Channel Transformation Through Strategic Use of YouTube Outros

YouTube Outros that Grow Your Channel Faster

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Your YouTube outro, or end screen , is your last chance to keep a viewer on your channel. There are a lot of videos in the ‘Related’ sidebar that might catch their attention, or they could decide to go back to their search results.

A good outro will prompt viewers to keep watching related content from you instead of from someone else, and it could even convince them to subscribe.

1. YouTube Outro Basics
2. YouTube Outro Templates
3. How to Use YouTube’s End Screen Feature
4. How YouTube Outros/End Screens Can Help You Grow on YouTube

Part 1: YouTube Outro Basics

From the video above we can see that it features video recommendations and a prominent subscribe button.

A YouTube end screen might have the following features:

Videos: you can embed links/thumbnails for videos you’ve made on similar topics in order to keep viewers watching your content.

Playlists: instead of (or in addition to) linking to individual videos, you can embed playlists and link viewers to all of your content on a particular topic.

Subscribe Button: prompt viewers to subscribe to your channel.

Background: you may choose to use all of the elements described above in combination with an end card consisting of a moving background or still image. You can even find templates that will have slots for all your thumbnails and buttons.

You may also want to include social icons and handles for your accounts on sites like Instagram or Twitter. These won’t be clickable (you’ll need to add them yourself outside of YouTube’s end screen tool), but they’ll still let viewers know where else they can find and follow you.

Part 2: YouTube Outro Templates Download

Here are 4 sites where you can download templates for YouTube Outros:

Tube Arsenal: this site has a good selection of customizable outros with moving backgrounds. On the Tube Arsenal site, before you download, you can adjust the colors and text included in your outro and even load in your own logo.

You can preview your customized outro by clicking Preview Still or Preview Movie.

Outros on Tube Arsenal cost $9 for 720P or $13 for 1080p.

Outro Maker: you can get animated end screens/outros from Outro Maker for $2.99 a month (or, if you just need one outro, you can probably finish it during your 7-day free trial).

Outro Maker uses the content already uploaded onto your channel to create your outro, so you will need to link the service with your channel.

Biteable: the templates you can customize on Biteable are not specifically designed to be YouTube Outros and will not have slots for your end screen elements. The videos start out a lot longer than you’ll want for an end screen (an end screen can’t last longer than 20 seconds), but you can shorten them by deleting all the ‘scenes’ you don’t need and keeping just the one or two you want.

The clips you can get from Biteable look great, and their process for changing the text and colors is simple and intuitive.

You can create 5 free projects every month with Biteable, but you’ll need to upgrade to their paid service to download them. It’s $30 for one month.

Velosofy: this site has a decent selection of templates you can download for free. However, the downloads are all project files for programs like Adobe Photoshop or After Effects. You’ll need to have the program that goes with your download in order to customize your outro.

You can also find free outro templates by searching for them on YouTube! Lots of people have created free outros to share with the YouTube community.

Besides downloading outro templates from the website, you can also create it with some outro makers or with the video editing software that you are using. Wondershare Filmora video editor is the video editor that I used often, it is featured some cool templates and preset for making an outro. I recommend you try it as well.

Part 3: How to Use YouTube’s End Screen Feature

Make sure to create a space at the end of your video for the elements of your end screen to sit on top of. Your end screen will not add to the length of your video, it will overlay onto the last 5-20 seconds.

Here’s how you add an End Screen:

1. Go to your YouTube Studio, then switch to Videos on the left menu;
2. Click Details next to the video you want to add an end screen to.
3. Click the End screen in the menu under the lower right window.
4. Click Element to start adding videos, playlists, and subscribe buttons to your outro. You could also choose to use the same layout as a previous end screen with Import From Video, or you could apply multiple elements at once with a YouTube Template.
5. Drag the elements to where you want them and adjust the timing using the timeline.
6. Click Save when you’re done.

Part 4: How YouTube Outros/End Screens Can Help You Grow on YouTube

One of the most important statistics for measuring the growth of Your YouTube channel is Watch Time. You need 4,000 hours of watch time (over the past 12 months) in order to qualify for monetization/the YouTube Partner Program, and watch time also plays an important role in how your videos are ranked in YouTube’s search results.

Watch time is more important than views. If you’re getting views, but people are only watching short sections of your video, YouTube’s algorithm thinks the people who are clicking on your videos don’t like them and ranks them lower.

Outros are one of the best ways of increasing the watch time for your channel, because the whole point of an outro is to convince viewers to stick around and watch more videos. Here are some best practices:

Link to related videos and playlists: if someone has watched one video on a topic to the end, they’ll likely be interested in another highly related video from you. For example, someone who’s watched a Let’s Play for God of War is more likely to be interested in another God of War video than your review of your new gaming headset.

Link to your newest video: YouTube’s algorithm places the most weight on the data it collects about your video within the first 24 hours of it being listed as Public. To give your newest video it’s the best chance at success, you should do everything you can to boost its watch time when it’s first posted and linking to it in the end screens of all your other videos is one way to do that.

You don’t have to change every screen individually, YouTube lets you link to your most recent video automatically.

Link to Playlists: if you can get a viewer watching a playlist of related videos then that’s great for your watch time. If they’re already in a playlist they’re far more likely to watch multiple videos than if they have to go to your channel page and hunt down the content they’re interested in.

Include a ‘CTA’ with your subscribe button: besides just including a button people can use to subscribe, you should ask them to click on it with a ‘Call to Action’ or CTA. This can mean writing something like ‘Subscribe for more videos!’ on your end card, or asking them in an outro voiceover. People are more likely to subscribe if you ask than if you don’t.

Are you using a YouTube outro? What elements do you include, and how do you think it’s helped the growth of your channel?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Your YouTube outro, or end screen , is your last chance to keep a viewer on your channel. There are a lot of videos in the ‘Related’ sidebar that might catch their attention, or they could decide to go back to their search results.

A good outro will prompt viewers to keep watching related content from you instead of from someone else, and it could even convince them to subscribe.

