To create a hit short video, what title should be chosen?

The title is the source of the playback volume. Just like a person's name, it is unique and representative, and it is an important way for the audience to quickly understand the content of the short video and generate memory and association . Sometimes a difference of a few words can bring completely different playback volume to the video. Through researching short videos with over 1 million views released in the past month, we have analyzed and compiled several useful methods for choosing titles.

The importance of titles for short videos

In the recommendation algorithm mechanism, users receive tens of thousands of tagged recommendation information every day. If they want their short videos to stand out from the flood of information and gain views, the title is particularly important. The following will analyze and illustrate how to use titles to trigger communication.

1. The importance of the content of the title itself

The two stores listed in the picture both sell Shaanxi Liangpi. Under the same competitive environment, the advantages of "Gouhun Liangpi" are obvious:

1. The word "charming" can attract consumers and arouse their curiosity.
2. The two terms "Gouhun" and "Liangpi" have a certain sense of contradiction, leaving plenty of room for consumers' imagination.

The name of the movie "I Am Not Pan Jinlian" was changed to "My Name is Li Xuelian". From the name of the movie alone, the change has the following advantages:

"Pan Jinlian" is a character we are familiar with, while "Li Xuelian" is relatively less recognized by the public. Users are very sensitive to celebrities, and once such keywords appear in the title, they will naturally attract attention.

The keywords in the title bring controversy and topics, attracting attention.

2. The importance of short video titles to algorithmic channels

Toutiao, Penguin, Meipai , and UC are all well-known recommendation algorithm channels, and more and more channels are beginning to adopt this method. Because this mechanism can more accurately identify users' interests. The following diagram illustrates the basic flow of the recommendation algorithm pipeline:

Machine analysis -> extract keywords -> recommend by tag -> actually push to relevant audiences -> audience click feedback

From an operational perspective, at the current stage, machine algorithms do have a certain ability to analyze image information, but compared to text, their accuracy is limited. Traditional text contains a large amount of text information, which is easy for machines to parse and has a higher priority than images. But when short videos turn to images, they become a different dimension. It is difficult for machines to obtain relevant and effective information from video content. The most direct and effective way to obtain it is through the title, description, tags, classification, etc. of the short video.

From the user's perspective, the title is the most direct form of feedback on video content. It is also a stepping stone to attract user attention and clicks and has a very high weight. Before watching a video, the probability of users expanding to view details, tags, and comments is much lower than the title. From the perspective of the overall content distribution mechanism, we should also pay more attention to the title.

Double Headline Analysis Example

Hit the most common scenes in the audience's work and life

For example, when we put two similar titles together for the same video with two titles quoted in the background of Toutiao , the difference in the number of views is obvious.

The closer the content of the title is to the user's life, the more likely the video will be clicked. Therefore, it is crucial to combine the title with high-frequency scenarios in users' lives. For example, " WeChat Secrets: You must know this trick when posting photos on Moments !" 》The focus of this title is “Posting photos on Moments”, which covers a wider range of users and will bring a stronger sense of identity.

And "How many likes can you get by posting pictures on WeChat Moments using this method?" 》The focus of this title is “collecting likes”. Most users have posted photos on their Moments, but the need to collect likes is relatively weak and has certain limitations.

Close to the content, clear expression

The title should express the core value of the content, enhance its credibility, and lower the threshold for viewing. After choosing a title, you should also think about the relevance of the title to the content. Analyzing from the perspective of conversion feedback, "Are Mantis Shrimp Harder to Peel Than Crayfish?" The title "Use it to do it in five seconds" is very clearly written, stating the three key words "mantis shrimp", "crayfish" and "difficult to peel" directly. People who click on this title just want to see how to peel shrimp.

And "Must-eat delicacies in summer! 3 easy ways to eat, each one is better than the last! 》The key words of this title are "Must-eat delicacies in summer". The user's psychological expectation is "delicacies". After clicking in, the content is skills, which has a certain gap. The bounce rate in the background will also be high , which is very unfavorable for the subsequent recommendations of the algorithm.

Therefore, we should pay attention to the title, but we should not be a clickbait .

Inventory of short video titles with over 1 million views

The following title analysis will be conducted based on the channel dimension. In order to improve accuracy and reduce interference factors, IPs with a large fan base have been removed. The screening criteria are video content with fewer than 50,000 fans and more than 1 million views.

1. Recommendation Algorithm Channel

The two channels, Toutiao and Tiantian Kuaibao, cover a relatively general population, with all levels from high to low, and use a recommendation algorithm mechanism. Therefore, titles with more than 1 million views are more scattered compared to other channels, and there are more prominent writing styles under various categories.

Construct scenarios for users

Straightforward titles will construct a scenario, such as "Her hair was nearly 20 meters long, and she finally married a hairdresser!" In the title "20 meters", the number in the first half of the sentence presents a strong sense of picture to users, and the transition in the second half of the sentence brings associations to users, leading their thoughts to the direction of "what will be the result", attracting clicks and attention.

