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Vidpros Insiders take you behind the scenes of the creator economy.
In this podcast, we interview influencers, content strategists, social media managers, talent managers, and industry operators to give you an inside look at how the digital world really works. From growing an audience and building a personal brand to managing creators and scaling content teams, we break down the strategies, systems, and stories driving today’s content industry.
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If Nobody Clicks Your Videos, Watch This. Jake Thomas Shares His Strategy
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Meet Jake Thomas, YouTube title strategist, creator, and the founder behind Creator Hooks, where he helps creators understand the psychology behind titles, thumbnails, hooks, and packaging that earn more clicks.
In this episode, we talk about why YouTube titles can make or break a video, how Jake went from being terrible at writing titles to studying thousands of them, and why a few words can be the difference between a video getting 100 views or one million.
We dive deep into YouTube growth, titles, thumbnails, hooks, click-through rate, video ideas, audience psychology, storytelling, creator strategy, clickbait, curiosity, fear, desire, and how educational channels can create packaging that actually gets people to click.
Jake shares how he learned title writing through repetition, why copying proven formats is not the same as stealing, and how creators can model successful videos from outside their niche to come up with more original and effective ideas.
We also discuss Jake’s Dream Ten and Model Ten framework, how to build a list of competitors and inspiration channels, how to study what works, and how creators can use proven topics and proven formulas to generate better video ideas.
Jake explains why creators need to understand what game they are playing, why titles should be written before filming, how to avoid clickbait while still creating strong hooks, and why your title, thumbnail, intro, and content all need to deliver on the same promise.
We also talk about the psychology behind curiosity, fear, and desire, why "secret" may be losing effectiveness, how to use fear without becoming manipulative, why personal stories build credibility, and why YouTube success is often less about originality and more about getting enough reps.
Whether you're a creator, editor, YouTuber, agency owner, marketer, podcaster, educator, or someone trying to get more views, write better titles, improve your thumbnails, and understand why people click, this episode is packed with practical insights on YouTube growth, creator psychology, packaging, and writing titles that actually earn clicks.
Learn more about Jake:
Creator Hooks:
https://creatorhooks.com/
Creator Hooks App:
https://app.creatorhooks.com/
YouTube:
/ @jakethomasyoutube
X:
https://x.com/jthomas__
LinkedIn:
/ jake-thomas-creator-hooks
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Today we're joined by Jay Thomas, creator of Creator Hooks, a newsletter breakdown why YouTube videos go viral. We talked about click psychology, fear versus desire in titles, and his Dream 10 and Model 10 strategy. Let's get into it. One thing that I was very interested about your work is that it's very niche. It's very specific what you do. So I kind of like want to understand a little bit more about it because titles and hooks and can you actually make a living off just teaching titles and hooks? What is it all about? Is there more to it? So I'm very curious to know more. So for people discovering you for the first time right now, how would you describe what you do and how did you achieve what you have achieved so far?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean the the cool thing is that titles and like the YouTube title is one of the most important things when it comes to like having success on YouTube. If nobody clicks, then nobody watches your video. Then you just missed out on all those leads and sales and views and subscribers, but you also wasted a ton of time uh making that video. It's cool because it's so important. Now, if if I was like, I mean, even like an expert in like YouTube studios, like Kevin Shin, and um, you know, there's a bunch of people who are experts at very small niche things, and the internet is so big and YouTube is such a big space that if you can be the person for something that people need, something that's important, then you can have an opportunity to make a living. There's definitely that spectrum of like you're really good at you know a lot of things, maybe for like a very specific group of people. So maybe you do everything, but only for gamers. Um, you know, I do only one thing, YouTube titles, and I do it for most channels, most edge educational channels. Um, so you can you can have success if you just focus on one thing and you do it really well and you become known for doing that one thing really well.
SPEAKER_01How did you understand that that that was something that you were good at? What was the process like for you? Did you study a lot before?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I was actually really bad at YouTube titles at first. I got a job. My first job in YouTube was I think eight years, seven or eight years ago. And my boss was like, all right, like, you know, your job is I was like the marketing manager, so I was doing all things marketing, but he's like, one of the most important parts of your job is to write a good uh YouTube title. If nobody clicks on our video, then we just, you know, we just waste all this time, we didn't get any sales, and that's like the most important thing. So that's the biggest part of your job is to write a good YouTube title. So every day, when we publish twice a day, so I would send him over, like, hey, here's our next video, here's what I think this title should be. And he would just roast me pretty much twice a day, saying, like, this title sucks, like, why don't we go with this? And like he would instantly write a much better title than me. I was kind of sick about like you know, I was sick of not knowing what made a good YouTube title. And also it's so important. Um, and I almost got fired because you know, I was doing a poor job at the most important part of my job. And I finally figured it out. I started pretty much like copying other successful YouTube titles, you know, from outside of our niche. We were in the fishing niche. So I would look if I was writing a video or a video, a title about a uh fishing channel or fishing lure review, then I would go look at like TV reviews and laptop reviews and um, you know, hairdryer reviews, you know, all sorts of other reviews and competitive niches. And then I would just kind of try to see if I could take that formula and then apply that to fishing lures or to whatever I was doing. And eventually I did that a couple thousand times and I finally figured out what actually makes a good YouTube title. I finally found my way, but I I love psychology, the leverage that a YouTube title has, where if you just change like seven to ten words, that could be the difference between you getting a hundred views or a thousand views or a million views, and it's only only a couple words. So it's so much power in YouTube titles. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01I think it's interesting that you have mentioned in the past that you don't have to be completely original. Why do you think that don't be original is actually a good advice other than just the title? Do you think there's any sort of formula for social media success that people can just follow that and it will work every single time?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean it's just like learning to play the piano or the guitar. Like you don't start out by like ripping solos and like just trying to come up with your own stuff. But you you play Happy Birthday and you play Mary Had a Little Lamb, and you know, you kind of take it you know step by step, yeah, and you learn what do other people think is a good song, you know, what sounds good to other people. And then eventually, you know, uh if you get really good at understanding what people like, then you can do your own songs and your own solos and you can kind of go from there. But if you don't understand the fundamental building blocks of what makes a good guitar song or what makes people click on YouTube, then it's you know, you're really kind of wasting your time just trying to come up with something totally original. And that's what I was doing at first. Like I was trying to think, like, all right, like this video is about this, and you know, maybe people would like this. And I just didn't really understand psychology and I didn't know what made a good YouTube title, and all my titles sucked. But then when I started just modeling from outside of my niche, then everything started changing and I started, you know, using the writing titles that actually were helpful. Most people just don't know what makes a good YouTube title, so they need to start somewhere, and they need to that and that somewhere that they start is by modeling what has already proven to work.
