#193: Jake Thomas – YouTube title expert shares his secrets for getting clicks.

Jake Thomas [00:00:00]:
Don't be original. Never just kinda come up with something out of the blue. Always base it off of a previously successful video.

Jay Clouse [00:00:07]:
That's Jake Thomas, a title specialist whose channels have done over a 100,000,000 views because he spent thousands of hours studying viral titles and the psychology of what made people click.

Jake Thomas [00:00:18]:
Out of the almost 1,000 titles that are broken down, 60% have curiosity, 46% have desire, and 39% have fear.

Jay Clouse [00:00:28]:
In this episode, you'll learn

Jake Thomas [00:00:30]:
how to model successful titles. I create 2 lists called the dream 10 and the model 10. Pretty much like any question that you could have about YouTube can be answered from your Dream 10 or your Model 10.

Jay Clouse [00:00:40]:
What most creators are getting wrong.

Jake Thomas [00:00:42]:
So many people, they only want titles in their niche. They only want ideas in their niche. Stop copying directly from their competitors.

Jay Clouse [00:00:50]:
And much more. Thank you to Artlist for sponsoring this video. What is the job of the title on a YouTube video what does a good title do for you

Jake Thomas [00:00:59]:
first off it depends on the traffic source I think that the the job of the title is to confirm, like, yes, you do want to click this video. Yes. This is what you're looking for. Let's say you're trying to get traffic on like the homepage, or, or, you know, recommended. Especially the homepage, if you're just, you're not really actively searching for something, you're just going to YouTube and you're like, alright, what does YouTube have for me? It's very kind of passive. When you're in this kind of passive, you know, hunt for content, your title just you kind of want to just get out of the way. Like, yes, this is what exactly you're looking for, we don't wanna overwhelm you, to click on the video. If you have a super long title, it's a lot of work to to read a whole title, process in your head, okay do I actually wanna watch this video or do I not? In that case it it is just kind of you want it to be simple and clear and very very easy to understand.

Jake Thomas [00:01:51]:
If you are, searching, so if you're trying to rank in search, it's a little different because people, they're more actively hunting for for an answer really. So you want your title to be like, hey, this video is for you. This is exactly what you're looking for. Click on this video.

Jay Clouse [00:02:08]:
This had me thinking about my own viewing behavior. I'm glad you're separating out, like, recommended areas versus search areas. Because when I'm searching for something, it strikes me that I actually read the titles before I look at the thumbnail. The title is more important to me on search than the thumbnail is. But when I'm on the YouTube homepage, if I'm just thinking about, hey, I'm gonna be on the the the bike for 45 minutes and I wanna watch a video, I'm definitely looking at the thumbnails first because they're larger for for a bit of the card. So what have you learned about viewer behavior and how titles complement thumbnails? Do you find that people act like me, or do you find that people put more weight in titles or thumbnails? What do you think?

Jake Thomas [00:02:48]:
I think what you just described is pretty spot on, at least from my experience. For instance, a thumbnail I came across a thumbnail the other day. The thumbnail text was, you know, it was like don't do this, and then the title was like 10 mistakes to buying land. So, you know, it was don't do this, like so the warning in the thumbnail was great. You know, it got your attention and got you to read the title. It was like okay, shoot, like you know, this, you know, this, this thumbnail is one of the mistakes, I want to know more. I want to know what all the mistakes are. He did the exact same title like you know his next video or a couple videos later, and the thumbnail text was just like it wasn't as punchy it wasn't as powerful and even though we had the same exact title the way that the thumbnail and the title work together it was not as powerful.

Jake Thomas [00:03:31]:
It didn't make you want to know more, and I think that not a lot of people are putting enough thought into, okay, what is my title or what is my thumbnail gonna make somebody think? And then how is my title going to continue that thought process? So I know I know where I'm like speaking like in kind of like super high level stuff, but a lot of people will just like kind of repeat, you know your your title and your thumbnail. And I was doing some research yesterday on diary of CEO and I was trying to make the case like oh yeah you should never do that and then I noticed the diary of CEO did that kind of a lot, but they seemed to only do it when what they were saying was so powerful. So like one example was like, leave the United States before 2030, and it was like such a great warning, and that was just so powerful that it's like okay, you know, you can do that. But for most people, if you don't have a super powerful thing then you need to kind of think of how do I attack, you know, or how do I you know leverage somebody's curiosity in different ways. So like the thumbnail might build like you know be a warning and maybe there's some curiosity, and then the the the title is like you know all curiosity or even desire. So like for the most part when you're thinking about getting people to click, you think of like you know, fear, curiosity, and desire. Those are the 3 click worthy emotions. So it's like how can I use, you know, 1 in the in the title, and then you can I can I mix and match those three emotions in the title in the thumbnail? So yeah, I think, I think most people could benefit from, from having different stuff in the in the title thumbnail however if you have a really really good concept then you can get away with it.