Arouse users’ curiosity

This type of title is mainly divided into two parts. The first part is half of the story, creating suspense. For example, with a title like "Water from 6 ancient wells in Jiangsu suddenly boiled, and experts found out the results were astonishing", users would be curious and want to see what happened, so they would click on it. The second part is to create a sense of mystery and trigger associations. For example, "An action movie that will feast your eyes, with all the supporting actors being kung fu stars, and it has been popular for 26 years" will guide the user's thinking to whether it is a movie I have seen before, and who the kung fu stars are, leaving room for the user's imagination.

Provide valuable information to users, so that users can get "benefits" after clicking

This type of video will give people a "very cost-effective" feeling, that is, they learn very practical skills in a very short period of time. This type of title is mostly "Learn XXX in three steps", "Learn XXX in three minutes", etc., which quantifies the user's input-output ratio.

Leverage the celebrity effect

The video titled "Hot Dramas 98: Marco draws his sword and points it at Qiao Zhenyu: Beast, let go of that girl" is a promotion for the new drama "Qu Yuan", but the title does not use the names of the characters in the drama, but instead quotes the names of celebrities, which has a wider coverage. If a user is not interested in historical dramas but is a fan of actor Marco, they may click on the video because of the star effect, thereby expanding the influence.

Combined with hot spots

Nowadays, everyone likes to do marketing by leveraging momentum . In fact, the most basic and simplest way of marketing by leveraging momentum is “title leveraging momentum”. This type of title can often attract a lot of traffic in a short period of time. From the perspective of content planning, chasing festivals, events, etc. can produce better playback effects.

Put the "pain point information" that users care about most in the title

After seeing the title, users will think that they may watch it to avoid such infringement of their interests, and it is widely circulated among middle-aged and elderly people.

2. Channels for Connotational Jokes

For the channel of Neihan Duanzi, its user group and user expectations are significantly different from those of Toutiao and Penguin . For example, the title "A beautiful woman got drunk and woke up to find herself lying on the bed" is very representative. It not only has a strong sense of picture, but also provides users with ample room for association. In addition, the platform is positioned as "connotation". In order to cater to the needs and tastes of the platform's users, keywords such as "beauty" appear frequently. In comparison, titles of the “income” type do not match the user positioning, and there are relatively few such titles.

Chen Xiang Liu Dian Ban and Neihan Shen Dian Xi will formulate different titles according to the positioning of different platforms, which is very worth learning from in this regard.

3. Highly vertical Bilibili channels

Compared with other channels, Bilibili is more vertical, and users' interests are concentrated in the two-dimensional world. Therefore, the content with higher absorption rate is mostly in the fields of games , animation, etc. In addition to the content itself, the following types of titles are very popular on Bilibili.

1. Keep the mystery in the title, that is, only talk about the process but not the result.
2. An inventory-style title is one that contains quantitative numbers or annual summaries.
3. There is a clear trend towards branding, i.e. the title contains the name of the uploader
4. Novel events that can attract users' attention and are within their cognitive range.

What should I pay attention to when choosing a short title?

The title should be of moderate length

The number of words in the title should be moderate and should be tailored to the channel; it cannot be generalized. Toutiao requires 10-20 words. Too few words cannot guarantee the accuracy of information extracted by the machine, and too many words will affect the user experience . Meipai requires more words because it needs to be displayed from the front end to ensure that users can read smoothly.

The title format should be standard

Numbers should be written in Arabic numerals. Whether from the perspective of machine acquisition of keywords or user reading, titles should be expressed in Chinese as much as possible to reduce the frequency of use of English.

Try to diversify your sentences

In addition to declarative sentences, try more interrogative, rhetorical, exclamatory, and rhetorical questions to trigger users' thinking and enhance their sense of immersion.

Reasonable sentence segmentation

Generally speaking, three-paragraph titles have more advantages besides being long enough:

1. Easy for users to understand, reducing reading burden;
2. Carry more content;
3. The progressive expression is clearer.

How to conduct title training?

Title training is a compulsory course for the operation team, because it represents the work results of planning, shooting, actors, etc., and more directly affects data such as exposure and reading volume. In actual work accumulation, you can start from the following four parts.

Discover

Know what makes a good title. From the user's perspective, a good title is one that makes people want to browse it. From an operational perspective, a title that shows a high number of views is a good title. These all need to be studied in depth.

Copy

"Copying" does not mean copying and applying excellent titles, but deep learning at the pixel level, that is, imitating the sentence structure and content of excellent titles in combination with actual conditions. After having a certain foundation, the essence of one or several titles will be combined to form your own style.

Actual Combat

Use Toutiao double headlines, Weibo, Wei Toutiao and other channels to conduct actual releases, test the attractiveness of relevant content to users and conduct summary and optimization.

analyze

After going online, the effectiveness analysis is carried out using data such as the number of recommendations, recommendation rate, and number of comments as evidence.

summary

Good content determines user stickiness and activity, and good titles determine open rates, reading volumes, and spread. Every front-line operator should watch more, accumulate more, create their own database, save good videos, titles, materials, etc., and form their own absorption framework.