SPEAKER_01Do you think we should actually draw the line between modeling or just copying someone else? Because there's a lot of people that they see creators like Mr. Beast or Emma Tangerlain, and they're like, I just want to copy and you know be as successful as they are. And what do you think they actually get wrong in the start when they do that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a good question. I I think at the start, I don't think there's anything wrong with just copying straight up, because at the start, probably nobody's watching your videos anyway, and you just need to get some reps in. Eventually, like you'll you'll figure it out. And then, you know, if you're already, you know, have some success, then the best way is to copy from kind of adjacent channels outside of your niche. So, like we were in phishing, so I would copy from laptops and phone reviews. So, like you would probably read our titles and you would never say, oh, he's copying that title because it was like a Florida snook fishing lure and you know, that I was getting from like uh, you know, from a laptop or an iPhone review. So those are very different. Um, and I think pretty much everybody could use that strategy, like indefinitely, because you know, you're just taking what is proven to work for your channel and what is proven that what will you what you know that your audience wants, and then you're using proven psychology that you learn from outside of your niche. And though there are videos that kind of like everybody in a niche needs to make. Um, and those can do well. If I was starting a YouTube channel in 2026, this is what I'd do. Every YouTube influencer can make that. And those just that's just really interesting because people want to know, you know, their favorite influencers' point of view on this popular topic. If everybody's kind of starts copying every single video, then that just kind of sucks. Just really kind of getting a feel for your audience and then having that balance of like, all right, I'm copying, um, you know, modeling from inside my niche, outside outside of my niche. You know, people want if you create good content and if you're credible and believable and you have a good personality and you're a good storyteller, then people just want to know your point of view on things. Even if everybody else in your niche has made the same thing, they want to know it from you if they like you. You know, so they're definitely that dance. It's kind of my default is to just get inspiration from outside of my niche.
SPEAKER_01One thing that I want to know more about is this idea of dream 10 and model 10. Can you actually explain explain what those lists are and how a creator should build them?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so the dream 10 and the Model 10 um are two lists, and that's like pretty much the those two lists are lists of channels, and that's like the first thing I do whenever I start a new channel is I create my Dream 10 and my Model 10. So my Dream 10 is my competitors list, and it's everybody who talks about the same topic as me. For instance, um, you know, I have like an educational YouTube channel. So like all the other, you know, YouTube educators are on my dream 10. And that's where I get my topics from. So I'll get topics like YouTube algorithm, like how to grow your YouTube channel, how to get more views, you know, just kind of those super high-level topics. And on my Model 10, like those are channels that I model those from outside of my niche and channels that I think I like the way they write their titles. I want to get inspiration from them. And those are like on my model personal my model 10 list. I have finance channels, um, I've got like a plants channel, fitness channels, marketing channels. Those are outside of my niche, but they're all like, you know, ton of talking head educational channels. And I like the way that they they create content and I get a lot of inspiration from them. So I will find a proven topic from my dream 10, like the YouTube algorithm, and then I'll find a proven formula from my model 10. Um, and I'll take, you know, I'll remix that proven formula, the proven topic with the proven formula, and that's how you can come up with pretty much like unlimited original ideas.
SPEAKER_01What kind of questions do you think that you can answer by just studying the dream 10 and the model 10?
SPEAKER_00Everything. You can ask yourself, like, all right, well, how many characters should my title be? You know, what makes a good title? What topics should I use? What psychology is my audience interested in? Should I have my face in my thumbnail? Should I have thumbnail text? How many elements should be in my thumbnail? Um, should it be complicated or simple? What should my intros be? How long should they be? Should I write my titles in first person or second person or third person? What offers should I make? What product should I sell? Who's doing sponsorships? Uh, what should my lighting be like? Pretty much any question you might have for growing your channel, you can kind of like like pretend that you know those people are your uh your mentors and just ask, uh ask yourself, like, let's say like Mr. Beast was on your Model 10. You might say, Hey, Mr. Beast, um, you know, how long should my intros be? And then you go look at his channel and you see how long his intros are, and you can pretty much guess what he would tell you. And you can do that for everybody on your Dream 10 and your Model 10. Ask them the question, like you know, kind of do a little pretend, say, hey, you know, um, you know, Ed Lawrence, how long should my titles be? And then go see how long his titles are, and that'll give you your answer.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything that surprised you the most when you realize like the same psychological pattern show up in like completely different niches?
