First 10 Seconds Matter
- Iegor Bakhariev (Unlicensed)
Over time we’ve noticed a greater engagement during the first 10 seconds in the videos that go viral (sometimes regardless of the overall engagement in the video).
Here are some ideas and tips for the first 10 seconds of your videos.
1. Thumbnail and Title
Ideally, your title and thumbnail should be the beginning of the story. And should be directly linked with the first 10 seconds. Think of the algorithm, how a person watches your video:
They see your thumbnail, and they read your title.
The scroll further
They click to watch the video
They hover over and start the video on autoplay
They watch the first 10 seconds
They continue watching
They click to watch if they watched in autoplay
Naturally, everything starts with your thumbnail and the title. If those aren’t hooky enough, the viewer might not even watch your video. However, if the title and the thumbnail are hooky, but the intro isn’t — well, people will click away.
One idea is to look at your title and thumbnail as a set-up and intro as a punch line of a joke.
With this in mind, check a few examples for inspiration (all of them are 1M+ videos):
Setting expectations right is one thing, another is how to follow that? If you know your audience well or you are talking about a well-known fact (or Series in this case), you can surprise your viewer with a tone of voice that would contrast the set-up in your title and thumbnail.
In this example, the set-up for the Darkest Episode of How I Met Your Mother, is followed by a joking reference to the series itself.
When starting a video avoids repeating the exact same statement in the intro. Instead, you can find something contradictory statement that will hook the viewer’s attention.
In this example “Bohemian Rhapsody won the Oscar for Best Editing at the 2019 Academy Awards…” This already gives contraction to the title and thumbnail. How could a shitty movie get an Oscar for editing?
Documentary-style thumbnails and titles work well with raw and emotional footage that directly links with the set-up.
In this example Ethan is being aggressive and disturbing, giving the viewer exactly what they’d expected.
If the question is interesting enough, you can repeat it in both the title and the thumbnail. To top it off, you can even ask a related question as the viewer still remembers the one from the title and the thumbnail.
To emphasise the emotion (works well in comedy) you can repeat the line or the visual from your thumbnail in the first 5 seconds of your intro. And take the viewer on the journey from there. Remember that in the video you have visuals and audio to help add context to the story.
2. Don’t be smart, be simple
Clarity starts from your understanding of the main idea of your video. If you don’t have it, the viewer never will. Write down what’s the point of the video and what you want to say about it. What will be the hookiest 10 seconds to convey your message?
Check your language. It should be easy to comprehend for a 10-year-old. This doesn’t mean that they will be your audience. This only means that the first 30 seconds should be clear and catchy to anyone, including non-native speakers. You can run your script, title, and description through: Readability Scoring System PLUS
Cut all the fluff and confusing details, as in the script and in the edit. Everything that feels extra, or that doesn’t move the story forward (to your opinion, which is the best that you have got) should go.
3. Curiosity
Normally, people continue watching if they’re curious about what will happen next. Here are a few examples of how to do that. Try them all and see what works best for you.
Hook + foreshadow
First, hook the viewer with either the video, a line, or both, preferably. Follow that up with a sentence that will set up expectations. They don’t have to be high, they just be clear for the viewer to understand. You then hope that the viewer will reflect as well.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lca_XEoO4b8
From their witty dialogue to fast-paced editing, The Bear has quickly become one of the most-talked TV series of the past decade. And Episode 6 of Season 2 proves that the series deserves a place among the greatest television wonders of the 2020s. Bad intro line.
(The emotional video follows with a simple line) This scene from The Bear Season 2 Episode 6 Titled “Fishes” is one of the most suspenseful scenes on TV I've seen in a long time. Great fucking intro!
Exaggerated emotion
When we talk about emotions, it’s always better to turn them up to 11. Use vivid words and emphasise them with music and visuals. Some examples of inspiration:
Can be something funny or sad, but when you do it correctly, emphasising emotional music and stripping everything, it can be a powerful tool.
Funny detail or a joke
To make a good joke, you have to know your audience first. Unless, you know exactly who is your average viewer (by means of statistics or from experience), avoid making jokes in your intro.
Two simple elements that a joke must have, and they can happen as quickly as in 2-3 seconds:
Expectations in the viewer’s mind. (set-up)
This is either set by the situation at hand or a well-known reference.
Unexpected outcome. (punch line)
This is when it’s supposed to be funny. The further the outcome is from expectations, the better. Try to fit it into your style of storytelling.
Explaining the value
Make the first sentence hooky and representative of what your video should be about. When working with explainers, or when you know exactly what will be the value that the viewer will get out of watching this video, you can emphasis it in the video.
Mr Beast does it well, but there are other examples as well:
4. Captions
Just like with shorts and reels, captions on longer videos, especially, during the first 30 seconds can keep the attention. This works best for dynamic intros and dramatic video themes.
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFII7t9FtO8
5. But… Therefore Storytelling
Some YouTubers quite often talk about the so-called but, therefore storytelling. According to this approach, all scenes in your video should either logically cause one another, or contradict. Pretty much each scene should follow with a “but” or a “therefore”.
While this is definitely a good technique to use throughout your video, it is not the most useful for the first 10 seconds. To create a casualty in such a short time is a close to impossible task.
So instead we rely on the more simple notion of curiosity and conflict. The viewers should be left wanting to watch more, almost asking themselves: “...and then?”.