one of the best ways to start getting more views on YouTube is by writing better YouTube titles which can boost the click-through rate on your videos and ultimately help you trigger the algorithm and potentially go viral and we've been talking about YouTube titles this is actually part two in a two-part series of an Insider document that I shared with the think media team trying to kind of educate new people that have been joining think media about how to think about titles and here's one reason why this is so powerful it's actually a lot deeper than
titles what it's really about is understanding topics understanding what viewers potentially want to click on what they're interested in and ultimately going to deeper levels of understanding human behavior and human psychology because we are creating content for real people we're actually not trying to reach the YouTube algorithm we're not trying to reach a robot we're not trying to reach the YouTube algorithm is just a a robot it's just a computer that is actually trying to serve up the best content for people and that's why we say at fake media the Creator who understands the viewer
best wins and so we've been talking about it ended up being nine tips I said 10 in part one but it's actually nine things that I shared with the think media team I covered the first five so if you haven't watched that episode you can check it out at the end of this one they're actually not in any particular order but definitely make sure to listen to that as well either on YouTube or on the audio platforms for the podcast but I'm excited to get into the next four tips that I was really sharing with
the think media team and these were like frames to think about when coming up with titles they're like spectacles like a pair of lenses that you put on your eyes when you're evaluating either a title you're already written you've already written or a title you're trying to come up with so inside we're releasing almost 10 videos a week sometimes more at think media so we're writing a ton of titles so when we review them we're asking ourselves these questions are they this and they're probably not going to be all nine of the things but as
many of them as you can tap into is going to make your title that much more powerful and so let's get into the next four and the first one is the title creates curiosity and it makes you want to click so your question is how can you create curiosity here's an example Heather did a video uh titled this the top 10 secrets you must know before starting a podcast now this is kind of classic powerful marketing and attention getting because it's saying the top 10 Secrets like what are the secrets what are the things I
must know so it's making kind of an assumption right we are talking to a specific audience and the specific audience would be wanting to start a podcast and then it's saying here's some things you must know but I don't know what the things are so the mystery is that I gotta click on the video and discover that inside of the video one of the things that can hinder your videos is revealing the payoff in the title now there's maybe a time to do that just being really practical and clear but your goal would ultimately be
to create a little mystery at times here's a video that's Graham Stefan did and here's the title why I stopped spending money dot dot dot what's on the other side of that now a disclaimer is that sometimes this strategy works better once you have a little bit of momentum because you know people know who Graham Stefan is they know who I is and there's a greater context in story happening around him at the time of posting that video I'm following Graham for financial advice why is he stopping money it's probably some financial news that came
out it's probably something that happened but nevertheless the question is just to ask ourselves okay is this title creating curiosity and at what degree do I want to click am I apathetic about it does it seem kind of flat does it not really have any energy or emotion around it or is it irresistible if it was if I was scrolling through my subscription feed or on my YouTube homepage and of course a good thumbnail is paired with it but then I read the title and I'm like oh man I gotta know what's on the other
side of that then you know you're on to something with a powerful title number two it opens a loop and it doesn't give the video away now again this is a little bit similar to curiosity but here's our goal is to open a loop and so one of the videos I did that really was quite popular was actually a live stream but even after I stopped going live the video went on to get thousands of views I think it's over a hundred thousand views and here's the title YouTube employee reveals new secrets for growing your
channel dot dot dot now let's break this down this is a pretty powerful title and I've studied copywriting and it's one of my things I geek out on I like uh books from uh Classics like ogilvion advertising and and and those who learned how to use the power of words to um really get people to take action and so the first thing here is YouTube employee this is this Taps into Authority like okay you know it could be like your mom review reveals new Secrets like that's actually kind of funny but uh but it probably
wouldn't you know like I don't know if your mom knows much about YouTube you know what I mean so it's like you could talk about you know my neighbor reveals new Secrets but it's YouTube employee so it's like okay I'm getting someone from the inside and then the the word reveals it's actually a really powerful word it's actually one of the power words so the YouTube employee reveals like because that insinuates mystery new new is another powerful word that we like to use because it's something we haven't heard before and what we've learned is that
we as humans we love novelty we want the new version right we want the new car we want the new toothpaste we want the new car smell we want the new strategies so then you have secrets and that's more mystery it opens a loop what are the secrets and I'm not learning them in the title four benefit it for the viewer growing your channel my friend let is let's break that down one two three four five six seven eight nine words and dot dot dot after it YouTube employee reveals new secrets for growing your channel
