Running a YouTube channel? 📹

If you're a YouTuber or a title writer, this conversation is for you. 👇

We caught up with Jake Thomas, who runs Creator Hooks, to discuss Youtube titles and his content creation journey. Creators who are keen to enhance their thumbnail titles and ideas, here's where you can get started.

But, First: Who's Jake Thomas?

Now, let's jump right into the conversation. 👇

Thousand Faces Club: Can you tell me about yourself and what made you start Creator Hooks?

Jake: I’m a YouTube title nerd, and I love learning what gets people's attention and gets them to click. I was a YouTube channel manager for a fishing channel that posted two videos per day. Obviously, I had to come up with several ideas — so I'd seek inspiration from channels outside of our industry. For example, a video titled “10 Best Credit Cards for 2023” would do well for a finance channel, so I would model that title and make a video titled, “10 Best Trout Lures for 2023.”

I was always looking for new templates I could model; eventually, I realized anybody in any niche could model these templates. So I started putting 5 of them in an email every week, and looking for patterns between successful videos.

Thousand Faces Club: In 5 words, can you say what Creator Hooks does?

Jake: Improve YouTube titles and ideas.

Thousand Faces Club: Many creators struggle to go from 0 to 1. How did you get your first 1,000 newsletter subscribers?

Jake: Twitter threads. In December 2021, I had nose surgery and was in bed a lot. I ended up writing a Twitter thread every day, which helped kickstart my newsletter’s growth. ✍️

Thousand Faces Club: Can you explain your process — how do you decide which video titles to analyze, and what metrics do you consider?

Jake: I just look for outlier videos — videos with lots more views than the other videos on the channel. I have a list of 30+ industries that my readers are in. Each week, I pick 5 of those industries and comb YouTube looking for outlier videos in those industries. Those are the titles I break down. Even if the titles don’t follow the best practices, there are usually some things we can learn from them and see how we can apply them to our channels. 🔥

Thousand Faces Club: What are all the services Creator Hooks offers?

Jake: Free newsletter, an Ebook with 103 YouTube title a/b test results, and Creator Hooks Pro

Thousand Faces Club: What's Creator Hooks Pro? Please share the subscription cost and why YouTubers should subscribe to it.

Jake: Creator Hooks Pro is a database of all 700+ titles I’ve broken down in the Creator Hooks newsletter. It saves creators time in coming up with good ideas and writing better titles by making it easy for them to get inspiration from already successful videos. It’s currently $19/month.

Check out Creator Hooks Pro here. 👇

Thousand Faces Club: You're all about YT titles, but you don't have a YT channel. Is there a reason for this?

Jake: I was a channel manager for 2 years before I started Creator Hooks, and I actually have 2 private channels that I test things on, but I prefer writing to being on camera, which is a big part of why I’m more active on Twitter and a newsletter than on YouTube.

Thousand Faces Club: Do you remember when you made your first dollar?

Jake: Offline, I coached a 4-year-old tee ball at the YMCA in high school. Online, I had a t-shirt company right out of college with a few friends. My uncle bought the first shirt (we weren’t very successful).

Thousand Faces Club: What does the future look like?

Jake: I don’t think about the future. I focus on psychology, which has been around for thousands of years and will be around for thousand more years. If I can better understand psychology and how to leverage it to create better content and help other people do the same, my readers, customers, and I will all be happy.

Subscribe to Creator Hooks. 👇

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I’ll be back with another story next Tuesday. 👋

— Sunaina Patnaik

Thousand Faces Club is an initiative by Phyllo. Phyllo is the universal API for creator data. Sign up for free!