SPEAKER_00I don't know about surprise, more of like delight. I've studied YouTube titles and I've taken elements from YouTube titles. I use them in my email subject lines, I've used them to rank number one on Google. Some of my best uh threads on Twitter and LinkedIn are inspired by YouTube titles. So I just I love that it's so applicable to kind of everything. And like a long, long, long time ago when I was first getting started, I was a little bit scared of all these algorithms that are changing all the time. And I was like, all right, well, let me try to get into some sort of business or niche where things aren't changing and I can kind of just learn something and apply it forever. And psychology was like the thing that kept popping up in my mind. I actually have a degree in psychology, I've loved it forever. Somehow I stumbled my way into YouTube psychology.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything in YouTube psychology that it was too different for you that you felt like you had to study everything again? I'm assuming you knew what you knew about psychology, and then you come into this industry and things might be a little bit different, and you have to reshape maybe some sort of uh ideas that you've had previously. Did that happen?
SPEAKER_00In copywriting, which I was doing a lot of copywriting before I got into YouTube, I was working at a media agency or media buying agency, and you always use the word you. You never use the word I. So it's always like, how you can do this, how you can do this. And then I'm like, yeah, like you know, you always use the word you. And then I came over to YouTube and I kept seeing all these channels that said how I, how I did this, how I did that. And that was so confusing for me. I'm like, these would do so much better if they said how you can do this. Yeah. And I kind of understood that it's just a slightly different game. Like, we're not writing a sales letter, like we're showing proof, and you know, we're kind of letting our audience live vicariously through us. So that was the biggest change for me and kind of the weirdest thing. It took me a little bit to get used to it and to understand the nuances there of sales letter and ad copywriting versus coming up, you know, creating a video where your audience wants to see what you did and live vicariously through you and see proof that it can actually work for you.
SPEAKER_01Do you think the same strategy could actually work in traditional media now? Because I do feel like people are craving storytelling and connection, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think so. Uh I mean it kind of depends on what your goal is. Back then, a lot of old sales letters are about case studies about how he, um, you know, how this, you know, nerd from Ohio, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, so it's it's a little bit similar there. And yeah, I mean, AI bots are just kind of spitting out all sorts of content. So I agree. Like, people want human connection, like they they want to learn what real people are doing, not just not just what these AI bots are spitting out. And not everybody has caught up to that yet. You know, you see, you know, all these like AI doctors on YouTube targeting old people. They just don't get it that these people aren't real people. Hopefully they will they will eventually. And then people are gonna want to want real connection and real experience and real credibility and authenticity. Think that'll that'll get more and more popular, you know, as and also you know, as our generation grows up, too. Like I guess the I think the the older people are just so used to that, but YouTube's been around for 20 years now, um, you know, and social media has been around for 20, 25 years. So I I do think people will also just get more used to living vicariously through others and wanting to know other people's personal stories.
SPEAKER_01I think that's interesting. I feel like it comes and goes kind of like a wave type of situation because I noticed that let's say maybe three or four years ago, it seems like the idea was let's be mainstream, let's share less, let's do something that is very fast-paced. And it seems like people started craving this connection again. So I feel like it comes and goes and it depends on the generation, it depends on the cultural shift that is happening. Like, for example, this year right now, do you think this is the moment to create, let's say, storytelling content? And do you think people that they're like, I want to share less, I want to do something that is more mainstream, do you think that could work right now too for YouTube? Do you think there's an audience for that?
SPEAKER_00I think one of my one thing that I tell myself all the time is that there's plenty of room at the top. Whenever, you know, whenever I think about competition, I think that if you can do something really well, then you can have success. And it's not even competition like, you know, you're related to this question. It's just like, you know, if you can do storytelling or connection or vlogging, if you can do it really well, you kind of, you know, the the size of the market might shift a little bit. But if you do something really well, I think you can have success kind of no matter what you're doing, and you know, no matter what like kind of different like meta or whatever you're following. And YouTube is huge, you know, there's there's all these different little pockets of what people are interested in. Probably the most important thing is to know what game you're playing. You know, are you trying to be connection and slow and real and authentic? Then like double down on that, go all in on that. Don't like be a little bit authentic, but also be like sh flashy and hypey. You know, just know the game you're playing and do it well. And, you know, a lot of this can be answered by looking at like your dream 10 and your model 10. It's like, hey, like what are they doing? Like what style are they doing? And even if like maybe, you know, you're a uh, you know, like you're a finance influencer and everybody is doing kind of talking head educational channels, um, or you want to do like, hey, like you're vlogging and like you know, this is like your your daily investing or your personal finance. If you can vlog and do that really well, then you know I'm sure that there's a a niche for that. Asking yourself, why are you making a YouTube channel? Like, what is your goal? Are you trying to sell a product? Are you trying to get sponsorships? Are you trying to um, you know, to sell course sales or memberships? You know, that should influence the type of content you create. Because, you know, if you're trying to get course sales, like you need to understand what are the objections and you know, why, how do you grab people's attention, how do you kind of refute those objections and and build trust and a following there? Um, and hopefully your content is kind of created around that. So just really thinking about like kind of the end goal in mind, um, and that should hopefully help you kind of dictate the the direction that you go in.