now it might be important to note at this moment a little bit of our think media process I want to encourage you that um we don't just sit down and necessarily come up with a great title right at the start um personally to come up with a great title I typically have to write five to ten and I just give it my best shot and then I write another one and I write them out for me I either write them in Google Docs or I write them in slack and I'm writing I'm talking to myself
in fact Saturdays when usually the think media team is off this last Saturday I went in there and I said title crew which is what we call it when we have our team actually brainstorm titles together and I said title crew talking to myself on a Saturday and I started to do the title crew by myself like I was alone I was all by myself and there I am I'm just on a Saturday you know and I'm pivoting a title actually in real time which is something that you kind of develop a sixth sense for
you release the video you see how it's doing in performance and I'm like man I think it could do better the content I feel like is pretty good I don't feel like the title is maybe powerful enough clickable enough and sometimes you may want to Pivot the thumbnail or you might want to Pivot the title so I'm sitting down and I'm I'm actually coming up with alternative titles the video is already released first thing in the morning I'm waking up sipping copy coffee writing titles you know it's my dream morning honestly personally and um I
I'm I'm coming up with titles you got to sit down and potentially brainstorm multiple and so coming up with YouTube employee reveals new secrets for growing your channel if that's like man that feels like a challenge it can be challenging this is like a muscle and a skill to develop and work on and so I encourage you if you want to come up with one good one write at least four or five and then even look at them by yourself and say which one of these is best another thing you could do is you could
put it out there on social media if you have a community tab or a Facebook group or anywhere else where you can do a poll right write three or four then put all four of them out there where there's a poll feature on social media and see if you could get 10 25 200 people to vote on that and a lot of times it'll be a clear winner because one thing we also realized and I personally realize I'm also not as smart as I think I can get so close to this thing I might fall
in love with the title it doesn't mean it's the best one so a lot of times our iron sharpens iron when you can share titles even amongst your social Community if you could share it amongst one other person if you can bounce it off a VA on your team or again I know most of us are Solo creators if you can just ask your partner or spouse and say hey which one of these kind of stands out the most to you or which one of these makes you want to click the most that could be
a powerful way to again open up a loop number two and not give the video away and be really compelling and interesting to make people want to click one of the titles from the sewing report Jennifer she's one of our video ranking Academy students she said watch this beef for all caps watch this before starting an Etsy Shop okay your desire of the viewers to start an Etsy shop but there's a little bit of drama here wait a minute okay I know I want to start an Etsy shop but before I gotta watch this video
before I do it now use these two as some formulas you could fill in your Niche like watch this before dating a millennial watch this before opening a business bank account watch this before buying your first Airbnb or rental property and you could fill that in and and that's a powerful way to open a loop that kind of makes me have to click on that so your goal here is to kind of make the viewer feel like they're going to discover something in the video or that there is a mystery to be revealed number three
here's a way to think is does this title frame a question that the viewer has does it frame up a question the viewer has Dave Ramsey had this title should I buy a house or go to college now if you've been hanging out with us on the think media podcast for very long we talk about the asq formula which is the it stands for answer specific questions one of the potentially simplest ways to put a good title out there is to just title the video as a question and a specific question you know the more
specific the better in fact this is very specific because I don't know it not a lot of people are like Torn Between the idea of should I buy a house or go to college but one of the powerful things Dave Ramsey has is he has a call-in show and because he's actually answering the questions of real people very specific questions are being fed to him and so how can you just create a title that just answers a question by putting the question in the title and sometimes we like to use a combination at think media
like it also could be as simple as like feeling stuck and so recently on I think a YouTube short we were putting out there feeling stuck question mark watch this video to break through a plateau on your YouTube channel you're speaking to maybe a question that's more of an emotion but it could also be more practical like you know what are the first steps for your Niche so frame up a question that the viewer has should I do a Roth IRA or a traditional IRA it's a question all right number four taps into fear or
pain now this is again important to know when understanding human behavior and understanding human motivation we as people are pretty much driven by two things every day we want to get away from pain or we want to get closer to pleasure and so if our content can help people get away from pain or if our content can help people get closer to pleasure and in the first episode of this two-part series we talked about you know helping people reach their desires and their Ambitions of course pain is usually the problem that you're thinking about right
now what's keeping you up at night so here's the title from Sin City Outdoors uh this video got 820 000 views and here's what it says Vegas water drought three exclamation points what you should know now you can see how these are stacking this is it actually is not set as a question but one question that's on the minds of people living on Vegas in Vegas is are we running out of water uh it's so there's also kind of an open loop and there is ultimately some curiosity like what you should know okay I gotta
