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After injuring his ankle at the University of Wisconsin-Oskosh, Zach Evans decided to quit track and field and change his major from mathematics to music. He studied classical piano under world-renowned pianist and UW-Oshkosh music professor Dr. Eli Kalman. His path to stardom, however, involves a tool that most classical music performers are underutilizing - YouTube.
Evans found viral success after covering Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop” on piano and uploading it to YouTube. This kicked off the beginning of his Become a Piano Superhuman YouTube Channel, which currently has over 100,000 subscribers. His video on piano speed learning is over 1.5 million views in under two years.
Finding this kind of success doesn’t happen overnight, though. Evans worked for years to find the right formula. YouTube is a lot more complex than uploading a video and watching the views pour in. Luckily, Evans identified a few tips for YouTube beginners to find success of their own on the world’s most popular video-sharing platform.
1. Create Multiple Titles
Evans knows that the first title he thinks of is probably not the best. Instead, he creates about 10 titles per video and carefully decides which one is most appropriate. Evan acknowledges, “It’s not about thinking of one great title. It’s about creating a whole ton of them and then choosing the best one. My best ideas don’t usually come until I get the first five or six titles out of the way.”
Why should YouTubers take so much time creating a title? It’s similar to generating a high click-through rate. In search engine optimization, or SEO, an audience is choosing between various articles, and the only text available for them to read is the title and meta description. If the title doesn’t make a great first impression, the audience is going to skip over your content.
The same is true for YouTube. There are millions of videos available, hundreds about the same content that your video is about. The title is the most important way to draw the audience in. Evans advises YouTubers to utilize an idea or two from other titles. He says, “You never want to copy someone else’s title, but sometimes you see a word or two in there and you’re like, ‘Oh, I could apply this to piano,’ and you go from there.”
2. Choose a Great Thumbnail
Most YouTubers know the importance of a great title, but the thumbnail gets overlooked. The thumbnail is the image displayed next to the title, and YouTube uses an auto-generated thumbnail if YouTubers fail to upload their own. Evans strongly discourages YouTubers from allowing YouTube to auto-generate their thumbnail, “I think the lack of attention to the thumbnail is the single biggest mistake people make on YouTube. The thumbnail becomes an afterthought instead of a priority. Nobody’s going to see your video if they don’t click the thumbnail!”
This is similar to posting an article on Twitter without a featured image. The auto-generated blank image that Twitter provides suggests unprofessionalism. The posters click-through rate suffers as a result. The best title in the world can’t save YouTubers from a poor thumbnail.
Evans spends hours creating each thumbnail. Over the years, he learned which methods work best for certain videos. He explains, “I’ve found having my face in the thumbnail is a huge plus, especially if I’m making a face with strong emotion. Whether it’s happiness, frustration, anger, or surprise, I think as human beings we’re drawn to emotion, and we’re drawn to faces.”
Don’t forget to add bold, readable text to your thumbnail, as well!
3. Don’t Put Your Audience to Sleep
Not putting your audience to sleep goes without saying, but most YouTubers aren’t taking video retention rates into consideration when creating content. Much like written content, the longer your audience engages with that content, the more important Google and YouTube’s algorithms deem it. If your audience immediately clicks off your video, Google and YouTube’s algorithms won’t show it to nearly as many people.
Evans creates his content with this in mind. He says, “As I’m recording, I’m constantly aware of parts of the video that get too boring or not relevant. I’m paranoid about when people are going to click off to something else.” That kind of paranoia is something all YouTubers should have. Content that helps people is the most important part of creating a successful YouTube video.
If the delivery of that content is boring, however, the audience is going to find other helpful content that is more exciting. That is why delivery is one of the biggest keys to success for Evans. He explains, “There are some people where no matter what they say, you’re just going to listen. They just captivate you with how they talk. I do my best to emulate that. I have a very high-energy style. I get genuinely excited about this stuff and I don’t hold it back, and I think that enthusiasm is contagious.”
These three tips will help YouTubers reach an audience and keep that audience engaged once they do. If they do everything right, they might become as successful as Evans one day.