Jay Clouse [00:05:12]:
What is the difference in terms of impact, views that a good title has over a bad title?

Jake Thomas [00:05:20]:
It can be, it can be massive. So we could talk about the impact, and then we could talk about the effort. So, the effort is 10 words. Right? 5 to 10 words. You know, we don't need, we don't need graphic design skills. We don't need, like, crazy lighting and, like, really good assets. We don't need a script writer, you know, to write 2,000 words and all this stuff. It's just 5 to 10 words, so if you can get better at YouTube titles it can be insanely beneficial.

Jake Thomas [00:05:50]:
So that is the the good news about YouTube titles. One example I have is I worked for, or I did like a little bit of title writing for, for a b to b YouTube channel. They were super boring. All they did was like, their CEO would go on podcast, and they would just, like, cut it up. So, like, oh, let's just repurpose all the other content for YouTube. And they would get, like, I don't know, 2, 3, 400 views, and all I did was write better titles, and make a little bit like better thumbnail text. Like the thumbnail was just literally a screenshot from the video, because they didn't want to build any assets, and they would get like 2 to 5 times more views, with all we did was change the words. And they were in a very boring market.

Jake Thomas [00:06:34]:
However, they made a lot of money, so, you know, doubling or 5 5 x ing their views, you know, probably made them a lot of money. So that was just like that's a super small answer. I have a channel and, it's like a little secret side project, and I was modeling one of, like, one of my competitors best videos. I wrote a better title. Their video had like a 1000000 views. Mine had like 7,000,000 views. So in that case, you know, writing a better title got me 6,000,000 views more than my competitor. That was very, that was very, very nice to see.

Jake Thomas [00:07:07]:
So, you know, it can be huge. It can be, you know, going from 200 views to a 1000 views, or it can be going from 1,000,000 views to 7,000,000 views and and even more. And that's just that's just my experience.

Jay Clouse [00:07:17]:
Makes me think there's for every package, there's probably some theoretical spectrum of how good that package, that idea can perform. And there's a wideness to that spectrum, and that's probably true for titles and thumbnails. And I'm wondering if the spectrum is broader between a bad title and a good title versus a bad thumbnail and a good thumbnail. I don't know the answer, but it kinda speaks to whether you think one is more potentially powerful than the other, I guess.

Jake Thomas [00:07:50]:
That is a great question. So I think super generally, I think that titles are more important for educational channels, and thumbnails are more important for entertainment channels. If we were talking about entertainment channels, you know, the spectrum of a good or a bad thumbnail could be massive. And I think that I think that that's where you would get the most out of your of your efforts and your research, and like thinking up with a of a good idea with a really good thumbnail, like how can you just build so much, like, anticipation, in this thumbnail if you have an entertainment channel? And then, you know, in that case, the the title is pretty much just like, hey, this is what this video is about. Like, it's crazy. You're gonna love it. Versus if you have an educational channel, you know, the for the most part, you can only get so creative in your thumbnails. You know, you see way more powerful thumbnails in entertainment, but in education, you know, especially if you're, you know, like with your channel, like you can't have a crazy thumbnail showing like you know, me doing, like, something insane, or, like, you know, are you doing, you know, something crazy? It's, like, you know, it's just a podcast.

Jake Thomas [00:09:01]:
Like, we're not doing anything nuts. But we can have very powerful words that that grab our audience's attention, like, speak to them, like, at their core. You know, talk about their hopes, their dreams, their fears. I think you're spot on that the spectrum can be huge, and I think it's depending on if you're education or entertainment.

