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I produce Music Tech-based educational content on YT. It started as a hobby and sideline to my main work (which at the time was classroom teaching of the same

I produce Music Tech-based educational content on YT. It started as a hobby and sideline to my main work (which at the time was classroom teaching of the same content). While I'm no longer working in classrooms (pandemic plus other reasons led to this), I'm still producing content, which I think is of good quality and worthwhile. The issue I have with it is that I refuse to produce attention-grabbing clickbaity titles or thumbnails. I don't like the whole algorithmically-driven race to the bottom of the brain stem, and have zero interest in producing the same. I've had plenty of comments from viewers who say the videos are great and informative, but if I'd just jazz things up a bit then I'd get more views. I'm just wondering how this will change (if at all) with this new program. It takes a LOT of time to produce decent content, and even more if you're going to provide a course and backup materials etc.. Writing curricula is HARD work, and writing tests, etc., that are actually valid is reasonably challenging and time consuming. I currently get about £100 a month from YT, which definitely doesn't reflect the time I put into it (but I know it has other benefits as I sell a fair number of books partly as a result of the viewership). I know that the beasts of the platform (3b1b spring to mind) would do really well from this (and deservedly so), but I do wonder if things really need to change to make YT work well for genuinely-produced non-clickbait educational content.

kgc 4y ago
"Race to the bottom of the brainstem" is a great way to put it.
- jasan_s 4y ago
  - jasan_s 4y ago
- djaychela 4y ago
  I can't take credit from that - I believe I heard Tristan Harris say it on the Center for Humane Tech podcast.
lallysingh 4y ago
Click bait isn't different than wearing a funny hat to engage students in class.
- serf 4y ago
  > Click bait isn't different than wearing a funny hat to engage students in class. what are you talking about? a student gets stuck going to class regardless of how goofy the teacher dresses, whereas I feel an extreme sense of revulsion when I click on a YT link with a meme-thumbnail or a clickbait title. your analogy fails since in this instance the 'student' gets to decide whether or not they participate in the course. If I had had the chance to walk out on goofy teachers through high school then -- just as one anecdote -- I wouldn't have graduated. so, in other words, clickbait 'engagement' style marketing will get your volume numbers up, but the hidden aspect is that there will be a market that pulls entirely away from you -- 'teachers' on YT will need to understand these market dynamics if they're really interested in teaching the masses rather than making money on viewership. If teachers K-12 were paid according to their student throughput that'd turn into a major humanitarian crisis, imo.
  - nwienert 4y ago
    You’re baking in the assumption that goofy hat is 100% correlated with bad content, but I’d say 30% of my YouTube subscriptions do the goofy hat thing (usually just having somewhat baity thumbnails / titles) yet deliver great content. And honestly? I don’t care. The content is good, and if the hat gets them more viewers then all the better.
    - OJFord 4y ago
      I'm not who you replied to, but I do care, I don't want to be made to feel stupid, I don't want to think that people are stupid, I want things to be presented as they are even if not immediately understands them. In the UK we see this with nonsense talk of 'the [energy] price cap' being some £ figure per year - when it's not, it's a £/kWh cap, but the media can't cope with that, we're stuck with what it means for 'the average household'. Even comparison sites refuse to compare what you actually pay, £/day and £/kWh, and instead insist on asking you about number of bedrooms etc. I'm sick of everything being dumbed down.
charcircuit 4y ago
Having good thumbnails and tiles is just marketing. If you want to sell or get the word out about what you are offering it helps to have a good marketing effort. Yes, creating the material is a lot of work, but that doesn't mean that marketing is something that doesn't need hard work.
- ant_li0n 4y ago
  The problem is it isn't "good" thumbnails. It's that stupid fucking, "who farted?" face. Or more often for young women, it's "Uh-oh, I did a bad thing" face. I agree, race to the bottom of the brain stem. I sympathize with GP
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    It's not stupid if it works. It's not like it's YouTube who is deciding these types of thumbnails perform well. It's just that users engage with those kinds of thumbnails more. The race is about making the best possible thumbnail based of empirical data and not aesthetics.
    - meheleventyone 4y ago
      Right but the context to this is not fixed and is human constructed. Just because a bad system produces undesirable outcomes doesn’t mean we have to shrug our shoulders as if this is the only possible state of things.
- joegahona 4y ago
  It's succumbing to these [1] types of thumbnails that it sounds like the GP is trying to avoid having to do. Andrew Huberman has tame thumbnail images that are professional and informative. Like others have said, there has to be a middle ground to explore. [1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nZQgszA0_80/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEcCPYBEIoBSFXyq4qpAw4IARUAAIhCGAFwAcABBg==&rs=AOn4CLBtGKAHe0VIfOZ7ko9x0S0_-q-Gug https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nZQgszA0_80/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwE...
- ekianjo 4y ago
bombcar 4y ago
The middle ground I've seen is to concede a bit to the clickbaters and make a few clickbait videos that talk about what you do and what's available in the other videos.
yamazakiwi 4y ago
It depends on what you want. Google is optimizing for eye balls so content that warrants more engagement is going to win. 2 questions on the end of the spectrum to ask yourself... Do you want to build a community that is a reflection of your ideas? Do you want to build revenue by growing your channel regardless of the type of consumer you attract?
- sings 4y ago