1. YouTube Outro Basics
2. YouTube Outro Templates
3. How to Use YouTube’s End Screen Feature
4. How YouTube Outros/End Screens Can Help You Grow on YouTube

Part 1: YouTube Outro Basics

From the video above we can see that it features video recommendations and a prominent subscribe button.

A YouTube end screen might have the following features:

Videos: you can embed links/thumbnails for videos you’ve made on similar topics in order to keep viewers watching your content.

Playlists: instead of (or in addition to) linking to individual videos, you can embed playlists and link viewers to all of your content on a particular topic.

Subscribe Button: prompt viewers to subscribe to your channel.

Background: you may choose to use all of the elements described above in combination with an end card consisting of a moving background or still image. You can even find templates that will have slots for all your thumbnails and buttons.

You may also want to include social icons and handles for your accounts on sites like Instagram or Twitter. These won’t be clickable (you’ll need to add them yourself outside of YouTube’s end screen tool), but they’ll still let viewers know where else they can find and follow you.

Part 2: YouTube Outro Templates Download

Here are 4 sites where you can download templates for YouTube Outros:

Tube Arsenal: this site has a good selection of customizable outros with moving backgrounds. On the Tube Arsenal site, before you download, you can adjust the colors and text included in your outro and even load in your own logo.

You can preview your customized outro by clicking Preview Still or Preview Movie.

Outros on Tube Arsenal cost $9 for 720P or $13 for 1080p.

Outro Maker: you can get animated end screens/outros from Outro Maker for $2.99 a month (or, if you just need one outro, you can probably finish it during your 7-day free trial).

Outro Maker uses the content already uploaded onto your channel to create your outro, so you will need to link the service with your channel.

Biteable: the templates you can customize on Biteable are not specifically designed to be YouTube Outros and will not have slots for your end screen elements. The videos start out a lot longer than you’ll want for an end screen (an end screen can’t last longer than 20 seconds), but you can shorten them by deleting all the ‘scenes’ you don’t need and keeping just the one or two you want.

The clips you can get from Biteable look great, and their process for changing the text and colors is simple and intuitive.

You can create 5 free projects every month with Biteable, but you’ll need to upgrade to their paid service to download them. It’s $30 for one month.

Velosofy: this site has a decent selection of templates you can download for free. However, the downloads are all project files for programs like Adobe Photoshop or After Effects. You’ll need to have the program that goes with your download in order to customize your outro.

You can also find free outro templates by searching for them on YouTube! Lots of people have created free outros to share with the YouTube community.

Besides downloading outro templates from the website, you can also create it with some outro makers or with the video editing software that you are using. Wondershare Filmora video editor is the video editor that I used often, it is featured some cool templates and preset for making an outro. I recommend you try it as well.

Part 3: How to Use YouTube’s End Screen Feature

Make sure to create a space at the end of your video for the elements of your end screen to sit on top of. Your end screen will not add to the length of your video, it will overlay onto the last 5-20 seconds.

Here’s how you add an End Screen:

1. Go to your YouTube Studio, then switch to Videos on the left menu;
2. Click Details next to the video you want to add an end screen to.
3. Click the End screen in the menu under the lower right window.
4. Click Element to start adding videos, playlists, and subscribe buttons to your outro. You could also choose to use the same layout as a previous end screen with Import From Video, or you could apply multiple elements at once with a YouTube Template.
5. Drag the elements to where you want them and adjust the timing using the timeline.
6. Click Save when you’re done.

Part 4: How YouTube Outros/End Screens Can Help You Grow on YouTube

One of the most important statistics for measuring the growth of Your YouTube channel is Watch Time. You need 4,000 hours of watch time (over the past 12 months) in order to qualify for monetization/the YouTube Partner Program, and watch time also plays an important role in how your videos are ranked in YouTube’s search results.

Watch time is more important than views. If you’re getting views, but people are only watching short sections of your video, YouTube’s algorithm thinks the people who are clicking on your videos don’t like them and ranks them lower.

Outros are one of the best ways of increasing the watch time for your channel, because the whole point of an outro is to convince viewers to stick around and watch more videos. Here are some best practices:

Link to related videos and playlists: if someone has watched one video on a topic to the end, they’ll likely be interested in another highly related video from you. For example, someone who’s watched a Let’s Play for God of War is more likely to be interested in another God of War video than your review of your new gaming headset.

Link to your newest video: YouTube’s algorithm places the most weight on the data it collects about your video within the first 24 hours of it being listed as Public. To give your newest video it’s the best chance at success, you should do everything you can to boost its watch time when it’s first posted and linking to it in the end screens of all your other videos is one way to do that.

You don’t have to change every screen individually, YouTube lets you link to your most recent video automatically.

Link to Playlists: if you can get a viewer watching a playlist of related videos then that’s great for your watch time. If they’re already in a playlist they’re far more likely to watch multiple videos than if they have to go to your channel page and hunt down the content they’re interested in.

Include a ‘CTA’ with your subscribe button: besides just including a button people can use to subscribe, you should ask them to click on it with a ‘Call to Action’ or CTA. This can mean writing something like ‘Subscribe for more videos!’ on your end card, or asking them in an outro voiceover. People are more likely to subscribe if you ask than if you don’t.

Are you using a YouTube outro? What elements do you include, and how do you think it’s helped the growth of your channel?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Your YouTube outro, or end screen , is your last chance to keep a viewer on your channel. There are a lot of videos in the ‘Related’ sidebar that might catch their attention, or they could decide to go back to their search results.

A good outro will prompt viewers to keep watching related content from you instead of from someone else, and it could even convince them to subscribe.

1. YouTube Outro Basics
2. YouTube Outro Templates
3. How to Use YouTube’s End Screen Feature
4. How YouTube Outros/End Screens Can Help You Grow on YouTube

Part 1: YouTube Outro Basics

From the video above we can see that it features video recommendations and a prominent subscribe button.