Jay Clouse [00:09:18]:
After a quick break, we dig deeper into Jake's most click worthy emotions. So stick around. We'll be right back. And now back to my conversation with Jake Thomas. The last time we talked, you mentioned again these 3 click worthy emotions of curiosity, desire, and fear. And the way you described it then was, like, curiosity is kind of the top level. That's really what you're ultimately trying to do. And then you tie that to either, desire or fear in both the title and thumbnail.

Jay Clouse [00:09:48]:
Is that still how you think about it?

Jake Thomas [00:09:50]:
Yeah. It is. It's even like, I guess, more prevalent. So last time we talked was, I don't know, like a year ago or something. And, my newsletter I break down like kind of 5 viral videos every week and I'm just seeing the same stuff. It's been 2 years it's been like it's been a 150, email newsletters. So in almost 3 years, and I'm just, I'm seeing the same stuff. I'm seeing fear, I'm seeing curiosity, desire, and fear every single time, which is awesome, you know, and it's it's just psychology.

Jake Thomas [00:10:23]:
You know even when you read like copywriting books like from the 1930s, like Robert Collier letter book, is one of the books that I read recently, and it was a 100 years ago, and the stuff is still relevant. So, yeah. I'm, you know, that's really just what I'm trying to do with creator hooks is get to the bottom of human psychology, and so far, it's all the same.

Jay Clouse [00:10:43]:
Do you see more desire or more fear underneath the curiosity?

Jake Thomas [00:10:48]:
I will say that it, it depends on, again, kinda like search or, you know, search or or browse. So a long time ago so I I ran a niche website for a while, and so I was pretty big in the in the SEO stuff. And I heard that, like, Google only showed, like, positive titles in the thumbnail or sorry. Positive, like, you know, positive, angles, not titles, but yeah. I mean, yes. Yeah. Positive titles on page 1. You know, so if you're trying to search, like, nobody is searching, like, mistakes.

Jake Thomas [00:11:26]:
Like, you don't Yeah. You don't search, like, okay, you know, podcast mistakes or like YouTube mistakes. You know, most people are like, how do I grow my channel? So for the most part, if you're trying to rank in search, you you wanna think, alright what are people searching and it's usually positive stuff. So I've got some stats for you. Out of the almost 1,000 titles that are broken down, 60% have curiosity, 46% have desire, and 39% have, fear.

Jay Clouse [00:11:53]:
That's wild because in the first video, the first time we talked over a year ago, it was 61% curiosity, still 46% desire, and 40% fear. So statistics don't change much when you have a statistically significant sample size.

Jake Thomas [00:12:09]:
No. That's incredible. I'm, I didn't know. I I gave you those numbers last time, and that is crazy that they're almost the same.

Jay Clouse [00:12:15]:
I really like this delineation again between search and recommended because you're so right. People are searching for outcomes. I don't think people actively search out like fear or loss or negative emotions, but we're much more prone to click them when we see them. It's like it's like an impulse buy versus something we go and seek out at the store. And what I see for a lot of the channels that are doing long form podcasts the way we are, they definitely take, like, the negative angle, and I find it personally, emotionally exhausting. You know, like, I see how it could work. But the other thing I've I've noticed, and this is this goes for content even outside of YouTube, when you lean into human nature to be loss averse or be naturally pessimistic, you tend to attract pessimistic pessimistic people. And I don't know if that's, like, the audience I wanna build, but it's it's undeniable to me the potential of playing into negative human emotion because it drives results.

Jay Clouse [00:13:19]:
So how do you think about that? Do you do you see any correlation between negative titles and, like, sentiment around those channels?

Jake Thomas [00:13:29]:
That is a that is a fantastic question. So I've been obsessed with titles for a long time. I have, like, an Evernote document from, like, 20, like, 16 or 2015 of, like, titles or like, it was, like, blog post titles that caught my eye, and I I only put like 5 or 10 on there but one day I was looking at it and it hit me every single one was negative And I am definitely a, I'm a positive person. I am optimistic. However, all of the titles that I wrote down that grabbed my attention were all negative. So that's a that's a little anecdote so like you know maybe you know maybe you know maybe it's not just you know it's not just you know the the type of person who who likes this negative stuff. It also depends on the content, like you could, like we could title this this, you know this this podcast, you know, you know, the biggest mistake every YouTuber is making with YouTube titles, and then I this conversation has been pretty, happy and pretty, like, positive so far. So so there is a little bit of, kind of a difference between, you know, what is the title and what is, like, the actual, you know, content about.