  Exactly. While obviously in a minority, GP should take heart in the fact there are viewers out there, myself included, that will actively avoid videos with click bait title cards. Silly facial expressions and “you won’t believe…” type text are an instant turn-off for me. However, they are obviously effective in engaging a younger audience.
  - barkingcat 4y ago
    What exactly does "you won't believe" do? Whenever people say that I think "of course I don't believe ..." (ie that the topic is stupid, or that the decision of the day by xyz company is weird/bad/good, etc) why should I believe or not believe in someone who I don't know? If my mom says "you won't believe me if I told you you are not my son, but adopted" I'd be shocked. Random youtuber "you won't believe?" - heck I don't believe a word coming out of your mouth! Of Course I DON'T believe you.
- criddell 4y ago
  > content that warrants more engagement is going to win What does that even mean? I'd be careful about using the language of silicon value ad companies. It changes how you think. One minute you're talking about content and community and the next thing you know you have metrics and are trying to measure engagement and are now making decisions based off something you could actually measure and not relying on your instincts, experience, and good taste. Instead, create videos (not content) for your fans / audience based on what you know works. Make it so good, your audience will want to support you. I think Justin Sandercoe does a good job of this. There is a community on his web site and a community on his YouTube channel, but more importantly he has fans on every guitar forum on the internet. He sells books for people who want them and he has courses you can pay for, but they are mostly guides through his lessons which are all available for free on YouTube or reproductions of copyrighted work which he can't give away for free. The most important thing for his success (IMHO) is that he has created a lot of very high quality videos. He doesn't do clickbait titles or images. Just video after video of great stuff.
heartbreak 4y ago
Would you consider Daniel Naroditsky’s educational content to be clickbait? If not, that might be a decent middle ground to target.
Pr0ject217 4y ago
Would you mind sharing a link to your content? Thank you.
- djaychela 4y ago
  Thanks. It's musictechtuition - https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition
  - Pr0ject217 4y ago
    Thanks!
tolmasky 4y ago
You should put a link to your stuff in your Hacker New profile.
- djaychela 4y ago
  Done, thanks!
LouisSayers 4y ago
This reminds me of a saying I've heard from Dean Graziosi (sales type guy). "Sell them what they want, give them what they need". I also dislike this whole game where you have to essentially mould yourself into this "mainstream click-baity character", but part of me recognises that if your goal is to sell, then you'd be wise to spend time on presenting your content in a way that is at least initially attention grabbing. One way to think of it is - you owe it to your audience to save them from worse educational experiences, and the only way to save them is to try to rank higher than these other more click-baity low-value videos.
- klabb3 4y ago
  > but part of me recognises that if your goal is to sell, then you'd be wise to spend time on presenting your content in a way that is at least initially attention grabbing. The issue is, I think, exactly that everyone must be at least partially a salesman to get ahead. Is this what we want? Is there a way for YouTube to compensate for clickbaity titles and thumbnails? Are they incentivized to do so? Thinking back at teachers and teaching that I really liked, they aren't always the best salesmen, but they're always very good communicators, and good at speaking. I don't think that the content promoted by today's engagement machines are optimizing for that.
  - tsumnia 4y ago
    Just to add, most of us AREN'T trying to become big YouTube viral influencers. My channel has 2.5k viewers and all my videos were done because I want my in-class students to have a resource to review at home. I got my doctorate and a career as teaching faculty to teach students, not become another Computerphile. I love the channel and link it regularly, but again my passion is in helping people learn in the classroom. The "Thanks!" comments and $100 a year I get from YouTube are just nice bonuses to that end.
    - j45 4y ago
      Creating better explanations on how to use and apply knowledge is so huge. I’d be curious to learn if there’s any pain points or things you wish you could do faster in your process. Happy to chat offline :)
sedivy94 4y ago
I think there exists a middle ground that doesn't devalue your content, sell your soul, sacrifice your authenticity, keep up with the joneses, etc. That being said, hard pass on the clickbaity thumbnails and titles. When folks suggest "jazzing things up", they might be looking for some vlogging and conversational segments. You, as a personality, are just as marketable and appealing as the content you produce. You are the brand. An example of an overcorrection would be posting short one-off videos that address specific problems and solutions with titles such as "When Should I Apply Reverb?" or "My Top 5 VST Plugins". If producing lectures is your strong suit, well, we need more of that...
movedx 4y ago
I'm a creator too. I'm small on YouTube (3,880 subs; 6.4k views and about 293 hours watched in the last 28 days), but have a (relatively speaking) large Discord with 3,800 members. I have a mailing list of about 1,600. My goal and focus is to sell, but it's to sell a big package around the idea of IT education. I want to sell to people who want the interaction and community, not just the knowledge dump. And I'm the same. I won't do the over-the-top, hyped up character who uses the latest trends to grab your attention, like some sort of hollowed out clown that has no real joy in the middle. Instead, I just focus on writing my online courses, mentoring people, and building a community. If you're interested in the same thing, and I can help, reach out :-)
- vouaobrasil 4y ago
  Hey 3880 subs is pretty good. I'm still on 241. haha. It actually takes a lot of effort to get past 1000 subs/5000 watch hours, which is the minimum for monetization.