A YouTube end screen might have the following features:

Videos: you can embed links/thumbnails for videos you’ve made on similar topics in order to keep viewers watching your content.

Playlists: instead of (or in addition to) linking to individual videos, you can embed playlists and link viewers to all of your content on a particular topic.

Subscribe Button: prompt viewers to subscribe to your channel.

Background: you may choose to use all of the elements described above in combination with an end card consisting of a moving background or still image. You can even find templates that will have slots for all your thumbnails and buttons.

You may also want to include social icons and handles for your accounts on sites like Instagram or Twitter. These won’t be clickable (you’ll need to add them yourself outside of YouTube’s end screen tool), but they’ll still let viewers know where else they can find and follow you.

Part 2: YouTube Outro Templates Download

Here are 4 sites where you can download templates for YouTube Outros:

Tube Arsenal: this site has a good selection of customizable outros with moving backgrounds. On the Tube Arsenal site, before you download, you can adjust the colors and text included in your outro and even load in your own logo.

You can preview your customized outro by clicking Preview Still or Preview Movie.

Outros on Tube Arsenal cost $9 for 720P or $13 for 1080p.

Outro Maker: you can get animated end screens/outros from Outro Maker for $2.99 a month (or, if you just need one outro, you can probably finish it during your 7-day free trial).

Outro Maker uses the content already uploaded onto your channel to create your outro, so you will need to link the service with your channel.

Biteable: the templates you can customize on Biteable are not specifically designed to be YouTube Outros and will not have slots for your end screen elements. The videos start out a lot longer than you’ll want for an end screen (an end screen can’t last longer than 20 seconds), but you can shorten them by deleting all the ‘scenes’ you don’t need and keeping just the one or two you want.

The clips you can get from Biteable look great, and their process for changing the text and colors is simple and intuitive.

You can create 5 free projects every month with Biteable, but you’ll need to upgrade to their paid service to download them. It’s $30 for one month.

Velosofy: this site has a decent selection of templates you can download for free. However, the downloads are all project files for programs like Adobe Photoshop or After Effects. You’ll need to have the program that goes with your download in order to customize your outro.

You can also find free outro templates by searching for them on YouTube! Lots of people have created free outros to share with the YouTube community.

Besides downloading outro templates from the website, you can also create it with some outro makers or with the video editing software that you are using. Wondershare Filmora video editor is the video editor that I used often, it is featured some cool templates and preset for making an outro. I recommend you try it as well.

Part 3: How to Use YouTube’s End Screen Feature

Make sure to create a space at the end of your video for the elements of your end screen to sit on top of. Your end screen will not add to the length of your video, it will overlay onto the last 5-20 seconds.

Here’s how you add an End Screen:

1. Go to your YouTube Studio, then switch to Videos on the left menu;
2. Click Details next to the video you want to add an end screen to.
3. Click the End screen in the menu under the lower right window.
4. Click Element to start adding videos, playlists, and subscribe buttons to your outro. You could also choose to use the same layout as a previous end screen with Import From Video, or you could apply multiple elements at once with a YouTube Template.
5. Drag the elements to where you want them and adjust the timing using the timeline.
6. Click Save when you’re done.

Part 4: How YouTube Outros/End Screens Can Help You Grow on YouTube

One of the most important statistics for measuring the growth of Your YouTube channel is Watch Time. You need 4,000 hours of watch time (over the past 12 months) in order to qualify for monetization/the YouTube Partner Program, and watch time also plays an important role in how your videos are ranked in YouTube’s search results.

Watch time is more important than views. If you’re getting views, but people are only watching short sections of your video, YouTube’s algorithm thinks the people who are clicking on your videos don’t like them and ranks them lower.

Outros are one of the best ways of increasing the watch time for your channel, because the whole point of an outro is to convince viewers to stick around and watch more videos. Here are some best practices:

Link to related videos and playlists: if someone has watched one video on a topic to the end, they’ll likely be interested in another highly related video from you. For example, someone who’s watched a Let’s Play for God of War is more likely to be interested in another God of War video than your review of your new gaming headset.

Link to your newest video: YouTube’s algorithm places the most weight on the data it collects about your video within the first 24 hours of it being listed as Public. To give your newest video it’s the best chance at success, you should do everything you can to boost its watch time when it’s first posted and linking to it in the end screens of all your other videos is one way to do that.

You don’t have to change every screen individually, YouTube lets you link to your most recent video automatically.

Link to Playlists: if you can get a viewer watching a playlist of related videos then that’s great for your watch time. If they’re already in a playlist they’re far more likely to watch multiple videos than if they have to go to your channel page and hunt down the content they’re interested in.

Include a ‘CTA’ with your subscribe button: besides just including a button people can use to subscribe, you should ask them to click on it with a ‘Call to Action’ or CTA. This can mean writing something like ‘Subscribe for more videos!’ on your end card, or asking them in an outro voiceover. People are more likely to subscribe if you ask than if you don’t.

Are you using a YouTube outro? What elements do you include, and how do you think it’s helped the growth of your channel?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

Your YouTube outro, or end screen , is your last chance to keep a viewer on your channel. There are a lot of videos in the ‘Related’ sidebar that might catch their attention, or they could decide to go back to their search results.

A good outro will prompt viewers to keep watching related content from you instead of from someone else, and it could even convince them to subscribe.

1. YouTube Outro Basics
2. YouTube Outro Templates
3. How to Use YouTube’s End Screen Feature
4. How YouTube Outros/End Screens Can Help You Grow on YouTube

Part 1: YouTube Outro Basics

From the video above we can see that it features video recommendations and a prominent subscribe button.

A YouTube end screen might have the following features:

Videos: you can embed links/thumbnails for videos you’ve made on similar topics in order to keep viewers watching your content.

Playlists: instead of (or in addition to) linking to individual videos, you can embed playlists and link viewers to all of your content on a particular topic.

Subscribe Button: prompt viewers to subscribe to your channel.

Background: you may choose to use all of the elements described above in combination with an end card consisting of a moving background or still image. You can even find templates that will have slots for all your thumbnails and buttons.