Jake Thomas [00:14:42]:
So it's not like, you know, we're doing like a tear down of, you know, like some, like, celebrity gossip. Then yes, you know, in that case, yeah, that would probably attract those, those people. I think there is a difference between what is the actual content and what is the title that you're just using to grab somebody's attention and get them in the door. But negativity and drama and fear is just so good at grabbing people's attention, that, you know, it's it's tough to it's tough to get away.

Jay Clouse [00:15:11]:
It's just biological. And it it, like, hurts me to think that, like, hey, I'm I am preying on this psychological weakness that all humans are hardwired for and causing you, like, physiological stress in the in the moment to get you to click on this video where I end up making you feel better. But I'm I'm reading this book called Wrapped Attention in the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher. It's all about attention. And he makes this case that there are 2 types of attention. There's bottom up and top down. And bottom up is the, like, physiological, biological, hardwired nature of humans as an animal where we automatically identify threats and things in our environment that are screaming for our attention. And it's like this passive.

Jay Clouse [00:15:56]:
It just happens. And then there's top down attention where you have intentionally said, this is something that I am looking for. That attention is more like physically taxing, requires willpower, basically. And so it strikes me that this is, like, again, the difference between negativity and positivity. Like, we are hardwired without effort to identify from the bottom up sources of potential loss or threat or danger. And, when it comes to collecting things that we want, whether it's status or resources or outcomes, whatever, that's more of a top down approach. So it's I I think I think if you want more attention, the negativity side, the top down or that sorry, the bottom up approach is probably gonna be more effective.

Jake Thomas [00:16:47]:
Yeah. I think it was Patty who said, like, there's no boring way to tell somebody that you won the lottery. You know, so like if you have something awesome, like, then like tell them that, like, you know, just be like kind of upfront. Like, hey, this is this is a great, this is an awesome video. You're gonna love this, but negativity is a lot easier. There are ways that you can use positivity like and and kind of come at things with a with an exciting angle. You just need to be a little bit, a little bit more skilled. It's hard, but there's certainly ways.

Jake Thomas [00:17:21]:
You know authority is one of the easiest ways. So like, you know, talk about mister b's, like you know you know, mister b's secret to you know building his YouTube channel. It's like, okay, that's a that's a really cool idea, and it's positive. You know, we're talking about, you know, benefits, but it's not just like how to grow on YouTube. It's like, you know, you're using authority and you're using some curiosity. So you're using a secret there. So there are ways, it just takes a little bit more work. But you got you got to be a little bit more thoughtful.

Jay Clouse [00:17:48]:
We've talked about curiosity, fear, desire. These are 3 of somewhere between 40 and 50 click triggers that you catalog and talk about in Creator Hooks and Creator Hooks Pro. Can you first define for us what a click trigger is in your mind?

Jake Thomas [00:18:05]:
Yeah. So a click trigger is a trigger that makes somebody click. Yeah. That's, like, kind of the easiest, the easiest thing. I'm I'm pretty sure that I got that from Caitlin Bourgeois. She's she's on Twitter. You probably know what I'm talking about. She, she yeah.

Jake Thomas [00:18:24]:
She's great. So I I think I got click triggers from her, but I specifically made them for YouTube titles. I think I have 33 in Creator Hooks Pro, and you know, at a high level, you know, fear, curiosity, and desire are those are 3 of them. But then also like within curiosity, you know, click triggers might be opening up a loop or revealing a secret or being counterintuitive, and those are just different ways for, for you to kind of write titles and how to like think super tactically about how do you write a good title, how do you build curiosity, and how do you get people to click.

Jay Clouse [00:18:56]:
Of those 33 ish click triggers, besides curiosity, fear, and desire, what do you think are some of the most powerful that people undervalue?

Jake Thomas [00:19:07]:
I mean, the biggest one the boat certainly the most powerful one is timeliness. So you might know this as like trend jacking or news jacking, just like MrBeast squid games is the the best example of that. So he kind of rode that trend of squid game being very popular, and he got like 500,000,000 views on that video. So that's a testament of how, how good, how powerful that trigger, can be. However, if he did it again, squid game is old news. Right? So you can't do it all the time. You know, another one might be like the Olympics. So the Olympics are are coming up a little bit.