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    The minimum for you to monetize it. Google will gladly sell ads and keep 100% until then. I wouldn’t have built what became a $2000/month revenue website if I didn’t start making $2/month, then more work to get to $20/month, then 200, then 2000 over ~5 years. YouTube is shooting itself in the foot with its monetization cutoffs.
    - vouaobrasil 4y ago
      I agree, I wish they would let me monetize my channel now :(
- arjvik 4y ago
  Wow, nearly 100% of your subs participate in your community? That's amazing.
  - kyleee 4y ago
HardlyCurious 4y ago
There is certainly slimy YouTube tactics for attention and clicks, but not all successful YouTubers are doing slimy things. If your videos are genuinely interesting and / or useful, you need to be able to convey that fact to users, before they watch it. It isn't too much to ask. Just imagine a viewer asking you the question, "ok so why should I watch your videos over someone else's?". It is a fair question. And replying back, "you don't get to know that until you watch it" isn't a reasonable response.
- shuntress 4y ago
  I was trying to think of a way to word this same thought. I would expand on it slightly by adding that "Good Thumbnails" are complicated and are not necessarily "Clickbait".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- OJFord 4y ago
  Matthias Wandel comes to mind as exceptional here - almost 2M subscribers as I recall, a popular 'second channel' too, and way against 'youtube scream face' and similar nonsense. He's done a few 'shorts' since initially saying he didn't (as I don't) see the point, but other than that, standout top of class etc.
  - k12sosse 4y ago
    Came for the wood gears, stayed for the most efficient way to kill mice
- bzmrgonz 4y ago
  I just hope that the use of metadata is enforced using AI the same way copyright is being enforced. I think a better approach would be to corral/wall-off this learning content sub-platform, similar to how kidsyoutube is walled-off. I wouldn't mind typing youtube.ed or edutube.. or something else. The value of youtube would be in the big iron behind it, so the front-end can be anything, as long as it's policed to comply. Example of it not being police. I make a video and I call it "Trump's documents classification". I then use the metadata to insert words used in FBI classification and voila..
shuntress 4y ago
People will never just spontaneously realize you exist and on their own seek out the media you produce. They have to discover you somehow. The YouTube Algorithm is at least partially concerned with enabling people who would like your channel to discover it. Regardless of how well you think YouTube does that, you have to admit it's not exactly a simple thing to do. YouTube is trying to maximize ad revenue by maximizing watch time. They are not trying to evenly distribute viewer attention among "worthy" channels.
bergenty 4y ago
You can start of click bait and then gradually transition into what aligns with your worldview.
lancesells 4y ago
Could you share your channel? Always interested in educational music content.
- djaychela 4y ago
  Thanks. It's musictechtuition - https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition
voski 4y ago
Hi your content sounds interesting to me. I couldn’t find a YouTube channel named djaychela. Would you mind sharing?
- djaychela 4y ago
  Thanks. It's musictechtuition - https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition
Waterluvian 4y ago
I’m so thankful for creators like you who just want to share and teach and eschew the clickbaity crap. Ugh. I am hopeful that somehow…somehow!!! we can have the quality content like yours more discoverable without having to game the system. It reminds me how “SEO” has turned into an entire, absolutely ridiculous meta game industry that rarely has to do with how good a website actually is.
mierle 4y ago
Take a look at Veritasium's perspective on this issue [1]. Veritasium reflects on clickbait thumbnails from the content producer perspective, and balances that against the motivation behind YouTube's algorithms. His final conclusion is that cilckbait isn't all bad, and that it serves an important purpose for both viewers and content creators. His classification of clickbait into different types is also fascinating. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng
- butwhywhyoh 4y ago
  In other words, an elaborate justification for him joining the other YouTube clickbait clowns. Been watching him from basically when his channel started many, many years ago. Was really disappointed to see him give in to this.
  - quantumsequoia 4y ago
    Seems like a well argued, valid justification to me. Do you have a counter argument to his argument?
- jvzr 4y ago
  Very minor anecdata I would like to share: I have discovered Veritasium like most others, at the time when they weren't "clickbaiting", when their videos actually had the thing that they discussed right there in the title. I learned tons of things. Each new video, and each title, made me eager to discover that thing. But around the time they implemented their "clickbait" titles and thumbnails, it had the opposite effect on me. They all just *seemed* like so many other videos: bland and tasteless. The content itself hasn't much changed, but the allure certain has diminished for me. I've stopped watching their videos. Compare that to Curious Droid, or Practical Engineering, which still use descriptive titles, sometimes questions, but always exactly about the subject.
  - Ruthalas 4y ago
    I just want to second this. I experienced a similar trend.
ngcc_hk 4y ago
3b1b is really good. If one can explain that maths in my younger days …
mym1990 4y ago
Totally see where you are coming from, and as a consumer I try to avoid any video that smells like clickbait. There are many channels that do have great content and accurate captions/thumbnails. From what I’ve seen, having high quality, consistent content over a prolonged period of time is a pretty sure way to grow.
- edgyquant 4y ago
  Yeah it is, and once people grow they stop making that quality content in favor of the churn
- allenbrunson 4y ago
  > Totally see where you are coming from, and as a consumer I try to avoid any video that smells like clickbait. same. i watch a lot of youtube. i pay monthly for it, so i don't have to see ads. i've seen linus tech tips videos come up in my recommendations a time or two, and i am never going to watch them, just on principle. boy do i ever hate the mugging and pimping people like him indulge in, in an effort to bait me into watching.
  - mym1990 4y ago