You may also want to include social icons and handles for your accounts on sites like Instagram or Twitter. These won’t be clickable (you’ll need to add them yourself outside of YouTube’s end screen tool), but they’ll still let viewers know where else they can find and follow you.

Part 2: YouTube Outro Templates Download

Here are 4 sites where you can download templates for YouTube Outros:

Tube Arsenal: this site has a good selection of customizable outros with moving backgrounds. On the Tube Arsenal site, before you download, you can adjust the colors and text included in your outro and even load in your own logo.

You can preview your customized outro by clicking Preview Still or Preview Movie.

Outros on Tube Arsenal cost $9 for 720P or $13 for 1080p.

Outro Maker: you can get animated end screens/outros from Outro Maker for $2.99 a month (or, if you just need one outro, you can probably finish it during your 7-day free trial).

Outro Maker uses the content already uploaded onto your channel to create your outro, so you will need to link the service with your channel.

Biteable: the templates you can customize on Biteable are not specifically designed to be YouTube Outros and will not have slots for your end screen elements. The videos start out a lot longer than you’ll want for an end screen (an end screen can’t last longer than 20 seconds), but you can shorten them by deleting all the ‘scenes’ you don’t need and keeping just the one or two you want.

The clips you can get from Biteable look great, and their process for changing the text and colors is simple and intuitive.

You can create 5 free projects every month with Biteable, but you’ll need to upgrade to their paid service to download them. It’s $30 for one month.

Velosofy: this site has a decent selection of templates you can download for free. However, the downloads are all project files for programs like Adobe Photoshop or After Effects. You’ll need to have the program that goes with your download in order to customize your outro.

You can also find free outro templates by searching for them on YouTube! Lots of people have created free outros to share with the YouTube community.

Besides downloading outro templates from the website, you can also create it with some outro makers or with the video editing software that you are using. Wondershare Filmora video editor is the video editor that I used often, it is featured some cool templates and preset for making an outro. I recommend you try it as well.

Part 3: How to Use YouTube’s End Screen Feature

Make sure to create a space at the end of your video for the elements of your end screen to sit on top of. Your end screen will not add to the length of your video, it will overlay onto the last 5-20 seconds.

Here’s how you add an End Screen:

1. Go to your YouTube Studio, then switch to Videos on the left menu;
2. Click Details next to the video you want to add an end screen to.
3. Click the End screen in the menu under the lower right window.
4. Click Element to start adding videos, playlists, and subscribe buttons to your outro. You could also choose to use the same layout as a previous end screen with Import From Video, or you could apply multiple elements at once with a YouTube Template.
5. Drag the elements to where you want them and adjust the timing using the timeline.
6. Click Save when you’re done.

Part 4: How YouTube Outros/End Screens Can Help You Grow on YouTube

One of the most important statistics for measuring the growth of Your YouTube channel is Watch Time. You need 4,000 hours of watch time (over the past 12 months) in order to qualify for monetization/the YouTube Partner Program, and watch time also plays an important role in how your videos are ranked in YouTube’s search results.

Watch time is more important than views. If you’re getting views, but people are only watching short sections of your video, YouTube’s algorithm thinks the people who are clicking on your videos don’t like them and ranks them lower.

Outros are one of the best ways of increasing the watch time for your channel, because the whole point of an outro is to convince viewers to stick around and watch more videos. Here are some best practices:

Link to related videos and playlists: if someone has watched one video on a topic to the end, they’ll likely be interested in another highly related video from you. For example, someone who’s watched a Let’s Play for God of War is more likely to be interested in another God of War video than your review of your new gaming headset.

Link to your newest video: YouTube’s algorithm places the most weight on the data it collects about your video within the first 24 hours of it being listed as Public. To give your newest video it’s the best chance at success, you should do everything you can to boost its watch time when it’s first posted and linking to it in the end screens of all your other videos is one way to do that.

You don’t have to change every screen individually, YouTube lets you link to your most recent video automatically.

Link to Playlists: if you can get a viewer watching a playlist of related videos then that’s great for your watch time. If they’re already in a playlist they’re far more likely to watch multiple videos than if they have to go to your channel page and hunt down the content they’re interested in.

Include a ‘CTA’ with your subscribe button: besides just including a button people can use to subscribe, you should ask them to click on it with a ‘Call to Action’ or CTA. This can mean writing something like ‘Subscribe for more videos!’ on your end card, or asking them in an outro voiceover. People are more likely to subscribe if you ask than if you don’t.

Are you using a YouTube outro? What elements do you include, and how do you think it’s helped the growth of your channel?

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Narrative Mastery: Essential Tactics for YouTube Success

The Best Storytelling Techniques to Grow Your YouTube Channel

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

In the distracting world, we live in, you need to be a good storyteller to grow your YouTube channel. Your audience is not going to stick around to watch your whole video if your content isn’t enticing or relatable. If you want to get people to watch all your videos, you need to get them emotionally invested with your stories.

Here are 3 methods for creating an awesome story:

• Method 1: CREATE SUSPENSE
• Method 2: USE EMPATHY
• Method 3: TAKE THE AUDIENCE ON A MEANINGFUL JOURNEY

1. Create Suspense

The hero has an objective, but the plan might fail.

The likelihood of something going wrong is what makes a story suspenseful. When you tell a suspenseful story, your audience will have a heightened focus and a strong motivation to continue listening. They want to know if the hero succeeds. Keep the audience waiting and expecting. Don’t give away the ending right away.

What Does a Suspenseful Story Sound Like?

When we talk about a story that is dragging on, it is because there is no suspense. There is nothing at stake, there are no obstacles, there is no problem and, with no problem, there is no promise of resolution.

Here are a few examples you can use to pump more suspense into your story:

- Address a fear (example: being alone for the prom)

- An objective (example: asking the crush out to the dance)

- Consequences of failing (example: being embarrassed in front of the whole school)

- Limited time (example: prom is next week)

- Obstacles (example: the crush has an aggressive ex.)

