mr beast taught me the secrets behind consistently going viral on youtube and i'm gonna share them with you in this video a few weeks ago i was at vid summit a paid youtube event where mr beast was one of the keynote speakers and during his talk he shared some behind the scenes strategies and tactics that he uses on every single video to go viral so in this video i'm gonna summarize all the secrets that he shared so that you can apply them to your videos mr b's guide to going viral started off with topic because
topic can really be make or break for going viral or not and his tips for choosing a viral topic include it should be very simple and easy to understand no specific context should be needed for the topic to be interesting the more context that is needed for a potential viewer to be interested and the more assumptions that you make about what they know you're simply just shrinking the size of that potential audience the topic should be universally interesting for the most broad potential possible and i have an example that he mentioned coming up in a
sec and the topic should also be relevant to what's actually delivered through the content in the video if you can't fulfill the promise of the topic within the video it won't go viral because people won't watch and the example that he gave for a good versus a bad topic would be i got hunted by the fbi which is a great topic versus i got hunted by my brother both are basically the exact same topic but one leverages a very broad appeal through the fbi everybody knows who that is plus it amplifies interest by creating a
ton of anticipation and using mass appeal that is a universally interesting topic versus getting hunted by your brother they need to know a lot of context to even care at all the next section is title and this is also huge for getting people to click his tips for here were short and simple most people's titles on youtube are far too long you want to make it clear short and simple and again with the title here it should be very easy to understand you want to make no assumptions about what they know the more universal the
title the broader the potential audience and he provided an example of a good title versus a bad title offering people one hundred thousand dollars to quit their job is an example of a great title versus offering people in random restaurants a hundred thousand dollars to quit their job why the first one is great is because it's very enticing it's very simple and there's no extra context provided or needed to be interested in the subject whereas the second one just overcomplicates what you're actually achieving you want to make this as easy to understand as possible and
throwing in something like in random restaurants is totally wasted real estate and doesn't actually help you achieve the goal of building interest and getting that click so mr beast basically follows the michael scott method of kss keep it simple stupid if it's simple stupid great advice curse my feelings every time the next category is thumbnail this one is absolutely massive because if people don't click the video they can't watch it and it will never go viral and he gave three very simple tips to creating a great thumbnail it should accurately describe in the most visually
enticing way what's in the video meaning don't promise something you can't deliver on and secondly just like the title it should be simple and very clear what they're gonna get if they were to click that video and the third tip is to make sure it's colorful and bright you wanna make sure that your thumbnail will stand out on youtube otherwise people won't click it he then shares some specific thumbnail pro tips that he uses for every single video to give him the best opportunity to go viral the first is to have two or three different
versions of the thumbnail ready to go once you launch this way if you notice that less people are clicking it than you expected you can try swapping it out he said doing this has saved multiple videos and if they didn't have it handy the video would have been a flop so don't just assume the first concept that you came up with is an absolute winner create variations to see what actually works he also shared that his team goes as far as to edit down the different concepts that they have to see how they would be
consumed on mobile or different areas on youtube to see exactly what the user would see before clicking it and this is the only real way to actually see if an important element of the thumbnail is visible at the smaller sizes and he said that a ton of his thumbnail success has come through doing this the next section of his viral guide was average view duration and more specifically how to increase your average view duration and he broke this down into a few different things and this section is so important because once you get people to
click if they don't stick around to watch the video will not get pushed the first key element of longview duration is the intro your intro should meet the expectations that were set through the title and thumbnail and he gave this random example if you make a video that's titled i eat a hundred bananas but then when they click it they see someone eating apples you just didn't deliver on the promise and they're gonna bounce and he even built upon that random example by saying it wouldn't be effective to show you buying bananas because that's not
why people clicked they clicked to see someone eating the bananas and he summarized the whole concept like this if the intro of the video doesn't match the expectations that you set through the title and thumbnail that got them to click you will absolutely lose people so don't do it the second intro tip that he gave was to instantly explain the video as well as the payoff from the video and to do so as simply as possible go watch some of his videos and you'll see he does this every single time he tells you exactly what