    3Blue1Brown and channels of the like are the ones I gravitate to. Unfortunately a lot of things on YT are based on bad news and exaggerations selling better than more reasonable content
michaelsalim 4y ago
Honestly, if your content is good, all the more you should put some effort on your thumbnails. Don't feel bad about it. To me it's like spending your lifetime writing an amazing book, only to spend a few minutes on designing the cover. It could be an amazing video/book. But how would I as the customer know? I (and probably many other people) are constantly searching for good videos to watch. And unlike books, it's so easy to take a peek on a video and decide to close it within seconds if it's not something that is interesting to me.
ekianjo 4y ago
> refuse to produce attention-grabbing clickbaity titles or thumbnails. not just that but the ones shown in this post are absolutely cringe. makes for zero credibility when it comes to education.
jarjoura 4y ago
While I agree with your hesitation in marketing deceptive content, I think you may be overloading marketing on YouTube with the term click-bait. From Wikipedia: > Clickbait is ... designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link ..., being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. Think about it the other way, for all the time you spend producing content in an effort to help others, wouldn't it be more rewarding to you to help as many people as possible? As a user of YouTube, when I search for help with something, I typically start with result that visually looks like it's going to provide me the best answer, as that's the only thing to go on. If the title and thumbnail looked low-effort, I assume the content would look low-effort as well. Maybe that's an intentional aesthetic choice, it can definitely work for some content. HOWEVER, if the video were to actually deceive me, I would just stop going to that creator entirely. This should be true for most viewers and YouTube is encouraged not to provide misleading results. Otherwise, trust in the results would diminish searching directly through YouTube.
wukerplank 4y ago
I used to think like this about marketing in general. "Build it and they will come" was the usual motto in my formative years. But isn't it a shame to build a great product and then not have people engage with it, just because I frown upon marketing?
hgo 4y ago
Hi, I tried to find your channel, but I don't think I found it. Would you say it's name or link to it, if you don't mind me asking?
- djaychela 4y ago
  Hi. Its https://youtube.com/c/musictechtuition https://youtube.com/c/musictechtuition - thanks.
rypskar 4y ago
Good to see producers also don't like attention-grabbing titles or thumbnails. I fight clickbate with the only tool I have found. If a recommended canal have clickbait titles, shocked faces on the thumbnails or if the titles are auto-translated to my language I select never recommend this canal and move on to the next
andy_ppp 4y ago
The least they could do is an in app thumbnail creator that's fairly decent.
nonameiguess 4y ago
There are some examples in fitness-educational content, say Jeff Nippard and Athlean-X, that use some clickbait tactics in terms of thumbnail choosing, titles, and editing, but then nonetheless delivery high-quality educational content that doesn't seem like it should have been behind clickbait. But even if you feel like that's a betrayal of your integrity and you just want to produce something like MIT OCW, well, there are other examples from fitness content, say Stronger by Science, Sigma Nutrition, Iron Culture, where they either make enough to get by but not a ton, or even in Iron Culture's case lose money from the social media ventures but do it anyway. If you want to use MIT itself as an example of something that can be legitimate, high-quality education, but still make money, you can consider that universities operate as non-profits and rely on charitable donations to amass the wealth they have. I don't think the phenomenon you're getting at here is limited to YouTube or even to educational content on any platform. Sellers of junk food make more money than sellers of high-nutritional, better quality food, and the most profitable sellers of high-nutrition content, high-quality food are even still using clickbait-like tactics of misleading marketing and overselling what their products can really do. The most boring fruit and vegetable stands in the world selling basic nutrient-dense, really good products but not lying about what it can do for you, are just getting by and not getting rich. Sometimes, that has to be enough. If you believe in what you're doing, do it, even if you're not going to get rich.
shadowfoxx 4y ago
I find this thread interesting because the 10-or-so comments I've read are all discussing the merits and necessities of 'salesmanship' for this kind of work and throwing their hands in the air for 'What could be done' (maybe not literally but by omission of engagement with that part of the topic). From my perspective, there are viable 'solutions' to this problem; Patreon, Curiosity stream, Coursera, etc. I suppose those solutions, Direct Pay or Subscription, require more from individuals compared to youtube, 'free but with ads'. So the problem here is , "Is there a solution to the ad-revenue-based-on-views approach that keeps the content free for viewers"? When you identify it like that, I don't think there can be. I think the model demanding as many views as possible is a feature not a bug even if the outcomes are less than desirable. And now, in my view, we're talking about failures of Capitalism and this is just one example, Teachers being another. So maybe the solution is community willpower.
specialist 4y ago
> I don't like the whole algorithmically-driven race to the bottom... Yup. The consumer's challenge is finding what they want (or need). Is it ironic that a search company mostly uses recommenders? Why not better search? Why not better foraging and browsing? -- Sole reliance on algorithmic recommenders, automated hate machines, has resulted in multiple negative outcomes. Existential threat to democracy, spike in teen suicides, accelerant for self radicalization, death of independent journalism, dominance of conspiratorial thinking, loss of public discourse, and probably a few more. I'm sure search, foraging, and browsing strategies also have downsides. But I can't imagine how the outcomes could be worse.