You can feel your heart rate speeding up simply thinking about the character’s story in the example. Does it have a happy ending or not? We want to know!

Raise Questions After Questions

A good storyteller knows that as soon as they answer a question for their audience, they need to present another one. The audience will always need to have a puzzle in their mind, one that needs to be solved. That is what will keep their interest.

For example: If the hero ends up going to the prom with his crush, the next big question can be: Will they kiss at the last dance?

This continues building on the tension and increasing the stakes evermore.

Check out the suspenseful story from YouTuber, MissRemiAshten . The way she tells the story, we discover more and about her psycho neighbor and the incident gradually. A little bit of information about the neighbor is revealed at a time… not all at once.

Include a Cliffhanger

We’ve all had those moments at the end of an intense television show where we are shouting at the screen because it suddenly cut to black as the main characters were left in a precarious position. That emotional outburst is brought to us by a good cliffhanger, and a good cliffhanger can assure us that the audience will return for more.

But there needs to be more! A cliffhanger is a promise to the viewer that eventually they will be rewarded for their patience and it will be satisfying.

In this cliffhanger from Casey Neistat, he simply asks us a question, “Was that good?” This calls upon us to recall all the awesome YouTube videos we have seen created by filmmakers that aren’t considered “prestigious.” A cliffhanger does not have to end with an epic reveal; it can wrap up with loose ends and allow the audience to tie it up themselves.

How to Deliver a Good Cliffhanger

Applying good cliffhangers to your YouTube videos is a balancing act. You want to draw your audience in, but you also need to have a payoff that is worth the wait.

Done well, a cliffhanger will leave your audience wanting more. Done poorly, a cliffhanger will leave your audience feeling to mislead and a little ripped off, hesitant to listen to more stories from you.

A good cliffhanger does not have to be life or death, but it does have to be the moment the story has been leading up to.

Before you start telling your story, consider the key details that are most impactful.

Once you have the points you want to hit, plan out the reveal. Weave the story together, but withhold the pivotal details until the cliffhanger. Thendeliver it on camera confidently .

Here are two ways you can present your cliffhanger for amplified effect:

1. Slow Down and Have Pauses

As your story intensifies, bring the pace down — or stop completely. The silence becomes the cliffhanger. It can last a second or more, depending on how confident you are in the tension you have built.

Your next words or shots can be the reveal. If you are skilled enough, you can lead into another story one that connects to the previous. If you are trying this, make sure that in the end, the payoff has double the impact. The reveal needs to be twice as powerful if you are going to take the audience on another journey before wrapping up and answering the long-awaited questions.

2. Use Repetition

Whether you want to misdirect your audience or hammer home a point, using repetition throughout your story will help you build the tension you need to establish the cliffhanger.

In this example, we see YouTuber, A little bit of Monika uses both pace and repetition in her storytelling method.

The video starts off at a speedy pace, all the way until the last scene where the confrontation occurs. That’s her slowing down the story so that we are all anticipating the reveal. Is she or is she not actor, Saoirse Ronan?

Through this short video, the repetition of the name is used to show her confidence that her roommate is not who she said it is. The more affirming she becomes, the more likely we as the viewers are going to side with her. This is a simple example of misdirection.

The more you say something or show something, the more important it becomes for the audience — at least, you want it to appear important.

2. Use Empathy

A storyteller must be empathetic.

If your audience cannot empathize with what you are communicating, it would not have the intended effect. Storytelling is all about taking people out of their bodies and putting them in someone else’s.

If you are telling a story about the time your car broke down, you want people to empathize and feel the helplessness of being stuck on a highway, waving cars down to help.

Empathy makes people feel more human. Telling a story people can relate to, even if it didn’t happen to them, is a sign of a quality storyteller.

Don’t Use Too Many Facts and Figures

If you began your story by saying that 1/1,000 cars on the highway break down, that doesn’t evoke any major emotion. There is nothing human about it.

It’s an interesting stat, sure, but the audience is unsure how they should respond. Is that a lot? Is that because of the highway? Is it because of the drivers? Nobody knows… it’s numbered with no context.

However, if you told the story about that time you had to abandon your vehicle and walk down the highway in order to make your important appointment. Suddenly, the audience can empathize with the tribulations you have gone through.

Facts and figures are useful in reports, but not as much in compelling stories.

Evoke the Senses

If I talk about hot melting chocolate, standing in the rain, or the smell of your grandmother’s bedroom, your senses are activated. From all your life experiences, your brain is able to form familiar sensations without any physical changes to your surrounding. That’s the power of storytelling.

Good storytellers use these sensory details and descriptive imagery to spice up a story. This draws the audience in and gives them a more immersive experience when listening to your stories.

Ask yourself these questions:

- What does it smell like?

- What can you hear?

- What do you see?

- What can you physically feel?

This example from YouTuber, Kiril Dobrev perfectly exemplifies what sensory igniting storytelling can do. He illustrates the sensation of being in Hong Kong, not simply through visuals but physical motions and audio effects.

Use Metaphors

As a YouTube storyteller, sometimes you will have to communicate complex ideas. When that happens, use a metaphor to increase the impact.

If you are telling a story about how much you dislike your teacher, you can list off all the ways she is unlikable or you can sum it up with a line like this: “My teacher makes the school a prison.”

That is a metaphor comparing school to prison. Most people haven’t been to prison, but understand what the metaphor is insinuating. School is not a fun place to be because of that teacher.

By connecting two different things, you allow the audience to paint the image in their mind quickly. It doesn’t take a lot of words to create a memorable metaphor. I encourage you to use metaphors anytime you need to address something complicated.

3. Take the Audience on a Meaningful Journey

Perhaps the most important element of a good story is that the journey is meaningful.

- Is it educational?

- Is it entertaining?

- Is it motivational or inspiring?

Knowing how you want to leave your audience feeling is foresight that will improve your YouTube storytelling abilities. Before you start telling your tale, ask: How do I want to change my audience?

