Virality: is it a little too easy to be true? | #35
why are all these videos doing so good?
Hello friends!
Whenever I listen to interviews with big YouTubers, they always talk about positioning.
Who is your audience?
Why would they click this video?
Why would they watch it?
You should have great answers to these questions before you make your video, they say.
Meanwhile, me, finishing videos and going, oh yeah, I need a title and thumbnail:
😅
At first I resisted the idea. I wanted to make videos about what I found interesting and not worry about MaRkeTinG.
If I found it interesting, others would too, right? The algorithm would Do Its Thing, spreading my vids far and wide. And then I'd have an audience. Right?
After like 5-10 years, maybe. But I don't want to leave that up to chance. Or wait that long, if I can help it.
With my first video, I had a 11.6% click-through rate, which I understand is pretty good. (Meaning that 11.6% of people who saw it clicked it.)
But it turns out that people only watched about 35% of the video. And 53% of people exited the video before the 30 second mark.
Granted, the traffic was cold, so it's debatable how "bad" that is, but does leave a sour taste in my mouth. I don't like the idea of people watching my video and not getting what they came for.
Plus, the better those numbers, the more The Algorithm says Yes, More People Must See This Video.
So, now I'm sold on positioning being Very Important. The Gurus Have Spoken. I will do more prep and research for videos before making them.
I've had a video idea for a week or so now, and this issue is a summary of me doing research for that idea. I watched other videos that performed well related to my idea and am.. kind of surprised at how low the bar is. Or maybe I’m picky??
Anyway, below you'll find:
The idea. Thinking through questions like,
What video am I interested in making?
What is The Audience interested in watching?
What's the intersection between those two?
The 10 videos I analyzed. Plus some commentary.
Some conclusions.
The idea
The other day I met someone who told me he makes some side income by "selling covered calls".
I had no idea what that meant, so I Googled it. Apparently it's some kind of options trading? You put money somewhere and you magically make more money. In theory.
Anyway, I started watching some videos on it. And UGH, none of the videos were scratching my itch.
Some videos explained what they meant (with lots of jargon). Others were live demos of them buying options. But none of them explained, in a satisfying way, why it's possible to make money.
Like, what's the catch? Why isn't everyone doing this? Why is this valuable to others?
So, my idea is to find answers to those questions and make a video explaining the answers.
Doing that research and making that video excites me, but I want to keep in mind the marketing angle.
What would the title, thumbnail, and intro look like?
Who's the audience for this video?
What do they intend to gain from watching this video?
And to be honest, answering all those questions is overwhelming. So, I decided to look at the positioning of other related videos for inspiration.
Part of me hopes a similar video exists so that demand is proven. But also, part of me hopes one doesn't so that I can occupy the hole in the market.
Then again, if it doesn't exist: is that a red flag? That the market is too small?
Maybe the best case is that there are videos out there with the positioning I described with lots of views... but the videos suck!
Anyway, onto the videos.
The 10 videos
Here are the titles and thumbnails for 10 videos I looked at, with some notes below.
#1: Covered Call ETFS explained
Notes: Has decent animation and good B roll. The AI voice turns me off. Lots of jargon. Seems to appeal to people with some finance background who want a quick explanation for covered call ETFs. Wanted to click away after ~30 seconds.
#2: Options Trading For Beginners - The Basics
Notes: I like the animation here. Also lots of jargon right up front. Some of it is defined in the voice over, but I forget what it means whenever he uses the words again. Wanted to click away after ~2 minutes.
#3: Teaching My Friend How To Trade Options
Notes: I see that this is 20 minutes long and I'm already apprehensive. But I'm interested because this video performed 24.4 times better than the channel average. Already seeing a pattern with the previous videos. Lots of jargon, relatively few visuals. They're detailing what they're doing, but not a lot of why they're doing it. I'm now 8 minutes into it and it doesn't look like I'll get that explanation. I wanted to click away around the 1 min 30 seconds mark, though.