the video is going to be about and why you should stick around what's the payoff at the end to keep you there tip number three is to hook them in and tell them why to watch don't be redundant and communicate again what you already shared to the title and thumbnail instead progress along the story and build up anticipation telling them exactly why they should stick around tip number four to a good intro is to get right into the content after delivering all those elements we just covered the next part of having a great average view
duration is storyline and he gave a few tips for this the first was to have an easy to understand objective there's a clear reason why somebody's watching this so you want to make sure to deliver upon that throughout the story the second tip is to stay on topic if you do get off the primary reason they clicked it they're probably gonna leave three is no filler content and he built upon this by saying only content that is necessary to the narrative and does it meet the expectations that got them to click if the answer isn't
yes don't include it and i can already hear a bunch of you saying that my kind of content doesn't have a storyline like this and his fourth tip was all different kinds of content are different and obviously this kind of storytelling is not applicable to every kind of video but the fundamentals that make it successful can really be worked into whatever kind of content you create on youtube this is just the guide to going viral and to go viral you have to appeal to a mass audience the fourth section of a high average view duration
was payoff and the tips that he gave include one to have a clear goal which you set out from the beginning and you tease throughout the video and two the content progressively builds towards that payoff throughout the video viewers should be consistently reminded what the payoff is and we're building towards that through the content the third tip is to wait until the very end to give that payoff if you give it to them at any point throughout the video as soon as they get what they came there for they will leave and you will have
a lower average view duration so wait until the very end keep building up that anticipation and then give them the payoff right at the end and the fourth tip is very tightly connected to the intro create a upfront contract with the viewer telling them exactly what they'll get if they stay around and then deliver upon it at the very end give them a compelling reason to stick around continue to tease it and then only give it to them at the very end doing all these things will get you all the metrics that you need to
be in the good books of youtube high click through rate and a lot of watch time means the video is going to get pushed to more and more people and the more broad the topic was the more potential people youtube has to show it to so as complicated as youtube is it's also extremely simple you want as many people to click your video and watch all the way through and doing these strategies gives yourself the best opportunity to do that but mr beast also shared some very specific things that you want to focus on as
a creator to increase the chances of you going viral and in a nutshell he said this people need to love your videos the amount of videos someone watched matters as well as survey responses so after someone watches your video youtube will then ask people how they like the video the more people that say they love that video the more youtube will push it so making sure it's a great video really does matter and the number of videos that people watch in a session as well as their responses to surveys is having increasing importance in terms
of how youtube prioritizes pushing certain videos he also said to be thoughtful of the journey of a new viewer think of their pathway and optimize for a great experience and long viewing sessions and you can do this through series as well as playlists and specific content that flows very easily and seamlessly and he said by obsessing over a new viewer's experience and increasing the amount of time they spend with you you're increasing the value that that viewer has in the eyes of youtube and you're also building that no like trust factor far faster which will
be huge for your channel and finally mr b shared some generic youtube pro tips that i found incredibly valuable one was that building anticipation can have an impact on click-through rate so this can be done through a series whereas if people watch the first one they're waiting for the second one or through hyped videos so if you put a ton of anticipation and all your fans know a video is going live at a specific date naturally they're gonna be primed and ready to click that leading to a higher click-through rate he also said that a
combination of successful videos and progressions of those successful videos can help grow a channel significantly for example say you did a specific 24 hour challenge that went really well a natural progression to that would be to do a follow-up video that would say 48 hours you're building off something that was successful providing even more of what made it so enticing in the first place and the third pro tip was one that's not new but it is super great advice for youtube recognizable figures improve click-through rate and an easy example of this to understand is this
video right here i purposely used mr beast's face in the thumbnail because all of mr beast's fans will recognize that making it far more likely that they click this video so leverage borrowed attention from using recognizable faces and figures in your thumbnails and if you are one of those people who clicked this video because i did use mr beast's face what's up my name is ben and on this video i post weekly videos to help people grow on social media and make money through social media so if that's something you're looking to do be sure
to click subscribe don't forget to like this video if you enjoyed it and if you're looking for some more videos to help you grow your own youtube channel check out this video right here i share 10 super easy growth hacks that you can do today to start growing your channel faster seriously click it or it's here or it's over there click it i'll see you over there let's keep talking
