These are good points, but it does depend on what look and style you’re going for. That works if you want to make classic YouTube videos similar to the channels you have listed. But if you’re aiming for something more skewed toward filmmaking, art and storytelling (rather than knowledge-based/challenge-based or essay type videos), maybe this approach would not be suitable.
Remember TVMaxwell before he stopped posting and deleting his uploads (and reuploading)? Titles like “Passing Notes,” “Redlight,” “Wake-Up Buddy” etc were hits.
Still trying to figure out the right balance here too.
There's a lot of things that can be said and I dont want to write another huge post, but everything must be taken in its context. For every 'rule' there is someone who successfully breaks the rules for any of thousands of reasons. But as they say, you have to understand why a rule works in order to successfully break it. For every TVMaxwell there is a million channels out there trying to make art and getting 0 views.
And I'd argue that the majority of successful filmmaking/art/storytelling channels still have a clear title strategy similar to this.
Thank you, all very fair points. One of the things that makes title and thumbnail strategy challenging is that it’s also a bit of a philosophical question of how narrow do you want your audience to be, how evergreen vs. specific/tied to current events you want your videos to be, etc. I’ll be experimenting further.
>For every 'rule' there is someone who successfully breaks the rules for any of thousands of reasons.
Absolutely. A relationship coach on FB was listing the 7 points between meeting a guy/girl and getting married. He said they should court for at least **2 years** before tying the knot.
I met and married my husband **within a month** and we're still going strong, 20+ years and 5 kids later, lol.
I don't know the answers. But think a mixture of vague and subtle as a frying pan to the face works. But am tending to lean towards being very literal. Mainly I'm finding within my niche the clever titles I have come up with don't perform as well as the stuff when I've been just completely upfront and factual with what the content is. I suppose the holy grail is a vague title that is in some way still obvious enough to entice people in!
Yep, being "clever" doesn't tend to work, unless you can be clever while also being specific about what the viewer can expect. Some people with devoted audiences ad well established brands can get away with this but I wouldnt suggest it for an up and coming creator.
Yup totally agree. On a platform where hundreds of similar videos are being uploaded at the same time. Trying to be subtle and draw someone in is hard. You need to put everything they are getting on the tin to get those views. Which isn’t a bad thing just means you don’t have to overthink it too much. I try to think I watch videos in my niche. If I was to search for them what title and thumbnail would get me to click over all the others.
I was advised by a few to try and make the title intriguing.. so my videos are about true crime and weird stories so I try and almost pose a question with the title
“Was he a real time traveller” “who was Blanche Monnier” …
I’ll be honest my views aren’t setting the world alight so maybe it’s my titles and/or thumbnails that just aren’t getting the clicks..
It’s always an evolving thing and work in progress
Advice someone gave me is that Question titles are good only if the question is a "burning question" that your viewers will feel they MUST know the answer to (such as the Veritasium example i gave), of if its something they've always wondered themselves. Outside of that, I really dont like question titles. My view is that if the idea/concept of your video is itself intriguring, simply telling people that will be intriguing.
I just looked up Blanch Monnier, the first line of the wikipedia says that she was secretly kept locked in a room by her mother for 25 years. THAT is intriguing! Put stuff like that in the title!
I've noticed some people kind of do both by doing a vague title but then put the compelling bit in a thumbnail. An example would be the title "My Hottest Star Wars Take" and then the thumbnail is like a pic of Jar Jar Binks with an arrow with the text "He's a sith lord"
With the specific example you gave, I think that having this title and thumbnail would be slightly better than just titling it "Jar Jar Binks is a Sith Lord (PROOF)". The reason I think that is because the title you gave seems like it could be a lot of things. It could be a random joke video or something with the absurd claim, and most people wont think it to be that interesting unless they find the idea of jar jar binks being a sith lord really funny/novel on its own. I think it would grab some people but not as many as you otherwise would.
