No More Hustleporn: Succeeding as a Creator
Tweet by jomaoppa.eth đźš©
Organic Video Creator: only use natural lighting, non-GMO. 1M YT subscribers
How to succeed as a Creator in ANY platform:
The fundamental theory of growing in any social media platform is actually *very simple* and a few days ago on Clubhouse @MrBeastYT explained it perfectly for YouTube. I'll explain it for every platform.
Thread below 👇
When I worked for Facebook Videos, they had trouble getting the type of video content they want on the platform, and I said:
“The main discovery channel on your platform dictates what kind of content you’ll get. Us creators create what performs well on the platform”
The same logic can be used as a Creator trying to succeed on a platform:
“What is the main page users look for content and how does this platform choose to surface videos for these users?”
For Facebook, most users watch the videos from Newsfeed and you can only see posts from people you’re friends with or pages you follow. What does that mean for a creator?
Videos get distributed on your newsfeed if they are liked or shared by your friends. Videos are autoplayed with no sound. Videos are competing with other forms of content. Users had no intentions of watching a video on Newsfeed, they are on Facebook to check up on their friends.
So make videos that:
- take a lot of space on Newsfeed (square instead of 16:9). - can be understood without sound (hardcoded subtitles)
- catches someone's attention within the first second (big banners)
- makes users want to like or share (causes an emotional response)
That is how @tasty was born, with short sped-up cooking videos without any dialogue.
That is why @JayShettyIW formats his videos like this:
- Vertical video
- Hard coded subtitles
- Banner asking to share this.
(vertical videos now take even more space than square videos, back then it cropped to square on Facebook)
Facebook wanted long-form “high quality” (whatever that means) content on FB Watch (separate page outside of newsfeed just for watching videos). But we only got short form meme-y content. So they tried to change the ranking algorithm of FB Watch. That did not work. Why?
Because even if FB Watch changed their ranking algorithm, most people watch FB videos from Newsfeed, not Watch. Even though clicking a video from Newsfeed will bring you to FB Watch, the main discovery channel is still Newsfeed.
Imagine YouTube traffic mostly comes from Twitter, and no one stays on YouTube after watching a video. Even if YouTube tries to rank meme videos lower, it doesn't matter to creators, because if most of the traffic comes from Twitter looking for memes, we'll make memes.
To summarize, as a Creator looking to grow on a platform, you need to make videos that get watched by people who don't know you. So asks yourselves:
- What's the platform's main discovery channel?
- How does that discovery channel choose videos to show?
Examples 👇
TikTok:
- Users are mostly on the For You Page. They scroll down and it auto plays the video.
- It promotes successful videos that they think you have an affinity with. Success is measured by the number of loops/watch time (I think)
So make videos that catch their attention within half a second and are rewatchable. That's why attractive dance videos perform really well, it's visually stimulating and you might rewatch it multiple times.
Twitter:
- Users browse the home page. It's mostly chronologically ordered (I think)
- Tweets are only shown to users if they're liked/retweeted by people they follow.
So make tweets that would get liked and retweeted. Similar to getting viral on Facebook. Jokes work really well. Inspirational tweets. Productivity hacks. Anything that elicits an emotion or makes them want to retweet or like.
Vine:
- Users browsed the home page. Mostly chronologically ordered.
- Vines were shown from the people you followed. They can revine (share) other people's vines.
- Few video creation tools compared to TikTok
Similar to Twitter but for videos. Having a bigger creator re-vine your vine video was a big deal because it essentially sent it to all their followers. Comedy videos were king because they didn't require music, just wit. So Comedians would get revined a lot.
OnlyFans:
- Users are on the Home feed which shows the posts from the creators they follow and they also spend a lot of time on the messenger
- Users come from externally and targets specific creators. Discovery is minimal on the platform
To grow your following, you can't rely on OnlyFans. Creators are successful because they can grow on Instagram or Reddit and bring them to OnlyFans to monetize.
OnlyFans might be looking into discovery, we've already seen Creators promoting themselves by posting each other's profiles on their feed. Also, they are starting to create "Free" subscriptions in hopes to grow organically and then monetize through private messaging.
Back to YouTube.
- Users are on the home page. They intend to watch videos. And they see a bunch of thumbnails and titles
- Videos are pushed to the home page if YouTube thinks you'll spend more time on the platform if you watch it.
As @MrBeastYT said. Make videos that are clickable and the video content that keeps them watching. But he does fail to mention that it's dependant on your target audience. Want to know more? Go on my Twitter profile for the next thread.
Continues here, cause I don’t know how to use Twitter:
Actually, I fixed it:
@MrBeastYT's numbers are big and impressive. But there are people that wouldn't click or watch through his videos. It's impossible to appeal to everyone. Do you watch them?
So yes, to make viral videos to grow your channel on YouTube, you have to make videos that are clickable and interesting enough to retain viewers *for your target audience*.
If your target audience is other Venture Capitalist, I don't they care about someone saying "Logan Paul" 100,000 times, but they might care about... I have no idea, I'm not a VC. Now that you know who your target audience is, how do you make clickable thumbnails and engaging vids
Creating clickable thumbnails and titles is not a new science. Journalists have done this since newspapers existed. The front page of a newspaper is essentially a thumbnail and a title with the picture and headline.
One key thing creators tend to miss is leveraging the knowledge from traditional media. It's so rich.
How do you make engaging videos? Learn from TV. Their distribution is similar. There are tons of resources on storytelling.
YouTube is not that special. Format and distribution might be slightly different. But psychologically, the fundamentals of hooking someone and the fundamentals of producing engaging content are the same.
Before thinking about the future, learn from the past and adapt it to the present. TV was deemed lower quality compared to films. Now there are extremely high-quality series and they're dominating the entertainment industry.
If history repeats itself and if there's enough money in New Media. I believe competition will become more fierce and the barrier of entry will get higher and higher. Even today people feel like they can't compete if they don't have amazing camera gear.
So to stay competitive, keep learning. Here are tips to making great thumbnails and titles:
- Would you click on your own video if you saw it on the front page? (Build for yourself)
- How do journalists think about titles? Do that
- Learn fine arts principles for virual appeal
More practical tips based on the above:
- If you're known to make good videos, your face on the thumbnail is important, that's your branding
- Does the title make you curious? Do you have a strong desire to click it? Controversial opinions work.
How to create engaging videos:
- Just buy a book on storytelling or scriptwriting
YouTube applied tips based on the above:
- Does the first 5 seconds of your video align with what you promised on the thumbnail?
- Does your video follow the cause and effect way of telling a story? Does it have conflict? If you watch TV show, each scene is 1-2 minutes.
- TV shows focus on character development and plot arcs for serialized series. Vloggers are naturally producing a serialized series and they evolve as humans. This is why vloggers with interesting personalities succeed. Viewers are attached and there's character growth.
Most people don't realize how much work is put on an episode of TV. Each scene has incredibly engaging dialogues with conflict and resolution mixed with an overarching storyline and character development. So don't ask why people are dropping off your 10 min videos of you talking.
In conclusion, you'll be surprised how easy it is to make better videos. A lot of it is just the time and love you put into it. Have fun making videos!