Titles and intros..

The NotARubicon!

The NotARubicon!

NotARubicon Productions
I'm curious what everyone things about titles and intros and how important they are in gaining subscribers and more importantly, viewer retentions/view time.

These are my thoughts:
1) I hate intros. USUALLY to me, an intro is waste of time my time (as a viewer). I understand the whole "have to get their attention in the first 10 seconds and give them a reason to watch" - But I find most of them annoying (as a viewer)
2) I hate titles. I already know the title of the video - it was on the thumbnail and it shows at the top of the window/video viewer. WHY do you want to waste 5-10 more seconds of my precious attention span to tell me AGAIN what i'm watching?

So on most (virtually all) of my videos I put on a very short 'branding' intro, usually 3-5 seconds long. Sometimes I will put on no intro and put it at the end, and I put no titles in the video.. So a viewer gets a quick, 5-second or less intro so they know it's my channel/video then I immediately give them what they came for - THE VIDEO..

What are you opinions?
What am I risking by doing this?
According to most of the "experts", my channel should have crashed and burned long ago because all I ever hear from them is that same old regurgitated line that 'YOU MUST HAVE AND INTRO AND TITLES!!!" ...

**Titles may not apply to a lot of channels (ie; gaming channels/vlogs)
 
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I have a 5 second intro on my channel You're not missing out on anything. Your viewers just immediatly know who they're watching. I honestly do it because everybody else does...
 
I totally agree with the intro thing. I think at this point intros of any kind are just kind of a meme, and just add unnecessary time to a video.
 
It's mostly about branding really (in regards to an intro), people like to stamp their own graphic on pretty much everything on YouTube; channel art, icon, outro, intro, etc.

Short intros for me are fine, I don't really mind them because I respect that people want to establish and maintain a brand; but yeah, long intros are definitely a drag.
 
I'm personally fine with intros if they're placed after a small introductory commentary or clip (kind of like LinusTechTips). It kind of gets annoying if it's at the front of every video because sometimes, you just want to figure out in the first 10 seconds whether you want to watch the rest of the video or not.
 
My intro is way too long. I'm currently working on a new one that's half the length. Possibly one that's actually built into the video somehow
 
I currently have a 7 second intro but my YouTube Partner Manager suggests I switch this out to a 2-3 second branding intro.
 
EVO said:
I currently have a 7 second intro but my YouTube Partner Manager suggests I switch this out to a 2-3 second branding intro.
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Some channels can get away with 5 seconds but 7 is way too long, especially if the intro doesn't change over time. LinusTechTips gives a different caption in their intro for every video so people are able to sit through the intro without being impatient.[DOUBLEPOST=1490102057,1490101960][/DOUBLEPOST]
adams eats said:
My intro is way too long. I'm currently working on a new one that's half the length. Possibly one that's actually built into the video somehow
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You could try creating some animated banners or lower-thirds on Adobe After Effects. It's how I currently manage my video branding.
 
Kristeen said:
Some channels can get away with 5 seconds but 7 is way too long, especially if the intro doesn't change over time. LinusTechTips gives a different caption in their intro for every video so people are able to sit through the intro without being impatient.[DOUBLEPOST=1490102057,1490101960][/DOUBLEPOST]
You could try creating some animated banners or lower-thirds on Adobe After Effects. It's how I currently manage my video branding.
Click to expand...
Ooh cool, what's a lower third?
 
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