kgc 4y ago

"Race to the bottom of the brainstem" is a great way to put it.

jasan_s 4y ago
- jasan_s 4y ago
djaychela 4y ago
I can't take credit from that - I believe I heard Tristan Harris say it on the Center for Humane Tech podcast.

lallysingh 4y ago

Click bait isn't different than wearing a funny hat to engage students in class.

serf 4y ago
> Click bait isn't different than wearing a funny hat to engage students in class. what are you talking about? a student gets stuck going to class regardless of how goofy the teacher dresses, whereas I feel an extreme sense of revulsion when I click on a YT link with a meme-thumbnail or a clickbait title. your analogy fails since in this instance the 'student' gets to decide whether or not they participate in the course. If I had had the chance to walk out on goofy teachers through high school then -- just as one anecdote -- I wouldn't have graduated. so, in other words, clickbait 'engagement' style marketing will get your volume numbers up, but the hidden aspect is that there will be a market that pulls entirely away from you -- 'teachers' on YT will need to understand these market dynamics if they're really interested in teaching the masses rather than making money on viewership. If teachers K-12 were paid according to their student throughput that'd turn into a major humanitarian crisis, imo.
- nwienert 4y ago
  You’re baking in the assumption that goofy hat is 100% correlated with bad content, but I’d say 30% of my YouTube subscriptions do the goofy hat thing (usually just having somewhat baity thumbnails / titles) yet deliver great content. And honestly? I don’t care. The content is good, and if the hat gets them more viewers then all the better.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    I'm not who you replied to, but I do care, I don't want to be made to feel stupid, I don't want to think that people are stupid, I want things to be presented as they are even if not immediately understands them. In the UK we see this with nonsense talk of 'the [energy] price cap' being some £ figure per year - when it's not, it's a £/kWh cap, but the media can't cope with that, we're stuck with what it means for 'the average household'. Even comparison sites refuse to compare what you actually pay, £/day and £/kWh, and instead insist on asking you about number of bedrooms etc. I'm sick of everything being dumbed down.

charcircuit 4y ago

Having good thumbnails and tiles is just marketing. If you want to sell or get the word out about what you are offering it helps to have a good marketing effort. Yes, creating the material is a lot of work, but that doesn't mean that marketing is something that doesn't need hard work.

ant_li0n 4y ago
The problem is it isn't "good" thumbnails. It's that stupid fucking, "who farted?" face. Or more often for young women, it's "Uh-oh, I did a bad thing" face. I agree, race to the bottom of the brain stem. I sympathize with GP
- charcircuit 4y ago
  It's not stupid if it works. It's not like it's YouTube who is deciding these types of thumbnails perform well. It's just that users engage with those kinds of thumbnails more. The race is about making the best possible thumbnail based of empirical data and not aesthetics.
  - meheleventyone 4y ago
    Right but the context to this is not fixed and is human constructed. Just because a bad system produces undesirable outcomes doesn’t mean we have to shrug our shoulders as if this is the only possible state of things.
joegahona 4y ago
It's succumbing to these [1] types of thumbnails that it sounds like the GP is trying to avoid having to do. Andrew Huberman has tame thumbnail images that are professional and informative. Like others have said, there has to be a middle ground to explore. [1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nZQgszA0_80/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEcCPYBEIoBSFXyq4qpAw4IARUAAIhCGAFwAcABBg==&rs=AOn4CLBtGKAHe0VIfOZ7ko9x0S0_-q-Gug https://i.ytimg.com/vi/nZQgszA0_80/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwE...
ekianjo 4y ago

bombcar 4y ago

The middle ground I've seen is to concede a bit to the clickbaters and make a few clickbait videos that talk about what you do and what's available in the other videos.

yamazakiwi 4y ago

It depends on what you want. Google is optimizing for eye balls so content that warrants more engagement is going to win. 2 questions on the end of the spectrum to ask yourself... Do you want to build a community that is a reflection of your ideas? Do you want to build revenue by growing your channel regardless of the type of consumer you attract?