#4: I Asked a 7 Figure Options Trader For Her Specific Strategy
Notes: The intro begins like this:
this candle is your confirmation candle, this is what I mean by a hold so if we were inversing it if this candle held above 3,900 you would exit
And again I'm turned off. Why does that work? What makes me think that will work for me? Also lots of jargon. Made it to 1 min 44 seconds.
#5: I Make a Living Day Trading This One Simple Strategy (Full Time Trader)
Notes: The hooks are now starting to sound the same. "I've been doing this a long time, I'm going to show you my exact strategy..." But I'll humor it. What's the strategy?
It turns out the strategy is Pullback Trading Breakouts. Which I'm gathering to mean finding a stock that's going up, buying it, and then selling it when it pulls back (or starts to go back down). Again I am turned off - where's the science? Is there any? Why would I expect this to work? Clicked away after 45 seconds.
#6: Call Options vs Put Options:
Notes: I'm immediately thrown off by the sound quality. About 30 seconds in I realize it's someone reading a powerpoint. I'm wondering why this video performed so well. I guess because it's 8 years old and has had time to accumulate views? Clicked away after 30 seconds.
#7: The Truth About Day Trading
Notes: I was hoping this one would elaborate on the Why. But it ended up saying a bunch of stuff I consider fluff. Don't be emotional, it's chaotic, you have to keep learning, etc.
I jumped around to make sure, didn't watch the whole thing.
#8: Can Day Traders Really Make Money?
Notes: This positioning resonates with me. I'm hoping it goes into the "why" - is this workable? Why or why not?
Hmm, I like that they brought in studies and academic papers. One source says that 97% of people lost money, and only 0.5% earned more than the salary of a bank teller.
I'd love to know what those 0.5% are doing, and if it's repeatable (or just a temporary market inefficiency).
Another study says
We document that only 4,000 most profitable day traders (less than 1% of the total population of day traders) from the prior year go on to earn reliably positive abnormal returns net of trading costs in the subsequent year.
This video was interesting even though it didn't cover the Why. I ended up watching the whole thing.
#9: How Do Traders Make Money?
Notes: This one didn't perform well (views is a tiny fraction of subscriber count). But the positioning appealed to me, so I checked it out anyway. One minute in, no other visuals, animations, or b-roll. Just a talking head video, lots of jargon. I tuned out and clicked away after a minute.
#10: Covered Calls are the Trading Cheat Code
Notes: This video is OK. I like the presentation and pacing. It's still a little jargon-heavy for me. At some point in the video he mentions going over the pros and cons of covered calls. So I'm interested in that angle. It would be nice to have that as a chapter so I could jump straight to that.
He has some visuals but they're handwritten and kind of illegible. I clicked around to find the pros and cons, and he touches on them at 7:40. Unfortunately the graph doesn't have axises so it's hard to intuit what he's saying without the rest of the context. Which I missed because I skipped ahead and don't feel like watching the rest of the video. Grimace.
Some conclusions
At first glance, it looks like there are three audiences here. In order from smallest audience to biggest audience:
People who want to learn how this all works from a technical point of view (e.g. Covered Call ETFs Explained)
People who are curious or skeptical about it and want it demystified (e.g. The Truth About Day Trading)
People who want to know the strategies to make money (e.g. I Make a Living Day Trading This One Simple Strategy)
I think I'm in all 3 to some extent. More so the skeptical audience.
I find myself interested in all the thumbnails, but a lot of my reservation comes from skepticism. The "steal my strategy" titles sketch me out.
I think I'd be a lot more interested if my skepticism was resolved. I want to answer questions like I mentioned before: what's the catch? Why would this be viable for me? Is it worth the investment of time and money?
And I think it's obvious that there is a market for videos like that. For example, The Truth About Day Trading got 11.4x more views than the channel average.
I should probably aim to position my video in that way. And maybe also appeal to the "you can make money" people if I can!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this tour through my positioning thought process! I'll likely write another one about my scripting process. =)