SPEAKER_01So even though you nailed titles, it's not only about titles, right? So, what was that process like for you? Once you nail title, where do you think people should focus next?
SPEAKER_00Anybody will ever nail titles. There are the there's there's always little nuance and things. Yeah, there's all just so much depth. I feel like I know a lot about titles, and then every day I'm like, wow, I didn't know that, or like, why did this work? You know, what happened here? Like, what am I missing? There's so much to know, but kind of, you know, when I'm thinking about how do I get better at YouTube, I start from like so the first points are like your title and thumbnail and like you know, really your like your idea. So your just your whole your whole packaging and idea, and then intros after that, um, and then you know your actual content and how do you like transition between segments there? And then how do you um how do you write a good uh you know, end screen call to action so that people binge your channel and they watch your next video? How do you think about your whole channel strategy so that people want to want to bend your channel? Like the YouTube algorithm wants people to bend your channel. Uh you probably want people to bend your channel too. How do you curate your catalog of videos to encourage that and um you know, so that you can grow your channel so the algorithm likes you and then more people will like you? That's kind of the the little step ladders I go through. And honestly, like the channel strategy might be the first thing you want to start with. It's a thing that might always be changing as you learn more about your audience because you might not know your channel strategy yet. Like you just kind of have to spray and pray and create a bunch of different topics or your different videos about different topics and topics in the beginning, you know, but um, but it's something that you should always be considering is your overall channel strategy to, you know, how do you get people to binge your channel?
SPEAKER_01Also, you've mentioned that creating curiosity, fear, or desire is important. Do you still think those are the three core emotions behind clicks?
SPEAKER_00For the most part, yes. I have there's like a couple of things that kind of stand out out of those three, but generally, curiosity, fear, and desire are the three kind of main emotions. It's all about doing at least one or two really well. It's not about combining all three. Um, you know, some titles combine all three, but it doesn't happen that often. Can your title evoke desire really well? Or like, can it, you know, build a you know, a ton of curiosity? So someone's like, I have to click, like, you know, I have to answer this question that was sparked in my head, or fear, like, you know, fear is a great driver of clicks. You know, how can you use it tastefully? You know, or maybe your your style is to be kind of fear-mongery, you know, if that's a lot of channels do really well for that. Um, you know, so knowing your audience, why they watch, what do they want? But yeah, I mean, those three emotions, for the the more I I research, I haven't found a nice fourth emotion that doesn't fall into curiosity, fear, and desire.
SPEAKER_01How do you actually use fear in a way that doesn't feel like scary girls, manipulative? How should anyone approach it?
SPEAKER_00There's a couple different ways. So you can use fear, like you just talk about your problems. Every single one of your YouTube titles, or if um, if you have 10 subscribers, watch this now. So, like, you know, if nobody's clicking on your videos, watch this. So that's like it's like, man, like this is my a huge problem for me. Um, like I'm like, you know, scared of making videos that nobody's gonna watch and nobody's gonna click. And you know, you're leveraging fear, and it's a little bit more nuanced than fear. It's fear, negativity, um, you know, pain points, problems, they can all be somewhat you know joint, jumbled in together as fear. Um, but talking about people's pain points is a you know great way to use that fear, but in a tasteful way. It's like, you know, if no one wants no one watches your YouTube videos, watch this. It's like, oh, like, yeah, like I I'm really struggling with this. Please tell me the answer. You know, and that's not a clickbaity fear mongery thing. That's serving your audience and solving their problems. And you can also talk about like mistakes, like nobody wants to make mistakes. You can talk about regrets, nobody wants to have regrets. You know, those are those are things that you're scared of doing or having um and problems that you have. So just addressing those is a great way to use fear, you know, the fear of messing up, the fear of missing out. Um, and then also telling a personal story is a great way to do that. So I could say your biggest regrets when starting a YouTube channel, and that feels a little bit, you know, kind of cringy and clickbaiting and fear mothery. But if I say my biggest regret when I started my first YouTube channel. Uh that makes it a lot softer. Uh you're still using that same emotion of regret, but when you say my biggest regret or my biggest mistake, it doesn't feel like accusatory um or fear-mongery. It just it but you're still using that same emotion there. So telling personal stories, I think, is one of the best ways to um to make that just feel a lot better.
SPEAKER_01Also, all about giving you credibility because it means you've been through that and you've found a way out of it. So I think that's really important too on social media, establishing that sort of credibility within your niche. And uh we understand that you have to be, you know, emotionally emotional and be very like strong on it when it comes to trying to evoke emotion on other people. But where do we draw the line between a great hook, a great title, and clickbait? Because clickbait is a real problem. Like I'm the kind of person that I hate clickbait content.