Jake Thomas [00:19:47]:
You can make content around the Olympics. It might do very well, and then it might, then it's just gonna totally flat line for the next 4 years, because nobody cares about the Olympics anymore. You know, same thing with like holiday seasons, you know, really any trend. Any trend is like, you know, you could blow up, but then not, like as soon as the trend is over, it's irrelevant. So if you're trying to grow fast, you can ride trends. If you're trying to get a, you know, I was listening to your to your interview with, with Ed yesterday. If you're trying to get a community of viewers, trends, you know, really isn't the best thing to do. You know, you probably wanna talk about, you know, timeless, you know, hopes, dreams, you know, and and fears there.

Jake Thomas [00:20:27]:
So, yeah, trends is the most powerful, but it's also the most, fickle, if you will.

Jay Clouse [00:20:31]:
You've said a couple times that you don't like long titles. You've told me before you don't like having the word and in a title because it tends to confuse it and make it longer naturally. How long is too long or maybe said a different way? What is the what is the threshold that you try to stay within when you're writing a title?

Jake Thomas [00:20:50]:
The first thing that came to my mind was, like, 45 to 55 characters. That being said, if you're trying to rank in search, you can get away with longer titles, because like we talked about earlier, that you're actively looking for an answer, so you will pay more attention to the title. It depends on your audience. If you have a younger audience, it's primarily, you know, thumbnail driven, it's like entertainment, and then you just want to have a really short, like a really short title. If you are if you have an older audience then you can get away with, with longer titles. So so it really depends but you know for for most things 45 to 55 characters will work.

Jay Clouse [00:21:32]:
Do you think that there's too short?

Jake Thomas [00:21:35]:
No. So one of the titles that I recently shared in the newsletter was clear ketchup. That was it. I think that's the shortest title in, that I've I've broken down in Creator Hooked Pro. I think it had or in the newsletter, and I think it had like a 1,000,000 and a half, views. And they repeated the the title in the thumbnail. Like, I held up, you know, he held up a bottle of, like, clear ketchup, and the title was clear ketchup. And it was just it was 2 words.

Jake Thomas [00:22:03]:
Like, you know, imagine if, like, you hired me to write you a title, and I'm like, alright, Jay, it's going to be YouTube titles. That's gonna be the title. That's only those 2 words. But, the clear ketchup was so good because it's an oxymoron. It's, like, it's ironic. It's it's counterintuitive. It's not possible. So it builds so much curiosity.

Jake Thomas [00:22:22]:
So no. I don't think it can be too short. However, for the for the most part, you're probably not making a video about Clear Ketchup. So, so you don't necessarily need keywords in your title, but you need enough so that the audience knows what your video is about. You know, how I think about it is I'm writing titles for humans so that these humans know what my video is about, not necessarily for the algorithm.

Jay Clouse [00:22:46]:
After one last break, I asked Jake what's bugging him about the current state of YouTube titles. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. And now please enjoy the rest of my conversation with Jake Thomas. What's bugging you about the world of titles right now? What are you what are you seeing that you're, like, frustrated by that the, the you think the space is getting wrong?

Jake Thomas [00:23:07]:
Well, that's a great question. A couple things. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is straight up copying. Copying your competitors and making kinda like the same video. I prefer to whenever I can, get inspiration from outside of my niche, and just try to do better. And this is also, this is me being a title nerd so like you know of course I'm gonna try to do better but but I think so many people they only want titles in their niche. They only want ideas in their niche, and I think that if people just opened their minds a little bit, and just kind of, you know, realize that they can get inspiration from outside of their niche, and that can help them grow, and that can help them come up with, like, fresh ideas so they're not always, like, a step behind and copying their competitors. I think that that would help a lot of people.

Jake Thomas [00:24:01]:
You know, for like for Creator Hooks Pro, like my my like paid thing, it's a it's a database of viral videos. And people all the time are like, oh, do you have titles in this specific niche? And it's like, that's that's not the point of this. Like the point is to get inspiration from outside of your niche so that you can bring fresh ideas to your audience. So I think that that's it. Just like, you know, stop copying directly from your competitors and, it kinda, you know, broaden your horizons a little bit.