click on this because there's probably some facts in here some information here that I need to know but the lead of the title right is potential fear and potential pain uh number one it's scary to think that we might run out of water number two it'll be incredibly painful not to have water so it's a it even this comes back to not just how the title is written even into the very topics you're talking about themselves when you understand what are the fears and the pain that your target viewer the target audience the community of
people you want to reach are your content is going to resonate more you're going to be stunned by the way that your content starts to really strike a chord because there's an emotional connection and it's what's top of mind for viewers here's one from George Blair West this was actually a TED Talk that got 500 000 views three ways to build a happy marriage and to avoid divorce now let's break this down three ways okay I'm gonna learn something practical they frame that up for me to build a happy marriage amazing I'm getting closer to
pleasure and to avoid divorce I'm also going to either get out of pain or I'm going to have a anti-fragual you know insurance against pain maybe my marriage is fine I want it to be better but I also want to avoid my blind spots or potential things that could be coming down the road do you see how powerful this is now imagine weaving just some of these strategies into your content um I mentioned this title that really crushed for us at think media and it was an urgent warning for all content creators again warning is
a powerful title urgent urgent warnings even more powerful okay so uh there's a potential what do I need to know here what's on the other side of this so there's some this this Stacks them all up by the way right it's curiosity what's the warning it opens a loop I've got a click like it doesn't give the video away and then it Taps into fear and pain it's like what's the warning what am I avoiding here and again our goal here is not to just spread fear add up by any means and there's even a
term floating around it's called fear porn and that's the idea of the fact that in YouTube sometimes you just see almost abuse in this area where everyone's just kind of doing these shocking headlines but I do think that the extremes are avoiding that too much when it's a powerful tool for growth and I think the best way to do it is I hope the way we're doing it at think media an urgent warning for all content creators talking to the real fears people have but then here's our perspective we don't have a spirit of fear
we have a a spirit of power love and a sound mind we have a spirit of power love and clear thinking we acknowledge the true challenges facing us but then we also Embrace The Hope and possibilities and the fact that God has given us created creativity and wisdom to be problem solvers here's the cool thing did you know that Vegas is actually the most efficient water city in the world like I actually because of like are we going to run out of water I found myself on YouTube I watched a 25-minute documentary and I realize
we give more water back than we take and it's actually the other states that are draining the Colorado River and there's going to be a committee that's going to sit to figure out because it's an Antiquated rules of who gets how much water and they and what the video revealed was actually more cities should be like Vegas what was interesting is oftentimes in the absence of Truth and Clarity fear and anxiety remains and so we hope that you being connected to the think media podcast you don't just take these tools and just go spread fear
that you tap into the real fears and anxieties people have but then you deliver hope truth solutions that you deliver opportunities that you help people realize that there's no it's no good spending time in fear or worry what we're pushing for is ultimately faith hope and solutions and so when we add up all of these again this was an eternal document these are just some of the ways we think about this at think media and by the way I know that this was a lot and I hope that this has been adding value to you
if it has definitely leave me some feedback if you consume the think media podcast on YouTube in the comments which one of these did you like best which one of these are you going to apply to your content if you listen to this on audio going to Apple podcasts and leaving us a review and maybe talking about this episode would be super super meaningful and then also I highly recommend our tube starter kit.com that is our YouTube starter kit and just one of the really cool it's there's a bunch of thumbnail stuff and in there
there's a whole list of the best video ideas to get started with money making strategies but we have this resource called the 15 best title formulas so if you just want to kind of copy paste some of our best titles immediately into your videos that resource alone makes this this is a very low cost resource that'll just help you revive or start a YouTube channel that really makes an impact anyways you can check it out at tubestarterkit.com it's our YouTube starter kit it's a digital asset bundle it's super cool but uh check that out but
let's just recap the two um the entire list and then go listen on episode number one of this series so that you can learn some of the nuances around each of these so here's all nine that I share with the team number one benefit driven features and benefits number two unique and fresh how can I make this title unique and fresh number three does this title speak to the desires and Ambitions of viewers number four does this title call out a specific audience like moms like content creators like someone with an apple shape body like
first home home buyers first-time home buyers number five does this video agitate a problem the viewer has and then make a promise to solve it number six does the video create curiosity does the title make you want to click number seven does the video open a loop does the title give the video away so you're like okay I don't need to watch that it says what it is or does it actually create mystery that I need to click on number eight does the title frame a question that the viewer has and the number nine can
this title tap into fear and pain or of course also help the viewer get closer to pleasure foreign
