which they are being used. 

Using data insights to get video content discovery right can help your service stand apart from the crowd and make sure your content gets the attention it deserves. Help your customers find what they want to watch quickly and with less arguing. The pizza will probably taste better too! 

Find out more about Synamedia Clarissa App Insights here.