Jay Clouse [00:24:29]:
I love that advice because when you copy from someone in your niche, it's going to literally be derivative. This is the definition of derivative. So you can't really expect it to do as well or better than the thing that you're seeing. I mean, we see it in our videos now. We have guests on. They go on another channel, and they take, like, the same angle. And it does pretty well, but not as well as our video because it's literally derivative. So I like this advice, but how do I how does one go about actually researching titles from a different niche? How do I how do I get outside of my bubble to start looking at different titles that might work for me?

Jake Thomas [00:25:05]:
So first off, I have a quick disclaimer. So I I have a little one of my little, like, side project channels. One of the best videos is copied almost word for word, from another channel, and like every channel in this niche makes the same video, and it's like the best video in every channel. So like there are topics that just work. So like, you know if that's the case then yes, like you know there are a couple of them or you you just gotta make that video. So I understand that. However so, like, when I was, I was a channel manager at a fishing company, and we were, like, an educational fishing company in the southeastern United States. So we were pretty niche, you know, we weren't worldwide or like, you know, even like bass fishing, is, you know, is is all over America.

Jake Thomas [00:25:50]:
Well, we were only saltwater fishing, in a in a small place. So what I would do is I would look up like, you know, like finance channels. So, like, the easiest example is, you know, a finance channel would be, like, best credit cards of 2024. So we would do best trout lures of 20 24. You know I'm not copying exactly, but like you know best blank of current year. So we just took that framework and I like made that for myself, for for our channel. And then we would do best redfish lures of 2024, best snook lures of 2024, best like flounder lures of 2024. So we would look for frameworks that were successful and then we would see how how often can we iterate on those frameworks.

Jake Thomas [00:26:31]:
So that's the the thing that every, I think everybody needs to be doing is just looking for frameworks and like what's like the psychology, what actually made people click there. You know getting getting past like oh this about credit cards. No, this is about, you know, best list of products. So if you can try to just think of, instead of just the topic, you know, what what is really making people click? I think that's gonna help you get inspiration, and from really anywhere. Facebook ads, email subject lines, you know, titles like on or headlines in like the newspapers, like the grocery the grocery store, like, you know, those are those people have been writing titles for like decades, and, you know, their jobs depend on that. So you can get a, like, great inspiration from, you know, from those, from, magazine covers and, you know, also like magazine titles. So those, you know, those are some some things that you can, that can help you get inspiration outside of your niche so that you're not just

Jay Clouse [00:27:29]:
copying. I wanna go and revisit that revisit this, leap you just took from fishing to finance. Sounds like a brilliant move. How did you pick finance? And if it's not finance, how do I just, like, pull out of the air a different industry to start looking at videos in that industry? Do you have some place you go for a list of that? Do you have inspiration that you find somewhere?

Jake Thomas [00:27:51]:
Yeah. So that's a that's a good question. So we were an educational channel. So I wanted to go to another educational channel. It's great if you look at, like, some competitive channels. So like finance, entrepreneurship, fitness especially. You know, look for these competitive channels or these competitive niches and think like, you know, what is working there? You know, because it's not like, you know, basket weaving or something, where like, you know, if one channel is like just crushing it, but that's only because they're the only channel, and they have no, you know, they have no competition. You want to look for competitive niches, kind of adjacent.

Jake Thomas [00:28:32]:
We were education, and these finance channels were also education. Kind of the easiest thing is like, you know, if I'm a talking head channel, maybe I do like news or something. I might look at other talking head channels, maybe like religious channels, or sports news, or politics, or whatever. Just 2 is like kind of an adjacent channel. They have the same content style as you. They're maybe a couple steps ahead of you. And then you know, try to get inspiration from those. That's like one of the first things I do whenever I, whenever I either start a new channel or I'm working with somebody, I create 2 lists called the dream 10 and the model 10.

Jake Thomas [00:29:13]:
So the dream 10, these are all my competitors, and these are the people who are talking about the same topics as me. And then my model 10 are they have the same content style, so they're talking head or education or vlog or whatever your style is or faceless. So I have my model 10, and they talk about different stuff than me, but they have the same content style, and that's where I get a lot of inspiration from. So pretty much like any question that you could have about YouTube, can be answered. You know, how long should my intros be? You know, what should my thumbnails look like? How can I monetize? How long should my videos be? All of all of those questions can be answered, from your Dream 10 or your Model 10.

