I watched every viral YouTube video of 2023 to figure out the reason behind going viral and this is where it gets interesting it was not through luck I found a framework that can be applied to any video to keep your retention high and it actually worked in fact I got close to 3,000 subs from posting just two videos and average 25k views While others in my Niche who have more subs struggle to average 10K views and what's crazy is there only three steps to this formula but each one is linked to the the other bro
I roast the hell out of people who like have boring first 5 seconds it's brutal essentially your title and thumbnail set expectations and at the very beginning of the video to minimize drop off you want to assure them that those expectations are being met our main objective in the first 5 seconds is to meet the viewers expectations now a common thing I found was that they matched the first 5 seconds with the thumbnail and the title let's take a look at an example check out the title and thumbnail of this video in the thumbnail there
is a close-up shot out of Rockefeller with a dark reddish background and oil pumps the title of the video is Rockefeller the world's first billionaire now let's take a look at the first 5 Seconds of the video there was a time when anyone would tremble did you catch it the very first shot closely resembles the thumbnail there is a closeup of John D Rockefeller dark reddish background and oil pumps and in the next sentence you can hear the title roeller Not only was he the world's first billionaire by using the first 5 Seconds to immediately
match the title and thumbnail he minimized is drop off from the very get-go now after applying this two-step formula in the first 5 Seconds of the video next comes these three core elements of the hook which are context Stakes payoff and curiosity Gap and this is where it gets interesting because this formula is used throughout all of these videos let's hop back to one of them to see these elements in action we last left off this video after he showed John D Rockefeller see if you can follow along Not only was he the world's first
billionaire he's one of the richest people in history history his Empire Standard Oil became the most dominant Monopoly in the world by brutally crushing competitors taking control of multiple Industries bribing the government into submission and treating business as if it was war because of his ruthless business practices and secretive deals Rockefeller made many enemies his career is filled with bitter rivalries like with Andrew carnegi and even ferocious battles against US presidents after matching the thumbnail and the title he outlines the entire plot and if you've seen the complete video you would know what I'm talking
about initially he gives visual context by showcasing the company name and proceeds to mentioned that he ruthlessly dominated competitors gained control of various Industries engaged in government bribery and executed secretive deals following this the video delves into the consequences of such methods and this is what I call Stakes SL payoff then to heighten your interest and build up your curiosity he starts mentioning Andrew Carnegie and US presidents to entice the viewer to stick around and watch till the end to figure out why he went through such links and he did all of that in just
20 seconds and his video is around 49 minutes but it doesn't stop there in addition to those three core elements he adds one secret element which Mr best explains better here so at the very beginning match the expectations and then you want to exceed them so you want to assure people that what they clicked on is what they're getting and then blow their mind and be like but you're also getting even more now that we have caught the attention of the viewer we need to keep it until the end and this is where it gets
tricky because there are different Frameworks for this but the main rules you want to focus on are good pacing visual variety and consistent contrast you know certain things like if I just talk to a camera for 10 seconds without a cut like a lot of people will just like get bored or the lose interest and this is what you call Visual variety what you want to do is cut between shots at least every 3 to 5 Seconds now you might think that's impossible if you have a faceless Channel especially if you focus heavily on Motion
Graphics but the trick is to add movement zooming in and out between Clips to keep things visually Dynamic and one of the best examples for this is in this rockerfeller video take a look at the timing of his movements during this clip on the Family Farm Bill did just about anything else he was an athlete ventriloquist Hunter hypnotist and even an animal trainer once he won a bear in a competition kept it as a pet and taught it to do tricks build did a little of this a little of that but not much of anything
bill would also spontaneously skip town in the middle of the night leaving John and his siblings to fend for themselves for weeks or even months only to the concept for this is very simple you want to feed the brain new information consistently to make them forget the time just like Tik Tok does to you you don't want to be stuck in a frame for too long unless it has meaning like building tension SL suspense but even with these frequent changes in the screen you still can't keep the video interesting forever and because of Tik Tok
the attention spans are shorter than ever and it's a fact that Mr best states here it's very hard with a single storyline if you're doing like a double digit minute video to just have that one thing grip their entire attention throughout the whole video and pay off at the end um and that's where the second rule comes in consistent contrast and Mr Beast does this by introducing Side Stories so typically if you're doing a longer video you should introduce like a Side Story and like re you should have some plan halfway through like to re-engage
them so they don't just get bored you know what I mean like but before you say wait I can't do that in my style of videos there are different ways of incorporating this rule which dodford does best he does this by blending the footage in audio of interviews you have such an incredible talent for for physical comedy where did that come from desperation desperation I had a sick mom man I wanted to make her feel better I just always felt like like that was my job I had a job at least in my own mind
and that was to make my mother feel better funny people have uh have sick moms generally it's born out of wanting to make somebody feel better okay but that's too hard to do there is a simpler version of this that I did in this video by adding clips from Mr best interviews or playing different clips from videos which I hope it worked now the final rule which is the most important of them all is good pacing now you probably seen this in one of these videos but let's shift it toward YouTube most creators will focus
on the beginning of the video and sometimes the end too which is what I used to do but creators like Mr best create frequent energy Cycles shifting between high and lows what I mean by this depends on the video with dodford each cycle introduces a new stage of life for Jim Carrey the cycle starts with a high energy dramatic quote of him followed by the lower energy of what led to that quote or a series of event that proves it now I used to go up to M Hall and drive every night sit on the
side of the road look out at the lights and and go I'm a popular actor every director wants to work with me I had nothing at that time so it was like it but it just made me feel better and I used to like open my arms and imagine things you know and this is what keeps the pacing up and keeps you the viewer wanting to know more right up until the end of the video now each of his Cycles tend to be between 2 to 4 minutes finally we have arrived at the final seconds
which are more important than what people think and that's why most people will see a long drop off at the end of their videos which hurts the overall retention to avoid this you need to introduce a big payoff and end it on a high note good afternoon good evening and good night just walk through it now one final secret to have a high retention which Mr Beast recommends God dang it put it all on the checklist so I can tell you the things to do and then going forward just check them off before you upload
a video you need to go back and check every item on your checklist and cut out every dull moment and have your friends watch it before you upload it