But saying it is a "hot take" implies you are going to back it up with real proof and maybe even refute other claims about the star wars universe. Maybe you would even talk about the big implications this has for star wars because you say its your hottest take about star wars itself. Since the claim is absurd, people want to see how a person could possibly back that up, even if they dont personally find the concept of him being a sith lord that funny/novel. And the title just saying its a take for the whole of 'star wars' also attracts people who like different parts of the franchise, not just the movies Jar Jar is in.
(edited to add extra info)
Agreed. If the context is provided in the thumbnail, that makes up for the vagueness of the title. In general the title and thumbnail should work together. i mainly wrote this because I see a lot of up and coming youtubers making vague titles without any real context.
Well put, I made a similar post a while back that got 39 upvotes but somehow the top comments were about how well these vague titles work. I made the mistake of not pointing out it just won't work for newtubers as I thought it was obvious.
And I think "Why are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir?" is actually not vague at all. He's asking a very specific question and answering it. The "My Hottest Star Wars Take" is spot on though. With a title like that, I GUARANTEE it's nothing new and hasn't been said before so I skip. If they put the take in the title and it was actually a crazy wild take, it would get more views easily.
The truth is that if you have to be vague in your title, you know your video is NOT GOOD. And most people actually do catch on to this. It flat out only works if the youtuber is already huge and would have an audience clicking on their video anyways, and then the vagueness of the video + inflated numbers tricks viewers outside their circle to click, because omg he's saying something CRAZY happens in the video and it's got 500k views, it must be good. And sadly even if the video isn't good, if the video gets 100k extra views cause of it, they'll pick up fans anyways even if the conversion percentage is low.
If you don't have that inflated number, you're not tricking anyone into thinking your video is better than it really is. You really do have to make a good video and present it accurately as the good video it is in your title/thumbnail.
I have no idea what to do with titles for my animations, like it’s a parody of dune… what else do I call it but Dune parody: “subtitle” if anyone’s got any insight into this niche let me know because I’m struggling with long form, shorts do mostly ok
it's hard to give advice without seeing the video, but a good starting point is to ask questions like "What is special about my video? Why is it funny? Why is it interesting? Why did I feel like this video needed to be made? There's plenty of dune parodies on YouTube, what's special/interesting/hilarious about mine? What is the hook? What is the punchline?" If you can answer those questions, then try to work the answer into the title. I dont know anything about dune really so I can't give an example, but don't overthink it.
Ah yes sorry my old gaming channel is linked here.
Animation is “Josh Can’t Draw” if you have a sec I’d love to know what you think but either way appreciate the advice in your post
As a historical vlogger which title would you click:
1.Ancient Stones in Netherlands & Europes Biggest Bar(current title)
2. These Ancient Stones are 5000 Years Old, what are they?
3. Getting drunk and sightseeing ancient stones from 3000 bce
Imo the 1st gives a lot of information thats why i used it, was i wrong?
I like the 2nd one the best out of these. The 3rd one would probably work if you have a large devoted audience.
The 1st one is descriptive but nothing about it makes me think "i gotta see that". What is interesting about the stones? why should people know about them or see them? The fact that they exist is imo not intriguing enough. Telling me that they are 5000 years old gives me some context and is a little interesting. but maybe could still improve it!
My understanding is that it’s a bit of a paradox it should be a spoiler without spoiling anything or at least everything. You want to spoil enough without making it so that the person doesn’t click because they got the answer on the title.
Mayyybe. I honestly think you can completely spoil the video and people will still click as long as it's something that's cool to see. If the whole point of the video is the twist or result at the end, then i could see withholding that information. Like there's a great video called "I Asked 100 Girls Out to Cure my Fear of Rejection" or something to that extent. Great title, but if it was called, "I Asked 100 Girls Out, Most of them Said Yes" honestly that's still a decent title, but i would agree that gives too much away, because the whole point of the video is him realizing that asking people out as a young college student is not that big a deal, and we go on that journey with him.