Jay Clouse [00:29:52]:
Disclaimer. I have a Creator Hooks pro account, and I was updating my profile. And you have this drop down menu of niches to pick your channel niche. And that strikes me as a really, really great list. And it also mirrors closely lists I've seen in, like, podcast charts, basically. Like you have your arts, you have beauty and fashion, you have careers, you have entertainment, you have finance. So if you if you're hearing this, you're like, how do I just even think about different niches that are competitive? Go to, like, the Apple list. Look at the Apple charts and see how they segment different podcasts.

Jay Clouse [00:30:29]:
Those same niches exist on YouTube. And I think that's a really smart idea of saying, are you education or are you entertainment? What other things exist in the realm of education if you're there? What other types of talking heads are there? I love the advice of competitive niches as well because you know that they have to, like, really step up their game. Super, super smart.

Jake Thomas [00:30:48]:
And I'm really thinking of, you know, what does my audience think, and how can I challenge those assumptions? You know, what are they thinking? What do they know is true? You know, I love kind of like breaking myths. I think that is a super powerful, strategy that really anybody can employ in their channel.

Jay Clouse [00:31:06]:
How do you do that? How do you get how do you really get in the shoes of your audience and understand what they're thinking or wrap your head around the myths that they know?

Jake Thomas [00:31:15]:
The easiest way is to ask Chad GPT. Just look up, like, you know, hey, Chad, just p. You know, I have a YouTube channel for people who are into productivity. What are their biggest excuses? You know, give me give me their 15 biggest excuses for why they're not productive. And so I get all these excuses. You know, give me their, you know, give me 15 myths that they think are true. That's the easiest way. You can also look and see what is working for your competitors, on YouTube and just trying to think like, oh, is any of this stuff wrong? Then doing a lot of research on YouTube, seeing what titles are working, seeing what people are commenting, getting in on Reddit and Facebook Groups are also other great ways to do that.

Jake Thomas [00:31:59]:
And also Twitter. I've been loving, or sorry, x. I don't know. Whatever you wanna call it. I'm gonna call it Twitter. Also Twitter for, for trying to see what the what the general consensus is. You know, what are people replying? What are people talking about? What's getting attention? So all those are great ways to to do, you know, audience research.

Jay Clouse [00:32:19]:
This is something that I see a lot. People feel like they're creating a lot of the same content as somebody else, and it's because a lot of times we're consuming the same information as everybody else. So the more you vary the information that you consume, the more different that the end product you create will be.

Jake Thomas [00:32:35]:
Most people are looking you know, I have a face sales channel. And, like, so most people are looking for how do I do this the fastest way? How do I get somebody from the Philippines to write me an article for $10? And just in my opinion, everybody can do that. I think that if I have the you know the best content with the best titles and thumbnails you know I'm hoping that you know that I'm creating a kind of more legitimate channel that being said I've seen some titles in my niche that's just like totally stupid and bonkers and not true, and they have like a 1000000 views. So it's like, you know, good for them. And like their content is terrible. But I'm I'm I'm hoping I'm thinking for long term, you know, what is what is gonna be best for my audience and my channel. And I think quality over quantity and, just being hopefully the most reputable source in this niche. You know, even if I have, you know, all these competitors, which I which I do because it's a it's a faceless popular niche, you know, I think I'll still be able to stand out.

Jake Thomas [00:33:40]:
And I'm hoping that by putting in a lot of effort, and being a little bit more credible, that my content will I'll be able to, you know, kind of fend off all of the AI, all the like, the wave of AI. And I think just in general, if you can I think, credibility and authenticity are the two things that, it will not the AI cannot take over? No matter how much AI is out there, if you can be credible and authentic, I think you'll still be able to make it.

Jay Clouse [00:34:10]:
And if you were to give just one piece of advice to everybody watching that will help them write better titles for their videos? Just one important takeaway from this video or if you even if we haven't said it in this video, what would that one suggestion be?

Jake Thomas [00:34:26]:
Don't be original. Never just kind of come up with something out of the blue. Always base it off of a previously successful video. That will help you write titles faster and also help you write better titles.