YouTuber, Jamie Windsor tells a few stories connected to creativity and plagiarism. Anyone who has ever created anything can relate to his story and thus his audience can empathize.

It is also clear as a viewer that at the end of this 15-minute long video, his audience will have gone on a meaningful journey with him.

His story is a cautionary tale. He wants to educate us so that we can avoid making the same mistakes he did. He used his real-life experience to teach us and that makes it a meaningful video to watch. That was a good story.

Are there any YouTubers that you consider to be fantastic storytellers? Please share it in the comments box below.

Select a Versatile Video Editing Software to Stand Up from Numerous YouTubers

Users worldwide highly recommend Filmora because it comes loaded with various features, which helps to discover the editing skills, add an image to the imagination, and empower creativity.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

In the distracting world, we live in, you need to be a good storyteller to grow your YouTube channel. Your audience is not going to stick around to watch your whole video if your content isn’t enticing or relatable. If you want to get people to watch all your videos, you need to get them emotionally invested with your stories.

Here are 3 methods for creating an awesome story:

• Method 1: CREATE SUSPENSE
• Method 2: USE EMPATHY
• Method 3: TAKE THE AUDIENCE ON A MEANINGFUL JOURNEY

1. Create Suspense

The hero has an objective, but the plan might fail.

The likelihood of something going wrong is what makes a story suspenseful. When you tell a suspenseful story, your audience will have a heightened focus and a strong motivation to continue listening. They want to know if the hero succeeds. Keep the audience waiting and expecting. Don’t give away the ending right away.

What Does a Suspenseful Story Sound Like?

When we talk about a story that is dragging on, it is because there is no suspense. There is nothing at stake, there are no obstacles, there is no problem and, with no problem, there is no promise of resolution.

Here are a few examples you can use to pump more suspense into your story:

- Address a fear (example: being alone for the prom)

- An objective (example: asking the crush out to the dance)

- Consequences of failing (example: being embarrassed in front of the whole school)

- Limited time (example: prom is next week)

- Obstacles (example: the crush has an aggressive ex.)

You can feel your heart rate speeding up simply thinking about the character’s story in the example. Does it have a happy ending or not? We want to know!

Raise Questions After Questions

A good storyteller knows that as soon as they answer a question for their audience, they need to present another one. The audience will always need to have a puzzle in their mind, one that needs to be solved. That is what will keep their interest.

For example: If the hero ends up going to the prom with his crush, the next big question can be: Will they kiss at the last dance?

This continues building on the tension and increasing the stakes evermore.

Check out the suspenseful story from YouTuber, MissRemiAshten . The way she tells the story, we discover more and about her psycho neighbor and the incident gradually. A little bit of information about the neighbor is revealed at a time… not all at once.

Include a Cliffhanger

We’ve all had those moments at the end of an intense television show where we are shouting at the screen because it suddenly cut to black as the main characters were left in a precarious position. That emotional outburst is brought to us by a good cliffhanger, and a good cliffhanger can assure us that the audience will return for more.

But there needs to be more! A cliffhanger is a promise to the viewer that eventually they will be rewarded for their patience and it will be satisfying.

In this cliffhanger from Casey Neistat, he simply asks us a question, “Was that good?” This calls upon us to recall all the awesome YouTube videos we have seen created by filmmakers that aren’t considered “prestigious.” A cliffhanger does not have to end with an epic reveal; it can wrap up with loose ends and allow the audience to tie it up themselves.

How to Deliver a Good Cliffhanger

Applying good cliffhangers to your YouTube videos is a balancing act. You want to draw your audience in, but you also need to have a payoff that is worth the wait.

Done well, a cliffhanger will leave your audience wanting more. Done poorly, a cliffhanger will leave your audience feeling to mislead and a little ripped off, hesitant to listen to more stories from you.

A good cliffhanger does not have to be life or death, but it does have to be the moment the story has been leading up to.

Before you start telling your story, consider the key details that are most impactful.

Once you have the points you want to hit, plan out the reveal. Weave the story together, but withhold the pivotal details until the cliffhanger. Thendeliver it on camera confidently .

Here are two ways you can present your cliffhanger for amplified effect:

1. Slow Down and Have Pauses

As your story intensifies, bring the pace down — or stop completely. The silence becomes the cliffhanger. It can last a second or more, depending on how confident you are in the tension you have built.

Your next words or shots can be the reveal. If you are skilled enough, you can lead into another story one that connects to the previous. If you are trying this, make sure that in the end, the payoff has double the impact. The reveal needs to be twice as powerful if you are going to take the audience on another journey before wrapping up and answering the long-awaited questions.

2. Use Repetition

Whether you want to misdirect your audience or hammer home a point, using repetition throughout your story will help you build the tension you need to establish the cliffhanger.

In this example, we see YouTuber, A little bit of Monika uses both pace and repetition in her storytelling method.

The video starts off at a speedy pace, all the way until the last scene where the confrontation occurs. That’s her slowing down the story so that we are all anticipating the reveal. Is she or is she not actor, Saoirse Ronan?

Through this short video, the repetition of the name is used to show her confidence that her roommate is not who she said it is. The more affirming she becomes, the more likely we as the viewers are going to side with her. This is a simple example of misdirection.

The more you say something or show something, the more important it becomes for the audience — at least, you want it to appear important.

2. Use Empathy

A storyteller must be empathetic.

If your audience cannot empathize with what you are communicating, it would not have the intended effect. Storytelling is all about taking people out of their bodies and putting them in someone else’s.

If you are telling a story about the time your car broke down, you want people to empathize and feel the helplessness of being stuck on a highway, waving cars down to help.

Empathy makes people feel more human. Telling a story people can relate to, even if it didn’t happen to them, is a sign of a quality storyteller.

Don’t Use Too Many Facts and Figures

If you began your story by saying that 1/1,000 cars on the highway break down, that doesn’t evoke any major emotion. There is nothing human about it.