SPEAKER_00So in an ideal world, you create an awesome title and you might feel like, oh, this is clickbaity. But then you build your content that in a way that delivers on that crazy promise that you made in your title. And then it's like, well, on like this isn't clickbait, like this is true. Like, you know, if I tell you the story of how I got eight million views on one video, and then I show you, hey, here's my video that got eight million views. You might be like, oh, that's clickbaity, but then I back it up with actual real proof, you know. So it's it's not everybody has their own definition of clickbait. And so like my wife will read these like articles, and she's like, Oh, yeah, I read this clickbait article. And like, she's just lumped any article on like Facebook as a clickbait article. So, like, it doesn't matter what you title your article, she is going to call it a clickbait article. Yeah, um, you know, my dad at a long time ago, when I was working at an e-commerce company, he signed up for our email list, and then he's like, Oh, you guys are spamming me and emailing me every day. I'm like, Dad, you signed up for an e-commerce email list. Like, we're not spamming you. Like, this is this is what we do when you sign up for an email list. You get emails. You know, so spam, clickbait, like everybody just has their own definitions of that. Um, I think that if you can think about your audience, think about how you're serving them, deliver on the promise that you made in your um, you know, in your title, in your thumbnail, then I think you're gonna be fine. As long as you make yourself proud and deliver what you do what you said you were gonna do, um, then I I think you'll be fine. And you might get accused of clickbait either way, but you know, if as long as you're okay with it, as long as you're proud of what you did, then you know you're that's just something you're gonna have to deal with, especially if you do really well. You know, if you go viral, you're gonna get haters and and clickbaity people and all sorts of people accusing you of all sorts of stuff. So it's just something that you have to get used to.
SPEAKER_01If you're a content creator or business owner trying to stay consistent online, editing can easily become a full-time job. That's why VidPros exist. VidPros is a professional video editing service built for creators. You'll get a dedicated human editor who learns your style, pacing, and workflow over time. You upload the footage and your editor handles the cuts, captions, sound, color, thumbnails, and short form clips. We also offer unlimited revisions within your editing hours. You can try vidbros with a $100 try a week that includes 10 hours of editing. Go to vidbros.com to get started. Stop editing and start growing. If you try to evoke positive emotion from thumbnails and hooks, do you think it requires more skill than using, let's say, fear and negative emotions overall?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question. I think so. I think it requires more skill. I think it probably what it does is if you're going straight for desire, it requires more knowledge of your audience. It requires knowing exactly what their hopes and dreams are. Like, you know, so I could make a video say how to grow a YouTube channel, which is kind of boring. I could make a video said how to get your first 1,000 subscribers, um, you know, how to get your first 100,000 view video, how to uh make $5,000 a month from getting uh, you know, from coaching calls on YouTube. Like if I just if I speak to a very specific desire, that specific audience is going to be way more likely to watch. Um, so it's really just knowing who your audience is and why they're watching, what are their hopes and dreams. And if you speak to those very specifically, then you will be able to have a much higher chance of success.
SPEAKER_01I think it's all about understanding the reason behind why formulas work, right? And I think that's what you do with your work. You don't just say use this word, but you actually explain psychologically why it works. So, do you think creators are too obsessed with formulas and following it and not really, you know, looking to the reason why this formula is working?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I think it depends on what situ like where you're at in your YouTube journey. Are you just getting started? Then you don't really need to know why something works. You you need to just model something that's proven to work and get your reps in. Eventually, you will start to understand why something worked. So if you're trying to actually come up with original content and think about titles and ideas from first principles, then yes, you might want to understand a lot more about why something worked so that you can take that psychological reason why and then apply that in different ways. But when you're just getting started, just do it. So it's so it really depends on what stage you're at.
SPEAKER_01One thing that I really want to know about is that you recently posted about studying hundreds of thousands of YouTube titles and ranking words that appear more often in above average videos. So, what actually pushed you to studying those titles at that scale?
SPEAKER_00So, so I have a database of it's currently like 900,000 views or 900,000 uh videos. So, and I use AI to help me kind of analyze that. So it was it was easier than just copying and pasting 900,000 titles in a spreadsheet. I think that specific words are very, very important. Kind of a connotation and emotion attached to every single word, and every single word that you use in your title is very important. So you could say the secret getting more views, you could say how to get more views, you could say, um, I wish I knew this, you know, before starting my YouTube channel. So like how to and secret and like I wish I knew all essentially serve the same purpose there, but those have very different feelings. So I wanted to know you know exactly what words are better to use. And I have had a little bit of a feeling that like secret is a little bit played out. Um, and that was the case when I studied 900,000 or 800,000 views videos. It was not as effective as some of the other words that had a similar um similar usage. And I thought that was interesting. When I was growing up, Russell Brun Russell Brunson was a huge influence, and all of his books are like traffic secrets, expert secrets, dot com secrets. He said secrets work really well for him. And I am wondering, and secrets are also very easy to use, and everybody kind of knows about secrets. So is that just so played out that everybody's using it and it kind of lost its effectiveness? Um, so that was a a big driver of doing that study is knowing exactly which words work best on YouTube. And then from that list of words, you can kind of like prompt yourself, like just come up with a bunch of ideas based on those words. So like any and every and never and stop, you know, you can think about like, oh, how do I use stop in a YouTube video? It's like, oh, like, you know, stop writing your titles like this, or you know, you know, uh every creator needs to stop doing this in their video intros or something, you know. So it's a great way to you know come up with ideas is just by starting with a very effective word.
SPEAKER_01I I think the real challenge there is that we're living in such a fast move in society, especially on social media, that I feel like even transi words, it might be transi now, but in a few days from now, it's not. You were talking, and I was just thinking about like a while ago, we had let's say um the word lore. Everyone was using lore in their their videos because it was working. And do you do you think it's it's a real challenge for us now that uh we need to know what's working this month and maybe what's working now didn't work last month? Or do you think the words that you've found are a bit a bit more timeless?
