- Imagine you can make your videos irresistible,
so good that nobody would dare skip them.
There are simple fixes you can make
within the first 30 seconds of your videos
that can really change how well your videos stand out.
The secret lies in something called the hook,
which is the method of grabbing the viewer's attention
in the first few seconds of your video
and motivating them to watch the rest of your content.
The best creators use various techniques
to build tension, interest, and keep viewers watching.
And I've learned really sneaky tricks
from the world's top creators.
And if you know these,
you can finally stop losing tons of viewers
during the first few seconds of your upload
and start seeing them stick around until the end.
And I'm not saying this to be dramatic.
The first one is super helpful,
but the second one blew my mind when I first discovered it.
But I need you to understand this first,
your video hook is not just what plays
when somebody clicks onto your video.
It is what plays before somebody clicks onto your video.
That's because earlier this year,
YouTube introduced the inline player.
Pretty much, this feature allows viewers
to watch videos as they browse YouTube.
Meaning that even if you master your title and thumbnail,
if a viewer pauses just a moment
before clicking onto your video,
your beautiful thumbnail disappears
and the video intro will start playing.
- [YouTuber] I wanna try to buy a failed million...
It's in this moment where a viewer can choose
to keep watching or to keep scrolling.
And since Autoplays from the inline player count as views,
it's part of the reason why you see huge drop offs
from the first 5 to 10 seconds of your video.
It's likely that those viewers
never even clicked on the video.
They watched the intro in the feed,
didn't get hooked by the content, and kept scrolling.
That's why creators invest so much time planning
and editing their intros,
because they know it's the difference between keeping
or losing a huge portion of their audience.
So what's the first trick that they use?
You see it all the time on TV, movies, and YouTube.
It's a trick being used in the first scene of Breaking Bad.
It's the same trick that Airrack used when his video started
with his hovercraft sinking in the river.
And it's the same trick creators like Colin and Samir use
when their interview episodes start
with a guest saying something surprising.
- Wearing nothing but underwear.
I woke up just writhing in pain, I couldn't move.
- It's called the cold open.
And there's a reason why this technique works so well
and it's been used on film throughout history.
It's because the cold open creates a sense of mystery.
The viewer is left wondering
what the heck happened in that scene
and they're motivated to keep watching to find out.
It's the practice of jumping directly into a story
at the beginning of the show on the theory
that involving the audience in the plot as soon as possible
will reduce the likelihood of them switching
during the opening commercial.
For creators, this means reducing the likelihood
that that viewer would choose to go to a different video.
You want your viewers to say, "Oh, I have to see this."
They can be jokes, action scenes, skits.
However, there's one style of cold opens
that always seems to grab people's attention
and keep them watching, the flash forward.
This is a cold open that teases
the later events of your video.
By doing this at the beginning of your video,
you get viewers excited about upcoming events
and it's a great strategy for getting a viewer
to click into your video from the inline player
if they had any hesitation.
Yet, there's an even more powerful technique
that creators use in their videos,
and once you discover what it is,
you will see it everywhere.
Check out the first 20 seconds of this video
and see if you can spot it.
- [Ryan] Sensory deprivation is straight up scary.
What does it even mean to experience nothing?
Especially when my screen time is 10 hours a day,
which led my father to say this.
- I bet you can't last a few hours in one of these.
- [Ryan] He might be right, but I'm too insecure
to accept that so I bet him that I could.
And whoever loses the bet has to paint themselves green
and say in front of all of you,
- "What are you doing in my swamp on camera?"
- Did you notice? Let's go back.
Ryan's dad bet he couldn't survive
a sensory deprivation tank
because Ryan has a screen-time problem.
And they agreed, whoever lost the bet
would face a consequence, which if you think about it,
wasn't necessary for the challenge,
it was a clever way of raising the stakes.
It's simply introducing risks,
impact, and rewards into the story
that gives viewers another reason to care about the outcome.
By introducing stakes, you're telling the viewer
that there's something to be lost or gained
as a consequence of the outcome of your story.
Maybe you didn't care about the sensory deprivation tank,
but now you care to see
if Ryan can break his phone addiction.
Who will win the bet?
Maybe you want to see the loser go through the punishment.
I use this example because it's super subtle,
it's not extremely obvious.
It's easy to look at a Mr. Beast video and see the stakes,
there's a lot of money and prizes on the line.
But creators like Ryan do this
in ways that you barely even notice.
Here's another video where Ryan
metal-detected 100 miles a beach.
Immediately, you wonder what he's going to find,
but he raises the stakes by telling viewers
that he's going to take everything he finds to a pawn shop.
- At roughly six pounds, here's the value
of this metal brick based on what it possibly is.
Yeah, that's quite the range, we will find out what it is.
I'm taking all of my stuff
to a pawn shop at the end of this video.
It's gotta be worth something.
- Making viewers care even more about what he finds
and willing to watch until the end
to see how much money he makes.
Nick Symmons raises the stakes
of his races by simply adding a prize.
Leon Hendrix made a video teaching viewers
how to learn anything faster and raised the stakes
by challenging himself to learn Spanish
before a trip using the same techniques.
Rachel made a video where she learned how to dance.
She raised the stakes by letting viewers know
that she only had 30 days to accomplish the goal,
and at the end of the 30 days,
she had to perform it in front of a large audience.
Do you see how all of this adds some pressure
and curiosity to see the outcome?
Stakes are everywhere, YouTube creators use stakes
to hook viewers into watching until the end
to see if the characters win or lose,
learn something, or achieve their goals.
There are so many things that creators do
and don't do that might seem simple on surface level.
But when you go deeper,
there are layers of storytelling that get viewers to commit.
And we are going to go deep into the science
and art of capturing attention,
storytelling, and YouTube growth in upcoming videos
so make sure that you subscribe.
If not for yourself, how about for suckers?
For you suckers!
(bright music)