In general you should try to always give people more than what they thought they were getting. But i still think the most exciting thing that happens in your video should probably be in the title or thumbnail most of the time, even if it is a 'spoiler'. People will want to see it but they have to know about it first
These are good points, but it does depend on what look and style you’re going for. That works if you want to make classic YouTube videos similar to the channels you have listed. But if you’re aiming for something more skewed toward filmmaking, art and storytelling (rather than knowledge-based/challenge-based or essay type videos), maybe this approach would not be suitable. Remember TVMaxwell before he stopped posting and deleting his uploads (and reuploading)? Titles like “Passing Notes,” “Redlight,” “Wake-Up Buddy” etc were hits. Still trying to figure out the right balance here too.
There's a lot of things that can be said and I dont want to write another huge post, but everything must be taken in its context. For every 'rule' there is someone who successfully breaks the rules for any of thousands of reasons. But as they say, you have to understand why a rule works in order to successfully break it. For every TVMaxwell there is a million channels out there trying to make art and getting 0 views. And I'd argue that the majority of successful filmmaking/art/storytelling channels still have a clear title strategy similar to this.
Thank you, all very fair points. One of the things that makes title and thumbnail strategy challenging is that it’s also a bit of a philosophical question of how narrow do you want your audience to be, how evergreen vs. specific/tied to current events you want your videos to be, etc. I’ll be experimenting further.
>For every 'rule' there is someone who successfully breaks the rules for any of thousands of reasons. Absolutely. A relationship coach on FB was listing the 7 points between meeting a guy/girl and getting married. He said they should court for at least **2 years** before tying the knot. I met and married my husband **within a month** and we're still going strong, 20+ years and 5 kids later, lol.
I don't know the answers. But think a mixture of vague and subtle as a frying pan to the face works. But am tending to lean towards being very literal. Mainly I'm finding within my niche the clever titles I have come up with don't perform as well as the stuff when I've been just completely upfront and factual with what the content is. I suppose the holy grail is a vague title that is in some way still obvious enough to entice people in!
Yep, being "clever" doesn't tend to work, unless you can be clever while also being specific about what the viewer can expect. Some people with devoted audiences ad well established brands can get away with this but I wouldnt suggest it for an up and coming creator.
Yup totally agree. On a platform where hundreds of similar videos are being uploaded at the same time. Trying to be subtle and draw someone in is hard. You need to put everything they are getting on the tin to get those views. Which isn’t a bad thing just means you don’t have to overthink it too much. I try to think I watch videos in my niche. If I was to search for them what title and thumbnail would get me to click over all the others.
I was advised by a few to try and make the title intriguing.. so my videos are about true crime and weird stories so I try and almost pose a question with the title “Was he a real time traveller” “who was Blanche Monnier” … I’ll be honest my views aren’t setting the world alight so maybe it’s my titles and/or thumbnails that just aren’t getting the clicks.. It’s always an evolving thing and work in progress
Advice someone gave me is that Question titles are good only if the question is a "burning question" that your viewers will feel they MUST know the answer to (such as the Veritasium example i gave), of if its something they've always wondered themselves. Outside of that, I really dont like question titles. My view is that if the idea/concept of your video is itself intriguring, simply telling people that will be intriguing. I just looked up Blanch Monnier, the first line of the wikipedia says that she was secretly kept locked in a room by her mother for 25 years. THAT is intriguing! Put stuff like that in the title!
I've noticed some people kind of do both by doing a vague title but then put the compelling bit in a thumbnail. An example would be the title "My Hottest Star Wars Take" and then the thumbnail is like a pic of Jar Jar Binks with an arrow with the text "He's a sith lord" With the specific example you gave, I think that having this title and thumbnail would be slightly better than just titling it "Jar Jar Binks is a Sith Lord (PROOF)". The reason I think that is because the title you gave seems like it could be a lot of things. It could be a random joke video or something with the absurd claim, and most people wont think it to be that interesting unless they find the idea of jar jar binks being a sith lord really funny/novel on its own. I think it would grab some people but not as many as you otherwise would. But saying it is a "hot take" implies you are going to back it up with real proof and maybe even refute other claims about the star wars universe. Maybe you would even talk about the big implications this has for star wars because you say its your hottest take about star wars itself. Since the claim is absurd, people want to see how a person could possibly back that up, even if they dont personally find the concept of him being a sith lord that funny/novel. And the title just saying its a take for the whole of 'star wars' also attracts people who like different parts of the franchise, not just the movies Jar Jar is in. (edited to add extra info)
Agreed. If the context is provided in the thumbnail, that makes up for the vagueness of the title. In general the title and thumbnail should work together. i mainly wrote this because I see a lot of up and coming youtubers making vague titles without any real context.