SPEAKER_00So I think odd words or maybe unique words like lore, great word, but since it's so odd and unique, like I feel like its usage was like here and then poo, and then now it's coming back down. Whereas the word secret is pr is more in the middle. It's like, yeah, like it's just secret, it's just in how to, they're always gonna be in the middle. So I think for those trendy words like lore and neta and you know whatever other trendy words are happening right now. Yeah, you might want to be just aware of what's going on. But I don't think for most words, you're probably not gonna run into that.
SPEAKER_01Um, one thing that I want to know is about like, let's say, timelines. Let's say right now, using 2026, that works really well, right? Why do you think that happens? And do you think that's a good strategy? Because maybe by you know, a year from now, that video that says 2026 might not be a good video anymore. So what's your take on this?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, generally I I love evergreen videos, and obviously dropping in the current year is like the anti-evergreen video. However, it's such a powerful strategy that it's worth it, even if you make like the same five videos every single year, you know, like the best laptops in 2026, the best laptops in 2025, like best laptops in 2027. Even if you make that same video every single year, that's a very, very powerful strategy and it's worth it, especially for things that are changing all the time, like technology, like you know, plat software platforms, social media platforms, tech, you know, hard tech, all that is changing. So I I think it's powerful that it's worth redoing all the time every or every year. At the the new year, yeah, or at the turn of the year, every that's the you know, the one thing that's on everybody's mind. You know, everybody's thinking about the next year. Um, you know, so starting in like November and December, like you'll start to see in 2027 or in 2028, you know, whatever next year is, um, you'll start to see those do really well. And then, you know, even through like January, February, March, April, March is kind of like where I personally don't try not to use like the the current year. Um, but you know, videos still do well, like, you know, in uh like you know, up to even like July. Personally, I wouldn't do that, but um you know, but but that's still a really powerful strategy. And then like you know, May, June, July, August, September, it's like, eh, like the the new year is kind of old by now. Come like October, November, December, like, yes, like go for it again. Um, so that'll be something kind of you know happens every year. But I think like I think most creators should have a list of five or ten videos that they make every like December through February. Um, and it'd be worth it to remake those videos every single year.
SPEAKER_01Do you think by looking at your list do you you get an idea where society is at right now? Because let's say uh from your list, there's words like never stop, regret, change, forever. What comes to your mind? Like, do you do you think like, hey, people are feeling this way or that way right now?
SPEAKER_00That's a good question. I don't think so. So something that like I think about all the time is in the Bible, Paul says something about he's just complaining about stuff that like I complain about, and I'm like, man, like 2,000 years ago, they were complaining about this stuff, and I'm complaining about the same exact things. People are pretty much the same. So, like, no matter what it is, and like you know, you read like copywriting books from like 1960, and it's like, oh, people are seeing so many ads these days, and then you read a copywriting book from like 2020. People are seeing so many ads these days, so people don't really change, psychology doesn't change, you know, we're all complaining about the same stuff. So I don't, I don't think that specific list is a reflection of of where we're at. Change and fear are things that are like biologically very important for people to know for the last hundred thousand years. Um, so you know, and that's the awesome thing about learning psychology is that it will not change in our lifetime. So if you spend the time to learn about what grabs people's attention, what makes them click, or what makes them take action, you're gonna be able to use those skills for the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_01That was actually so interesting, and it made me think a lot about life and people in general. But do you think there's any um power word right now that creators are maybe overusing and maybe they don't even understand that they're overusing it?
SPEAKER_00That's a good question. Uh, secret was one for sure. There's nothing else that comes to my mind. I mean, even secret, I feel like people are overusing it, but it can still do well. Um, you know, there's there's no no power words that it immediately come to my mind. I mean, 2026, it's currently June of 2026, so I wouldn't use it, but I'm still seeing a lot of people use it, you know, because it's right in the smack dab in the middle of the year where the new year is like the the farthest thing from new. Um, but uh but there's not nothing that comes to my mind.
