Everyone steals ideas.
That shot you saw in the movie, that idea you heard somewhere, that product that solves a problem, even this newsletter.
Most creators draw inspiration from which they create something new.
There is no shame in that.
So, here are some Viral YouTube titles, thumbnails, and Instagram reels that you can take inspiration from.
Title framework: The Scary Truth About [an entity] – Nobody is Noticing
Why this works:
- negative — words ike SCARY triggers negative emotions in people and it helps in getting more clicks.
- curiosity — the title makes the viewer curious to why the news about the entity they know so well is so scary.
- thumbnail — take note of how the thumbnail is designed, they have used two famous F1 drives and is comparing the new driver (Max Verstappen) to the old driver who died in a racing accident (Ayrton Senna). So designing side by side comparison type thumbnails could work for you as well (if your video suits that)
Examples of titles:
- The Scary Truth About Your Smartphone – Nobody is Noticing
- The Scary Truth About Credit Cards – Nobody is Noticing
- The Scary Truth About KFC – Nobody is Noticing
- The Scary Truth About Instagram – Nobody is Noticing
Title framework: Why You’ll WASTE [time/money/effort]
Why this works:
- desire — everyone has the desire to not waste their time, money or effort.
- emotions — the use of words negative like WASTE can be scary to people and trigger negative emotions.
- thumbnail — the use of a simple thumbnail with an image of a famous book in the niche.
there are a lot of people who read this book and who wants to read it (like myself) so for people like us it is a no-brainer to click on this.
Also note the use of colors in the thumbnail, the book has a white color and the background is dark to add more contrast and make the book pop out.
Examples of titles:
- Why You’ll WASTE Your Gym Membership
- Why You’ll WASTE Your College Years
- Why You’ll WASTE Your First $10,000
- Why You’ll WASTE Your New iPhone
“Hey, can you paint my $800 jacket….?”
This is the starting of a youtube short that i saw the other day that got 13 million+ views in 14 days. here is the video for reference.
Now let’s analyse this video and see why it performed well.
Here are the reasons I think it performed well.
- stake: if you have watched the video, you can see the the person gives $30 to the painter and then reveals that the jacket costs $800. What if the painter destroys that jacket? He will lose $830, and that is how to add a stake to your videos to improve the story telling.
(if you have actually seen the video you will also notice that it is actually €800 not $800, jk) - people: having people in your videos, capturing their reactions and skills is interesting so people watch it. (try involving your friends in your video for example)
- promise of a payoff: now that the painter has started working on the jacket we can expect some end product at the end of the video, that is the payoff. so we will stay on till the end to see it.
how to make it better: only thing i noticed is that, he could have revealed the jacket is worth 800 euros at the start of the video it self by using some text graphics.
That is it for this week, if you found this helpful, here is the previous letter.
-Sayar