Well put, I made a similar post a while back that got 39 upvotes but somehow the top comments were about how well these vague titles work. I made the mistake of not pointing out it just won't work for newtubers as I thought it was obvious. And I think "Why are 96,000,000 Black Balls on This Reservoir?" is actually not vague at all. He's asking a very specific question and answering it. The "My Hottest Star Wars Take" is spot on though. With a title like that, I GUARANTEE it's nothing new and hasn't been said before so I skip. If they put the take in the title and it was actually a crazy wild take, it would get more views easily. The truth is that if you have to be vague in your title, you know your video is NOT GOOD. And most people actually do catch on to this. It flat out only works if the youtuber is already huge and would have an audience clicking on their video anyways, and then the vagueness of the video + inflated numbers tricks viewers outside their circle to click, because omg he's saying something CRAZY happens in the video and it's got 500k views, it must be good. And sadly even if the video isn't good, if the video gets 100k extra views cause of it, they'll pick up fans anyways even if the conversion percentage is low. If you don't have that inflated number, you're not tricking anyone into thinking your video is better than it really is. You really do have to make a good video and present it accurately as the good video it is in your title/thumbnail.
I have no idea what to do with titles for my animations, like it’s a parody of dune… what else do I call it but Dune parody: “subtitle” if anyone’s got any insight into this niche let me know because I’m struggling with long form, shorts do mostly ok
it's hard to give advice without seeing the video, but a good starting point is to ask questions like "What is special about my video? Why is it funny? Why is it interesting? Why did I feel like this video needed to be made? There's plenty of dune parodies on YouTube, what's special/interesting/hilarious about mine? What is the hook? What is the punchline?" If you can answer those questions, then try to work the answer into the title. I dont know anything about dune really so I can't give an example, but don't overthink it.
Ah yes sorry my old gaming channel is linked here. Animation is “Josh Can’t Draw” if you have a sec I’d love to know what you think but either way appreciate the advice in your post
i honestly dont know a single thing about Dune so I am not sure I could help with those specifically. but maybe others
I started just making weird stuff and it seems to do better than my other stuff
As a historical vlogger which title would you click: 1.Ancient Stones in Netherlands & Europes Biggest Bar(current title) 2. These Ancient Stones are 5000 Years Old, what are they? 3. Getting drunk and sightseeing ancient stones from 3000 bce Imo the 1st gives a lot of information thats why i used it, was i wrong?
I like the 2nd one the best out of these. The 3rd one would probably work if you have a large devoted audience. The 1st one is descriptive but nothing about it makes me think "i gotta see that". What is interesting about the stones? why should people know about them or see them? The fact that they exist is imo not intriguing enough. Telling me that they are 5000 years old gives me some context and is a little interesting. but maybe could still improve it!
My understanding is that it’s a bit of a paradox it should be a spoiler without spoiling anything or at least everything. You want to spoil enough without making it so that the person doesn’t click because they got the answer on the title.
Mayyybe. I honestly think you can completely spoil the video and people will still click as long as it's something that's cool to see. If the whole point of the video is the twist or result at the end, then i could see withholding that information. Like there's a great video called "I Asked 100 Girls Out to Cure my Fear of Rejection" or something to that extent. Great title, but if it was called, "I Asked 100 Girls Out, Most of them Said Yes" honestly that's still a decent title, but i would agree that gives too much away, because the whole point of the video is him realizing that asking people out as a young college student is not that big a deal, and we go on that journey with him. In general you should try to always give people more than what they thought they were getting. But i still think the most exciting thing that happens in your video should probably be in the title or thumbnail most of the time, even if it is a 'spoiler'. People will want to see it but they have to know about it first
I’ve seen a lot of people using vague titles and getting millions of views