It’s an interesting stat, sure, but the audience is unsure how they should respond. Is that a lot? Is that because of the highway? Is it because of the drivers? Nobody knows… it’s numbered with no context.

However, if you told the story about that time you had to abandon your vehicle and walk down the highway in order to make your important appointment. Suddenly, the audience can empathize with the tribulations you have gone through.

Facts and figures are useful in reports, but not as much in compelling stories.

Evoke the Senses

If I talk about hot melting chocolate, standing in the rain, or the smell of your grandmother’s bedroom, your senses are activated. From all your life experiences, your brain is able to form familiar sensations without any physical changes to your surrounding. That’s the power of storytelling.

Good storytellers use these sensory details and descriptive imagery to spice up a story. This draws the audience in and gives them a more immersive experience when listening to your stories.

Ask yourself these questions:

- What does it smell like?

- What can you hear?

- What do you see?

- What can you physically feel?

This example from YouTuber, Kiril Dobrev perfectly exemplifies what sensory igniting storytelling can do. He illustrates the sensation of being in Hong Kong, not simply through visuals but physical motions and audio effects.

Use Metaphors

As a YouTube storyteller, sometimes you will have to communicate complex ideas. When that happens, use a metaphor to increase the impact.

If you are telling a story about how much you dislike your teacher, you can list off all the ways she is unlikable or you can sum it up with a line like this: “My teacher makes the school a prison.”

That is a metaphor comparing school to prison. Most people haven’t been to prison, but understand what the metaphor is insinuating. School is not a fun place to be because of that teacher.

By connecting two different things, you allow the audience to paint the image in their mind quickly. It doesn’t take a lot of words to create a memorable metaphor. I encourage you to use metaphors anytime you need to address something complicated.

3. Take the Audience on a Meaningful Journey

Perhaps the most important element of a good story is that the journey is meaningful.

- Is it educational?

- Is it entertaining?

- Is it motivational or inspiring?

Knowing how you want to leave your audience feeling is foresight that will improve your YouTube storytelling abilities. Before you start telling your tale, ask: How do I want to change my audience?

YouTuber, Jamie Windsor tells a few stories connected to creativity and plagiarism. Anyone who has ever created anything can relate to his story and thus his audience can empathize.

It is also clear as a viewer that at the end of this 15-minute long video, his audience will have gone on a meaningful journey with him.

His story is a cautionary tale. He wants to educate us so that we can avoid making the same mistakes he did. He used his real-life experience to teach us and that makes it a meaningful video to watch. That was a good story.

Are there any YouTubers that you consider to be fantastic storytellers? Please share it in the comments box below.

Select a Versatile Video Editing Software to Stand Up from Numerous YouTubers

Users worldwide highly recommend Filmora because it comes loaded with various features, which helps to discover the editing skills, add an image to the imagination, and empower creativity.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

In the distracting world, we live in, you need to be a good storyteller to grow your YouTube channel. Your audience is not going to stick around to watch your whole video if your content isn’t enticing or relatable. If you want to get people to watch all your videos, you need to get them emotionally invested with your stories.

Here are 3 methods for creating an awesome story:

• Method 1: CREATE SUSPENSE
• Method 2: USE EMPATHY
• Method 3: TAKE THE AUDIENCE ON A MEANINGFUL JOURNEY

1. Create Suspense

The hero has an objective, but the plan might fail.

The likelihood of something going wrong is what makes a story suspenseful. When you tell a suspenseful story, your audience will have a heightened focus and a strong motivation to continue listening. They want to know if the hero succeeds. Keep the audience waiting and expecting. Don’t give away the ending right away.

What Does a Suspenseful Story Sound Like?

When we talk about a story that is dragging on, it is because there is no suspense. There is nothing at stake, there are no obstacles, there is no problem and, with no problem, there is no promise of resolution.

Here are a few examples you can use to pump more suspense into your story:

- Address a fear (example: being alone for the prom)

- An objective (example: asking the crush out to the dance)

- Consequences of failing (example: being embarrassed in front of the whole school)

- Limited time (example: prom is next week)

- Obstacles (example: the crush has an aggressive ex.)

You can feel your heart rate speeding up simply thinking about the character’s story in the example. Does it have a happy ending or not? We want to know!

Raise Questions After Questions

A good storyteller knows that as soon as they answer a question for their audience, they need to present another one. The audience will always need to have a puzzle in their mind, one that needs to be solved. That is what will keep their interest.

For example: If the hero ends up going to the prom with his crush, the next big question can be: Will they kiss at the last dance?

This continues building on the tension and increasing the stakes evermore.

Check out the suspenseful story from YouTuber, MissRemiAshten . The way she tells the story, we discover more and about her psycho neighbor and the incident gradually. A little bit of information about the neighbor is revealed at a time… not all at once.

Include a Cliffhanger

We’ve all had those moments at the end of an intense television show where we are shouting at the screen because it suddenly cut to black as the main characters were left in a precarious position. That emotional outburst is brought to us by a good cliffhanger, and a good cliffhanger can assure us that the audience will return for more.

But there needs to be more! A cliffhanger is a promise to the viewer that eventually they will be rewarded for their patience and it will be satisfying.

In this cliffhanger from Casey Neistat, he simply asks us a question, “Was that good?” This calls upon us to recall all the awesome YouTube videos we have seen created by filmmakers that aren’t considered “prestigious.” A cliffhanger does not have to end with an epic reveal; it can wrap up with loose ends and allow the audience to tie it up themselves.

How to Deliver a Good Cliffhanger

Applying good cliffhangers to your YouTube videos is a balancing act. You want to draw your audience in, but you also need to have a payoff that is worth the wait.

Done well, a cliffhanger will leave your audience wanting more. Done poorly, a cliffhanger will leave your audience feeling to mislead and a little ripped off, hesitant to listen to more stories from you.

A good cliffhanger does not have to be life or death, but it does have to be the moment the story has been leading up to.

Before you start telling your story, consider the key details that are most impactful.

