"Don't judge a book by it's cover" We have heard this for ages, yet humans still jump to conclusions quickly.
At Milyin, your Creation is the book, and your Title is the book cover.
Note: I will be discussing the biggest mistake in Titles that results in low views for Creators.
Hello, I am Aditya Agarwal, Co-Founder at Milyin, and this is Becoming Creator, a new series for every Creator who wants to grow at Milyin.
Why Heading Matters?
Most people will discover your Creations on Milyin's home feed, Google search, social media, etc. All these places will have 10+ options to choose from. A user can click on any of the 10 links, why chose you? Well, because your title stands out.
Let's go to example of book and book cover again. The Google search results, social media posts, are like book shelf. And your Creation is the book in that bookshelf. Audience had the freedom to choose any of them
To make audience choose you, you must stand out with an incredible title.
So, here's what we learnt:
- Humans indeed judge a book by it's cover
- Titles are like book covers in digital world
- Your audience had many options to chose from, right title massively improves probability of getting clicked.
Biggest Mistake Creators Make
Having read over 3000 Creations at Milyin, I have found genuinely nice Creations to not be successful because of this reason - Poor Interest Generation.
The title/thumbnail should generate enough interest that audience wants to click it.
I know it sounds very vague and consuming. Let's first understand what makes a title good, and then we will circle back to this mistake.
What Makes a Title Good
Well, my inspiration for having good titles, is this old video from Veritasium, called Clickbait is unreasonably effective
Based on my learnings, I have devised 3 critical parameters for a Title to be good:
- Legitimacy: Your title has to be a true representation of what Creation is about. If your title is about a "Pasta Recipe" and you show "Pizza Recipe" in content, in long run people will stop clicking your Creations.
- Interest: Your Title should generate interest in the audience. This could be curiosity, mystery, expectation of reward
- Incomplete: While your title generated Interest, it should not reveal everything, and keep suspense for later.
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Let's examine the same on this Creation's title.
How I Implement This Technique In My Own Titles
So, my current Creation's title is "#1 Title Mistake Slowing Your Views — Becoming Creator"
Let's see how my own title does on this metric
- Legitimate: I discussed the mistake, and also discussed Creation Title in-depth, making this a legitimate representation of Creation.
- Interest: I created interest by mentioning "Slowing Your Views", as in I am directly addressing the audience, and increasing the stakes for them. Any Creator who's views are not increasing fill directly be interested.
- Incomplete: I intentionally withhold information. I could have titled the Creation "Improving Interest Generation in Titles can Improve your Views". But in this case, I would have given everything away in title itself, there would be no incentive for the viewer to click the Creation, as they already know everything.
Poor Interest Generation
As mentioned the biggest mistake a Creator can make is "Poor Interest Generation"
Just valuable information is not enough, you have to add a reward, value, or a end goal that can only be achieved through clicking of Title.
Also, at the end of this Creation, I will share 3 Pro Tips to supercharge your Creations, so stick around till the end.
I will give you an example again from Veritasium, he had a video about math problem called "The Collatz Conjecture"
Titling the video "The Collatz Conjecture" would have meant that people who already know what Collatz Conjecture it will click it. Any random person would not click without already knowing about it.
Instead he chose to name it "The Simplest Math Problem No One Can Solve". The content remains same, but in second case the interest of the audience is much greater, since they know that clicking the video will reward them with a Unsolvable Math Problem.
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The title was true, and the content remains the same. But in 1st case the title was repulsive and only those who already knew about "Collatz Conjecture" would have clicked. Whereas in second case, it was inviting to everyone, building a interest, and promising a reward of learning a simple yet effective math problem.
I want my fellow Creators to use these techniques to improve there titles. I often see titles like "Motivational Quote" or "Poem" or "Quote No.1". Internet is flooded with such titles, but titles like "This Quote Helped Steve Jobs succeed in Life", can build massive interest and at the same time motivate people to click titles. And the content could have talked about the quote "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish", which Steve Jobs actually loved and had used many times in his life.
3 Pro Tips To Supercharge Creation Titles
Okay, now as promised, I am sharing 3 special tips that will help you properly improve your Creation Titles, and move towards better success.
- Length: Generally, you should try to have Titles at about 65-70 character length. Shorter titles often have too little information to generate interest. Longer titles have too much information and are considered boring.
- Formatting: Keep your titles simple, complicated formatting, too many periods, exclamation marks, brackets can make the title unpleasing to the eyes.
- Language: Keep it English. Unless you are writing specifically non-English content, try to keep your content in simple, boring English, that even non-native English speakers can easily understand.
Final Thoughts
With that, it's a wrap! I think this is the most important Creation in the Becoming Creator series. I just waited to publish it so that people can learn more and the series gains some momentum, before we start.
As always, I would be in comment section to answer your questions, take feedback, and have a chat.
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