sings 4y ago
Exactly. While obviously in a minority, GP should take heart in the fact there are viewers out there, myself included, that will actively avoid videos with click bait title cards. Silly facial expressions and “you won’t believe…” type text are an instant turn-off for me. However, they are obviously effective in engaging a younger audience.
- barkingcat 4y ago
  What exactly does "you won't believe" do? Whenever people say that I think "of course I don't believe ..." (ie that the topic is stupid, or that the decision of the day by xyz company is weird/bad/good, etc) why should I believe or not believe in someone who I don't know? If my mom says "you won't believe me if I told you you are not my son, but adopted" I'd be shocked. Random youtuber "you won't believe?" - heck I don't believe a word coming out of your mouth! Of Course I DON'T believe you.
criddell 4y ago
> content that warrants more engagement is going to win What does that even mean? I'd be careful about using the language of silicon value ad companies. It changes how you think. One minute you're talking about content and community and the next thing you know you have metrics and are trying to measure engagement and are now making decisions based off something you could actually measure and not relying on your instincts, experience, and good taste. Instead, create videos (not content) for your fans / audience based on what you know works. Make it so good, your audience will want to support you. I think Justin Sandercoe does a good job of this. There is a community on his web site and a community on his YouTube channel, but more importantly he has fans on every guitar forum on the internet. He sells books for people who want them and he has courses you can pay for, but they are mostly guides through his lessons which are all available for free on YouTube or reproductions of copyrighted work which he can't give away for free. The most important thing for his success (IMHO) is that he has created a lot of very high quality videos. He doesn't do clickbait titles or images. Just video after video of great stuff.

heartbreak 4y ago

Would you consider Daniel Naroditsky’s educational content to be clickbait? If not, that might be a decent middle ground to target.

Pr0ject217 4y ago

Would you mind sharing a link to your content? Thank you.

djaychela 4y ago
Thanks. It's musictechtuition - https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition
- Pr0ject217 4y ago
  Thanks!

tolmasky 4y ago

You should put a link to your stuff in your Hacker New profile.

djaychela 4y ago
Done, thanks!

LouisSayers 4y ago

This reminds me of a saying I've heard from Dean Graziosi (sales type guy). "Sell them what they want, give them what they need". I also dislike this whole game where you have to essentially mould yourself into this "mainstream click-baity character", but part of me recognises that if your goal is to sell, then you'd be wise to spend time on presenting your content in a way that is at least initially attention grabbing. One way to think of it is - you owe it to your audience to save them from worse educational experiences, and the only way to save them is to try to rank higher than these other more click-baity low-value videos.

klabb3 4y ago
> but part of me recognises that if your goal is to sell, then you'd be wise to spend time on presenting your content in a way that is at least initially attention grabbing. The issue is, I think, exactly that everyone must be at least partially a salesman to get ahead. Is this what we want? Is there a way for YouTube to compensate for clickbaity titles and thumbnails? Are they incentivized to do so? Thinking back at teachers and teaching that I really liked, they aren't always the best salesmen, but they're always very good communicators, and good at speaking. I don't think that the content promoted by today's engagement machines are optimizing for that.
- tsumnia 4y ago
  Just to add, most of us AREN'T trying to become big YouTube viral influencers. My channel has 2.5k viewers and all my videos were done because I want my in-class students to have a resource to review at home. I got my doctorate and a career as teaching faculty to teach students, not become another Computerphile. I love the channel and link it regularly, but again my passion is in helping people learn in the classroom. The "Thanks!" comments and $100 a year I get from YouTube are just nice bonuses to that end.
  - j45 4y ago
    Creating better explanations on how to use and apply knowledge is so huge. I’d be curious to learn if there’s any pain points or things you wish you could do faster in your process. Happy to chat offline :)

sedivy94 4y ago

I think there exists a middle ground that doesn't devalue your content, sell your soul, sacrifice your authenticity, keep up with the joneses, etc. That being said, hard pass on the clickbaity thumbnails and titles. When folks suggest "jazzing things up", they might be looking for some vlogging and conversational segments. You, as a personality, are just as marketable and appealing as the content you produce. You are the brand. An example of an overcorrection would be posting short one-off videos that address specific problems and solutions with titles such as "When Should I Apply Reverb?" or "My Top 5 VST Plugins". If producing lectures is your strong suit, well, we need more of that...

movedx 4y ago

I'm a creator too. I'm small on YouTube (3,880 subs; 6.4k views and about 293 hours watched in the last 28 days), but have a (relatively speaking) large Discord with 3,800 members. I have a mailing list of about 1,600. My goal and focus is to sell, but it's to sell a big package around the idea of IT education. I want to sell to people who want the interaction and community, not just the knowledge dump. And I'm the same. I won't do the over-the-top, hyped up character who uses the latest trends to grab your attention, like some sort of hollowed out clown that has no real joy in the middle. Instead, I just focus on writing my online courses, mentoring people, and building a community. If you're interested in the same thing, and I can help, reach out :-)

vouaobrasil 4y ago
Hey 3880 subs is pretty good. I'm still on 241. haha. It actually takes a lot of effort to get past 1000 subs/5000 watch hours, which is the minimum for monetization.
- Scoundreller 4y ago
  The minimum for you to monetize it. Google will gladly sell ads and keep 100% until then. I wouldn’t have built what became a $2000/month revenue website if I didn’t start making $2/month, then more work to get to $20/month, then 200, then 2000 over ~5 years. YouTube is shooting itself in the foot with its monetization cutoffs.
  - vouaobrasil 4y ago
    I agree, I wish they would let me monetize my channel now :(
arjvik 4y ago
Wow, nearly 100% of your subs participate in your community? That's amazing.
- kyleee 4y ago