SPEAKER_01One thing that uh I I've been thinking about is that it always catches my attention when I see a video on YouTube and the title is completely different. It's something super random, but somehow it works. You know, it's not how to or the secret or I did this or I did that. Sometimes it's just one word or two words, and it the algorithm just picks it up and it works well. Why do you think that happens? And do you think people, when they have an idea, let's say a title and it sounds good, do you think they should go for it and work the title before the video idea itself? Do you think this is a good strategy?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that ideas can come from a bunch of different ways. I mean, I've the other day I saw a really good thumbnail with like a cool brain scan, and I'm like, that's an awesome thumbnail. I might make a psychology video about that because I loved the brain scan image. Um, sometimes I'll think about like, all right, well, my audience is really struggling with like, you know, how do they write good titles with clickbait? So I'll think about the idea from that. I'll be like, all right, well, here's my idea. How do I write a title and come up with, you know, a full video around this idea, around this problem my audience has? Other times I'll just look at my dream 10 and my model 10 and I'll say, like, oh, like this finance creator, uh, you know, it he did like, you know, 10 things I wish I knew before investing in the stock market. I'm gonna make a video about 10 things I wish I knew before starting a YouTube channel. So ideas come from all different ways. In an ideal world, your title is written before you actually make the video, you know, so that you can so you're you have a great title that grabs your audience's attention that wants them to click, then you have an intro that confirms that idea, and then you have content that delivers on that idea. Otherwise, that's how you get into clickbait is kind of you know trying to put lipstick on a pig and slapping some you know title that doesn't really make sense. There are some funky titles that do well, and I think you know sometimes you know they they just kind of maybe like the they they kind of tap into some psychology that not many people know, or maybe there's just some sort of like incredible synergy with the title and the thumbnail or the idea and what's going on in the world right now. Like many, you know, artists like you know, like music artists are one-hit wonders. Like some that's kind of what I like that's the thing that comes to my mind when you're like, you know, oh, this weird title did really well. It's like some people just get lucky, and that's just how it is. Typically, like those don't, you know, aren't very uh you know reproducible. Um, but you know, when I think about Emma Chamberlain, somebody like her I was paying a ball, actually. Yeah, yeah, people don't watch her her title, like they they're there for her. So it doesn't matter what she titles her video, people want to watch her. So that's if you have kind of like a um a personalized educ entertainment uh video, like you know, if you go to vlog or like Mr. Beast and Emma Chamberlain, people aren't there for the like you know, really for the title. They're there for the creator. Now, if you have an educational channel and you are making videos, you know, about how to achieve a goal or how to do something, people are typically there for the topics. Um, so you will have you will often see um a much like greater variety in views for educational channels because the audience is there for the topic, not necessarily the creator.
SPEAKER_01Why do you think that distinction is so important when it comes to, let's say, educational channels? And you said the titles are often more important, and then uh entertainment channels rely more on, let's say, heavily thumbnails. How do we differentiate it?
SPEAKER_00So, I mean, you just kind of you need to know what you're playing, why people are watching. If I'm a a fitness channel and I make a video about how to squat more, and people and my audience is into squatting, then like that video is gonna do well. If I make a video about my morning routine or whatever, and people don't care about my morning routine, that video is gonna do poorly. And I need to know, okay, this did poorly because it was about the wrong topic. So next time I can move forward, I know why it did poorly. You know, it's not because of, it's not because I suck, it's not because you know, my audience doesn't like me, it's because they don't like this. Um, you know, so you really just need to know why, why does your audience watch them? That's the the biggest thing I think most creators either don't fully understand or they they they mess up often. Whenever I see videos that do poorly, um it's often because the idea is not what the audience is there for, which is fine. And obviously, like you want to experiment and try to branch out and see if you can, you know, see see if you can find new formats or new topics that your audience is interested in, but you just kind of gotta know that if you branch out, there's a decent chance your video is gonna flop.
SPEAKER_01One thing that I want to know, let's say for a podcast video specifically, uh, when we're recording a podcast, we're talking about many topics. How should a podcast decide which angle deserves like to become the title? And what if the guest is not a household name? Should their name be included in the title? Should it be in the thumbnail?
SPEAKER_00So if they're not a household name, typically you don't need their name. I don't know if I don't think I'm a household name. Like some people told me they told someone told me I am. I think I disagree with them. But uh, you know, not like you know, Patty Galloway or Mr. Beast, somebody. In in that case, you just think about like, you know, lead with uh, you know, what's the interesting part of the video? Like if you're eel if you're interviewing Elon Musk, like lead with Elon Musk. If you're interviewing Jake Thomas, you might want to talk about how to grow your YouTube channel instead. Like what is the audience gonna get out of it? So I think that's the kind of the little difference. And if I was making a podcast, I would come up with like the five, I would come up with like five titles beforehand. Um, and I'm like, all right, well, based on what my audience is interested in and then what this creator uh can, you know, can talk about, these five topics would do really well. And I, you know, one of these five titles would be awesome. And then I would, you know, write, write some questions of like how can I cue up this creator to answer this question so that I can have my um you know, have my title be, you know, be this awesome title, and it's actually going to like deliver on the content. Um that's how that's how I would do that is do your do your prep and know what makes people click, and then hopefully you can deliver on that.
SPEAKER_01So it's about packaging and starting this process even before the interview. But uh one thing that I want to know when it comes to that is you know, production now is becoming much easier and much faster with AI. How important do you think packaging is in today's society with this surge of AI?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, packaging or production?
SPEAKER_01Because I feel like it can help with both, but at the same time, it can hurt both.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, it's I mean, some uh it does kind of feel like there is like a a baseline for your production of like, you know, if it's easy to have good production, it's easy to have a good set, but it is it's easier and everybody's doing it. Like if if you were the one with the sloppy set and like sloppy production, and all of your competitors are doing a lot better than you, and like there's nothing really differentiating your content, then I think you're gonna have a hard time. Um I do typically think that content is most important, you know, like if If I gave you the best interview of all time, I don't think actually no, I'll I'll give this, I'll give a different example. Let's say that like, let's say Warren Buffett was creating a YouTube channel. I don't think that people would care about his set and his production quality. I think people would just say, Warren, like just call in on a landline and just like give me some investing tips, you know, uh, even if it's like, you know, it's just your picture and just him talking, you know, because it's Warren Buffett. Like he he has so much credibility and trust that he can get away with that. Now, if you're uh a nobody investor and you try to do that, you know, you don't have any out of the trust and credibility that Warren Buffett has. So you're gonna need to win on some other things. You're gonna have, you're gonna need nice packaging and nice production and everything because you're you're lacking on trust and credibility. You'll bring up your trust credibility, but that because that's probably the most important thing. But you just, you know, trust and credibility and helpful content, I think, is you know, good stories are probably more important, you know, than than packaging a production and just making it look fancy.
