💥 Breaking Down a 1m View Video

How to YouTube #18

Feb 26, 2024

Hey YouTubers,

Today, we’re going to be looking at one of the best educational, talking head channels I’ve seen recently.

Joseph Tsar. He makes videos about how to become a better speaker.

His last 4 videos have averaged over 650,000 views. So today, we’re going to analyse his most viral video and break down:

The idea
The title and thumbnail
The content
What we can learn from him

Idea & Topic

The market size for videos about how to speak better is huge, given that it’s something almost everyone on YouTube can relate to.

It’s also a skill that has a strong emotional pull, because it our voice is so closely related to our social status. If you became a better speaker, maybe you’d be more popular, maybe you’d make more money, or maybe even a better YouTuber 👀.

The social nature of this topic means Joseph can hook people emotionally.

It’s also hard to find many channels publishing high quality videos like Joseph about becoming a more articulate speaker.

So it’s an underserved niche, and there’s clearly high demand.

Overall, banger idea.

Title & Thumbnail

Joseph nailed the packaging here.

He chose a trending title format - “more than 99% of people”. And chose the perfect word to describe the desires of his target audience. Articulate.

The title is short and punchy, immediately conveying what the video is about.

With the thumbnail, I’ve seen a few with a similar concept to this, but the design here is different. The yellow text works really nicely against the crowd, and the overhead angle looking at Joseph feels like a unique viewpoint.

It’s novel enough that it stands out from other similar thumbnails.

Another thing to note is the video length. If it was 5 minutes, the title would feel like an overpromise, and if it was 45 minutes, it would potentially feel like too much of an effort for a unique topic like this.

But at 11 minutes, my pea sized brain is thinking “wow maybe I can become a better speaker than most people in just 11 minutes!” and before you know it I’ve clicked on that bad boy.

Content

Here’s a transcript of the video intro:

“The first of three secrets that will aid you in speaking better than 99% of people is to upgrade your Workhorse words.
Workhorse words are common and vague words that we overwork to the point of exhaustion in our speech.
Here's a visualiser to understand this. The horizontal axis plots how common to uncommon a word is and the vertical axis how vague to precise a word is.”

Joseph does a few things well here.

First, he confirms the title within the 3 seconds. This helps the viewer know that they are in fact going to get what they have clicked on (this isn’t a must do for every single YouTube video, but it worked well here).

Second, he gets straight into a unique insight. He introduces ‘workhorse’ words, so we’re immediately learning something new and getting value from the video. It makes it easier to assume the rest of the video must also be valuable.

Third, at around 16 seconds, he shows us a visualisation of this concept. It all comes together to create a perception of genuine credibility. I immediately believe that Joseph knows what he’s talking about.

For this topic to work, we have to be impressed by Joseph’s own articulation and speech, and he immediately delivers on that and puts you at ease.

Throughout the video, he makes you feel like he knows what he’s talking about, and he delivers on the promise of the title. The tips are all super good.

And the editing is simple but effective, only serving to enhance what Joseph is saying.

What can we learn?

Unfortunately, there’s nothing overly complicated about what Joseph is doing. He’s just doing lots of the right things well.

He’s ticked lots of simple, but hard to tick boxes.

Spending lots of time on the title and thumbnail.
Scripting the video, especially the hook, in a way that focuses on establishing credibility and quickly delivering value.
Leveraging his unfair advantage of being very knowledgeable about speaking.
Editing the video in a way that only serves to enhance his message, and not to hack your attention.
Making videos about something that he’s passionate about.
Making better videos than his competitors.

If you want to see a certain level of results, you’re going to have to put in a certain amount of work. Congrats to Joseph, he deserves his success 👏

However, you don’t need anywhere near that level of views to A) make money B) be a successful YouTuber or C) be happy.

These two posts I’ve written might help you out. Here’s one about the easiest way to earn money as a YouTuber, and another about how much you should script your videos.

Have an epic week making videos!

Tintin 🧑‍💻

The YouTube Tin

Here are a few more ways I can help you progress as a YouTuber:

🍿 This is my low lift YouTube channel where I share more actionable insights and lessons to help you guys out.
🐦 I also write on X posting more tips and behind the scenes content.
📈 If you’re taking YouTube seriously and looking for more structured learning, you can also check out The Part-Time YouTuber Academy. This is the course that Ali and our team run to help YouTubers start and grow their channels. It includes everything Ali learned growing his channel to 5m subscribers, including some content from me as well. You can find out more on this page.

How to YouTube