Do you ever use clickbait!? (Gone Wrong)

AuthorFilms Studios

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Have you ever used (non misleading) clickbait in your, titles, thumbnails or tags? Sometimes in my videos I capitalize a word or phrase to make it stand out (eg. DRONE instead of 'drone') or put a some adjectives in (eg. Epic, Cool, Awesome) and put trending (but related to the video) tags. Is this bad? I'm not breaking YouTube's TOS or Community Guidelines because it's always linked to the topic of the video, am I?

EDIT: I'm not talking about RayWillamJohnson or RomanAtwoodVlogs style things like "Top 10 SUPER UNNECESSARY ADJECTIVES used in videos!!", or "MY HOUSE BURNED DOWN!!" (Where there is a little bit of smoke in the house). I'm talking about subtle click-baits that are not misleading but make the title more eye-catching.
 
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GrgakGames

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It's scummy if you don't provide what your offering yes.

Like if someone came down the street and said

"HEY EVERYONE I HAVE BREAD COME GET SOME"

Then when people come to get some bread all they see is a minecraft lets play. lol

Just because it is allowed does not mean it's okay.
 

Andrewcu

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Have you ever used (non misleading) clickbait in your, titles, thumbnails or tags? Sometimes in my videos I capitalize a word or phrase to make it stand out (eg. DRONE instead of 'drone') or put a some adjectives in (eg. Epic, Cool, Awesome) and put trending (but related to the video) tags. Is this bad? I'm not breaking YouTube's TOS or Community Guidelines because it's always linked to the topic of the video, am I?
It's fine in my opinion and I don't think you're breaking YouTube's terms of service. Many of the very biggest channels use methods like you described.

I included Markiplier in the title and thumbnail of my most popular video. I was justified in doing so, but I still knew some people may feel misled and would thumbs down my video. But I think if I had used a thumbnail and title without that kind of star power I would receive only a fraction of the views. So, it was definitely worth it and I don't think I did anything that's not allowed.[DOUBLEPOST=1461506139,1461505765][/DOUBLEPOST]Just look at the title of a couple of PewDiePie's latest videos:
I QUIT FOR A NEW JOB! --- he didn't quit YouTube as implied
THE PEWDIEPIE MOVIE - Teaser Trailer #1 --- made it look like he had a real movie coming out

Do you think PewDiePie loses sleep over his misleading titles/thumbnails?
 
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AuthorFilms Studios

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Why would you even want to exaggerate?
Lets take for example a "fail compilation" from this week. Which title sounds better:
Epic Fails - April 24 2016
Funny Epic FAILS! - April 2016

If you capitalize titles and include catchy words like EPIC and FUNNY people will find the video more interesting and eye catching, and exaggerating (not too much) has the same effect.
 
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I included Markiplier in the title and thumbnail of my most popular video. I was justified in doing so, but I still knew some people may feel misled and would thumbs down my video. But I think if I had used a thumbnail and title without that kind of star power I would receive only a fraction of the views. So, it was definitely worth it and I don't think I did anything that's not allowed.
It all depends. Was Markiplier in the video, or was the video about him, like... were you talking about him or his videos? if you were, that's all good. But I don't want to click with a video with Markimoo on the thumbnail and title... and then have the video be nothing about him.
 

Cabbage Hunters

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i mean, we consistently shove cabbage into our video titles. one of these days thats probably going to p**s off some cabbage enthusiast just trying to browse youtube on his day off.
 

Andrewcu

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It all depends. Was Markiplier in the video, or was the video about him, like... were you talking about him or his videos? if you were, that's all good. But I don't want to click with a video with Markimoo on the thumbnail and title... and then have the video be nothing about him.
Yes, Markiplier was the subject of part of the video. Only for a small part, but long enough in my opinion.