SPEAKER_01Also, another thing that I want to know is that you you've started this on your own YouTube channel now. So has publishing your own videos changed anything and the way that you think about the advice that you give other people?
SPEAKER_00That is a great question. So I'm trying to go the Warren Buffett route. I'm not uh, you know, I'm just to win on quality of content. I'm learning something new every video. So I've I've been a channel manager, like I've published, you know, thousands of videos. I've you know, I'm mostly a behind the scenes guy and I'm like a writer naturally. Uh I don't love being on camera. Um, I like this, like I like talking to you, but when it's just me and the camera, I don't like that. Um but I'm getting used to it. So I'm just just trying to focus on getting one thing better in every single video and having patience and just trying to create good content. I've been starting to get some comments like, how does this video only have 63 views? And like, you know, why? Like, like I can't believe this, you know, you only have a hundred subscribers or whatever. And I started getting that on you on Twitter a long time ago when I first got started. Yeah. Um, where I had like a couple hundred or a couple thousand subscribers, like everybody was saying, like, oh, like, you know, like this guy's like so underrated, and now I have 30,000 subscribers, and I'm very happy with that. Yeah. So I I know that like the quality, like once you nail the quality, like, you know, the the views, the subscribers, and followers will come. Um, so that was that's just been like my whole focus is like how do I actually make good content?
SPEAKER_01Do you think the way that you analyze your channel is different than you would analyze a creator's channel that you know hires you to um see working and what's not? Because let's say if you were to analyze a video of yours that is underperforming, what's the first thing that you you look at? Is it the idea, title, thumbnail? Is it like the general feeling of the video?
SPEAKER_00The good thing about analyzing my channel is that there's a lot less pressure. I am trying to go for like, let me just like get it out. Like I'm I'm trying to, I'm going the experimental route where even if I have a bad idea, I do kind of want to just like see, like, it's bad, but could it be good? Like, will it confuse? So I'm publishing a lot of crap right now, just because I want to see. Um, but it's it's fun. You know, it's it's different. I'm in a group with like three other guys that we all have kind of similar YouTube channels, and that has like been the best thing ever for me. And I like I very, very, very strongly suggest that anybody or everybody should get a group of people who are in kind of a make similar content to them and are in a similar stage as them. But I think that like when you're you know, everybody says like you give better advice to other people, it hasn't been any different for me. Um, you know, I'll sometimes come up with a title, and my buddies would be like, Jake, that's a horrible title. Like, why would you do that? Uh you know, you're right. And like, or I'll say, hey, like, this title is really good. And they'll be like, well, so for example, one of my most one of my recent videos was how I got eight million views on one video. And then my buddy was like, Well, it was on a new channel, right? So why what if your title was how I got eight million views on one video on a new channel? And I'm like, that's a lot better than my original title. And I think that like often we will come up with ideas and we will we'll like feel like we're finished. And then I say, like, you know, hey, like, what do you think about this? And like for you, like you're just getting started on this idea. So like you want to take it to the next level, whereas like I feel like I'm mentally done with this. So just kind of um, you know, pushing yourself and having other people look at your stuff is a is a is awesome. And it's been no, I write a title and I, you know, my friends tell me it sucks and it could it could be better. Let's go.
SPEAKER_01Final question for you that is um if a creator, editor, strategist, anyone, agency wants to stay valuable in the creator economy and they want to know what you know now and what you have achieved, what is the main advice you'd give them?
SPEAKER_00Just getting your reps in. Me personally, I I wrote like 2,000 YouTube titles in like three years because we published twice a day. And my boss like roasted every single one of them, and then I quit my job, and then I was A-B testing titles for uh for a channel with 10 million subscribers, like was just right A B, like you know, we would have a video and then I would write title um, you know, alternate title variations, and I would just A-B test them and see which did better. So I just got a ton of reps in. Eventually, I you know kind of stumbled my way into figuring out what works well. And I think that for everybody, just getting your reps in, getting uh ideally someone who's smarter than you to help you, um, getting other people who are on the similar journey to you to also help you and just kind of be in like you know a small community with them. Those are the those have been the most important things for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Jake, thank you so much for doing this and joining us today. And if there's anything you'd like to promote, like your new channel, your website, feel free to do so right now. And I'll also leave the links in the description for anyone to check it out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, yeah, I'm starting the new channel. It's Jake Thomas, uh, it's like at Jake Thomas YouTube or something. And then just my uh my software, my newsletter, Creator Hooks, so creatorhooks.com, uh free newsletter. So we talked a lot about modeling videos from outside of your niche and understanding why, like the psychology behind why videos do that or why videos do well. Um, so the free newsletter does both of those. Like I'll give you ideas that did really well, I'll tell you why they worked, and then I'll tell you how you can use them for your channel for free every week. Um, so those those two resources should help you.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. Thank you so much for doing this. Turns out you don't need original ideas to win on YouTube. You just need to understand why things work and do them over and over until it clicks. Like and subscribe and check out the rest of Mid Bros Insiders podcast. I'll see you next time. Bye.