HardlyCurious 4y ago

There is certainly slimy YouTube tactics for attention and clicks, but not all successful YouTubers are doing slimy things. If your videos are genuinely interesting and / or useful, you need to be able to convey that fact to users, before they watch it. It isn't too much to ask. Just imagine a viewer asking you the question, "ok so why should I watch your videos over someone else's?". It is a fair question. And replying back, "you don't get to know that until you watch it" isn't a reasonable response.

shuntress 4y ago
I was trying to think of a way to word this same thought. I would expand on it slightly by adding that "Good Thumbnails" are complicated and are not necessarily "Clickbait".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
OJFord 4y ago
Matthias Wandel comes to mind as exceptional here - almost 2M subscribers as I recall, a popular 'second channel' too, and way against 'youtube scream face' and similar nonsense. He's done a few 'shorts' since initially saying he didn't (as I don't) see the point, but other than that, standout top of class etc.
- k12sosse 4y ago
  Came for the wood gears, stayed for the most efficient way to kill mice
bzmrgonz 4y ago
I just hope that the use of metadata is enforced using AI the same way copyright is being enforced. I think a better approach would be to corral/wall-off this learning content sub-platform, similar to how kidsyoutube is walled-off. I wouldn't mind typing youtube.ed or edutube.. or something else. The value of youtube would be in the big iron behind it, so the front-end can be anything, as long as it's policed to comply. Example of it not being police. I make a video and I call it "Trump's documents classification". I then use the metadata to insert words used in FBI classification and voila..

shuntress 4y ago

People will never just spontaneously realize you exist and on their own seek out the media you produce. They have to discover you somehow. The YouTube Algorithm is at least partially concerned with enabling people who would like your channel to discover it. Regardless of how well you think YouTube does that, you have to admit it's not exactly a simple thing to do. YouTube is trying to maximize ad revenue by maximizing watch time. They are not trying to evenly distribute viewer attention among "worthy" channels.

bergenty 4y ago

You can start of click bait and then gradually transition into what aligns with your worldview.

lancesells 4y ago

Could you share your channel? Always interested in educational music content.

djaychela 4y ago
Thanks. It's musictechtuition - https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition

voski 4y ago

Hi your content sounds interesting to me. I couldn’t find a YouTube channel named djaychela. Would you mind sharing?

djaychela 4y ago
Thanks. It's musictechtuition - https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition

Waterluvian 4y ago

I’m so thankful for creators like you who just want to share and teach and eschew the clickbaity crap. Ugh. I am hopeful that somehow…somehow!!! we can have the quality content like yours more discoverable without having to game the system. It reminds me how “SEO” has turned into an entire, absolutely ridiculous meta game industry that rarely has to do with how good a website actually is.

mierle 4y ago

Take a look at Veritasium's perspective on this issue [1]. Veritasium reflects on clickbait thumbnails from the content producer perspective, and balances that against the motivation behind YouTube's algorithms. His final conclusion is that cilckbait isn't all bad, and that it serves an important purpose for both viewers and content creators. His classification of clickbait into different types is also fascinating. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng

butwhywhyoh 4y ago
In other words, an elaborate justification for him joining the other YouTube clickbait clowns. Been watching him from basically when his channel started many, many years ago. Was really disappointed to see him give in to this.
- quantumsequoia 4y ago
  Seems like a well argued, valid justification to me. Do you have a counter argument to his argument?
jvzr 4y ago
Very minor anecdata I would like to share: I have discovered Veritasium like most others, at the time when they weren't "clickbaiting", when their videos actually had the thing that they discussed right there in the title. I learned tons of things. Each new video, and each title, made me eager to discover that thing. But around the time they implemented their "clickbait" titles and thumbnails, it had the opposite effect on me. They all just *seemed* like so many other videos: bland and tasteless. The content itself hasn't much changed, but the allure certain has diminished for me. I've stopped watching their videos. Compare that to Curious Droid, or Practical Engineering, which still use descriptive titles, sometimes questions, but always exactly about the subject.
- Ruthalas 4y ago
  I just want to second this. I experienced a similar trend.

ngcc_hk 4y ago

3b1b is really good. If one can explain that maths in my younger days …

mym1990 4y ago

Totally see where you are coming from, and as a consumer I try to avoid any video that smells like clickbait. There are many channels that do have great content and accurate captions/thumbnails. From what I’ve seen, having high quality, consistent content over a prolonged period of time is a pretty sure way to grow.

edgyquant 4y ago
Yeah it is, and once people grow they stop making that quality content in favor of the churn
allenbrunson 4y ago
> Totally see where you are coming from, and as a consumer I try to avoid any video that smells like clickbait. same. i watch a lot of youtube. i pay monthly for it, so i don't have to see ads. i've seen linus tech tips videos come up in my recommendations a time or two, and i am never going to watch them, just on principle. boy do i ever hate the mugging and pimping people like him indulge in, in an effort to bait me into watching.
- mym1990 4y ago
  3Blue1Brown and channels of the like are the ones I gravitate to. Unfortunately a lot of things on YT are based on bad news and exaggerations selling better than more reasonable content

michaelsalim 4y ago

Honestly, if your content is good, all the more you should put some effort on your thumbnails. Don't feel bad about it. To me it's like spending your lifetime writing an amazing book, only to spend a few minutes on designing the cover. It could be an amazing video/book. But how would I as the customer know? I (and probably many other people) are constantly searching for good videos to watch. And unlike books, it's so easy to take a peek on a video and decide to close it within seconds if it's not something that is interesting to me.

ekianjo 4y ago

> refuse to produce attention-grabbing clickbaity titles or thumbnails. not just that but the ones shown in this post are absolutely cringe. makes for zero credibility when it comes to education.

jarjoura 4y ago

While I agree with your hesitation in marketing deceptive content, I think you may be overloading marketing on YouTube with the term click-bait. From Wikipedia: > Clickbait is ... designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link ..., being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading. Think about it the other way, for all the time you spend producing content in an effort to help others, wouldn't it be more rewarding to you to help as many people as possible? As a user of YouTube, when I search for help with something, I typically start with result that visually looks like it's going to provide me the best answer, as that's the only thing to go on. If the title and thumbnail looked low-effort, I assume the content would look low-effort as well. Maybe that's an intentional aesthetic choice, it can definitely work for some content. HOWEVER, if the video were to actually deceive me, I would just stop going to that creator entirely. This should be true for most viewers and YouTube is encouraged not to provide misleading results. Otherwise, trust in the results would diminish searching directly through YouTube.

wukerplank 4y ago

I used to think like this about marketing in general. "Build it and they will come" was the usual motto in my formative years. But isn't it a shame to build a great product and then not have people engage with it, just because I frown upon marketing?

hgo 4y ago

Hi, I tried to find your channel, but I don't think I found it. Would you say it's name or link to it, if you don't mind me asking?

djaychela 4y ago
Hi. Its https://youtube.com/c/musictechtuition https://youtube.com/c/musictechtuition - thanks.

rypskar 4y ago

Good to see producers also don't like attention-grabbing titles or thumbnails. I fight clickbate with the only tool I have found. If a recommended canal have clickbait titles, shocked faces on the thumbnails or if the titles are auto-translated to my language I select never recommend this canal and move on to the next

andy_ppp 4y ago

The least they could do is an in app thumbnail creator that's fairly decent.

nonameiguess 4y ago

There are some examples in fitness-educational content, say Jeff Nippard and Athlean-X, that use some clickbait tactics in terms of thumbnail choosing, titles, and editing, but then nonetheless delivery high-quality educational content that doesn't seem like it should have been behind clickbait. But even if you feel like that's a betrayal of your integrity and you just want to produce something like MIT OCW, well, there are other examples from fitness content, say Stronger by Science, Sigma Nutrition, Iron Culture, where they either make enough to get by but not a ton, or even in Iron Culture's case lose money from the social media ventures but do it anyway. If you want to use MIT itself as an example of something that can be legitimate, high-quality education, but still make money, you can consider that universities operate as non-profits and rely on charitable donations to amass the wealth they have. I don't think the phenomenon you're getting at here is limited to YouTube or even to educational content on any platform. Sellers of junk food make more money than sellers of high-nutritional, better quality food, and the most profitable sellers of high-nutrition content, high-quality food are even still using clickbait-like tactics of misleading marketing and overselling what their products can really do. The most boring fruit and vegetable stands in the world selling basic nutrient-dense, really good products but not lying about what it can do for you, are just getting by and not getting rich. Sometimes, that has to be enough. If you believe in what you're doing, do it, even if you're not going to get rich.

shadowfoxx 4y ago

I find this thread interesting because the 10-or-so comments I've read are all discussing the merits and necessities of 'salesmanship' for this kind of work and throwing their hands in the air for 'What could be done' (maybe not literally but by omission of engagement with that part of the topic). From my perspective, there are viable 'solutions' to this problem; Patreon, Curiosity stream, Coursera, etc. I suppose those solutions, Direct Pay or Subscription, require more from individuals compared to youtube, 'free but with ads'. So the problem here is , "Is there a solution to the ad-revenue-based-on-views approach that keeps the content free for viewers"? When you identify it like that, I don't think there can be. I think the model demanding as many views as possible is a feature not a bug even if the outcomes are less than desirable. And now, in my view, we're talking about failures of Capitalism and this is just one example, Teachers being another. So maybe the solution is community willpower.

specialist 4y ago

> I don't like the whole algorithmically-driven race to the bottom... Yup. The consumer's challenge is finding what they want (or need). Is it ironic that a search company mostly uses recommenders? Why not better search? Why not better foraging and browsing? -- Sole reliance on algorithmic recommenders, automated hate machines, has resulted in multiple negative outcomes. Existential threat to democracy, spike in teen suicides, accelerant for self radicalization, death of independent journalism, dominance of conspiratorial thinking, loss of public discourse, and probably a few more. I'm sure search, foraging, and browsing strategies also have downsides. But I can't imagine how the outcomes could be worse.