Once you have the points you want to hit, plan out the reveal. Weave the story together, but withhold the pivotal details until the cliffhanger. Thendeliver it on camera confidently .

Here are two ways you can present your cliffhanger for amplified effect:

1. Slow Down and Have Pauses

As your story intensifies, bring the pace down — or stop completely. The silence becomes the cliffhanger. It can last a second or more, depending on how confident you are in the tension you have built.

Your next words or shots can be the reveal. If you are skilled enough, you can lead into another story one that connects to the previous. If you are trying this, make sure that in the end, the payoff has double the impact. The reveal needs to be twice as powerful if you are going to take the audience on another journey before wrapping up and answering the long-awaited questions.

2. Use Repetition

Whether you want to misdirect your audience or hammer home a point, using repetition throughout your story will help you build the tension you need to establish the cliffhanger.

In this example, we see YouTuber, A little bit of Monika uses both pace and repetition in her storytelling method.

The video starts off at a speedy pace, all the way until the last scene where the confrontation occurs. That’s her slowing down the story so that we are all anticipating the reveal. Is she or is she not actor, Saoirse Ronan?

Through this short video, the repetition of the name is used to show her confidence that her roommate is not who she said it is. The more affirming she becomes, the more likely we as the viewers are going to side with her. This is a simple example of misdirection.

The more you say something or show something, the more important it becomes for the audience — at least, you want it to appear important.

2. Use Empathy

A storyteller must be empathetic.

If your audience cannot empathize with what you are communicating, it would not have the intended effect. Storytelling is all about taking people out of their bodies and putting them in someone else’s.

If you are telling a story about the time your car broke down, you want people to empathize and feel the helplessness of being stuck on a highway, waving cars down to help.

Empathy makes people feel more human. Telling a story people can relate to, even if it didn’t happen to them, is a sign of a quality storyteller.

Don’t Use Too Many Facts and Figures

If you began your story by saying that 1/1,000 cars on the highway break down, that doesn’t evoke any major emotion. There is nothing human about it.

It’s an interesting stat, sure, but the audience is unsure how they should respond. Is that a lot? Is that because of the highway? Is it because of the drivers? Nobody knows… it’s numbered with no context.

However, if you told the story about that time you had to abandon your vehicle and walk down the highway in order to make your important appointment. Suddenly, the audience can empathize with the tribulations you have gone through.

Facts and figures are useful in reports, but not as much in compelling stories.

Evoke the Senses

If I talk about hot melting chocolate, standing in the rain, or the smell of your grandmother’s bedroom, your senses are activated. From all your life experiences, your brain is able to form familiar sensations without any physical changes to your surrounding. That’s the power of storytelling.

Good storytellers use these sensory details and descriptive imagery to spice up a story. This draws the audience in and gives them a more immersive experience when listening to your stories.

Ask yourself these questions:

- What does it smell like?

- What can you hear?

- What do you see?

- What can you physically feel?

This example from YouTuber, Kiril Dobrev perfectly exemplifies what sensory igniting storytelling can do. He illustrates the sensation of being in Hong Kong, not simply through visuals but physical motions and audio effects.

Use Metaphors

As a YouTube storyteller, sometimes you will have to communicate complex ideas. When that happens, use a metaphor to increase the impact.

If you are telling a story about how much you dislike your teacher, you can list off all the ways she is unlikable or you can sum it up with a line like this: “My teacher makes the school a prison.”

That is a metaphor comparing school to prison. Most people haven’t been to prison, but understand what the metaphor is insinuating. School is not a fun place to be because of that teacher.

By connecting two different things, you allow the audience to paint the image in their mind quickly. It doesn’t take a lot of words to create a memorable metaphor. I encourage you to use metaphors anytime you need to address something complicated.

3. Take the Audience on a Meaningful Journey

Perhaps the most important element of a good story is that the journey is meaningful.

- Is it educational?

- Is it entertaining?

- Is it motivational or inspiring?

Knowing how you want to leave your audience feeling is foresight that will improve your YouTube storytelling abilities. Before you start telling your tale, ask: How do I want to change my audience?

YouTuber, Jamie Windsor tells a few stories connected to creativity and plagiarism. Anyone who has ever created anything can relate to his story and thus his audience can empathize.

It is also clear as a viewer that at the end of this 15-minute long video, his audience will have gone on a meaningful journey with him.

His story is a cautionary tale. He wants to educate us so that we can avoid making the same mistakes he did. He used his real-life experience to teach us and that makes it a meaningful video to watch. That was a good story.

Are there any YouTubers that you consider to be fantastic storytellers? Please share it in the comments box below.

Select a Versatile Video Editing Software to Stand Up from Numerous YouTubers

Users worldwide highly recommend Filmora because it comes loaded with various features, which helps to discover the editing skills, add an image to the imagination, and empower creativity.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

In the distracting world, we live in, you need to be a good storyteller to grow your YouTube channel. Your audience is not going to stick around to watch your whole video if your content isn’t enticing or relatable. If you want to get people to watch all your videos, you need to get them emotionally invested with your stories.

Here are 3 methods for creating an awesome story:

• Method 1: CREATE SUSPENSE
• Method 2: USE EMPATHY
• Method 3: TAKE THE AUDIENCE ON A MEANINGFUL JOURNEY

1. Create Suspense

The hero has an objective, but the plan might fail.

The likelihood of something going wrong is what makes a story suspenseful. When you tell a suspenseful story, your audience will have a heightened focus and a strong motivation to continue listening. They want to know if the hero succeeds. Keep the audience waiting and expecting. Don’t give away the ending right away.

What Does a Suspenseful Story Sound Like?

When we talk about a story that is dragging on, it is because there is no suspense. There is nothing at stake, there are no obstacles, there is no problem and, with no problem, there is no promise of resolution.

Here are a few examples you can use to pump more suspense into your story:

- Address a fear (example: being alone for the prom)

- An objective (example: asking the crush out to the dance)

- Consequences of failing (example: being embarrassed in front of the whole school)

- Limited time (example: prom is next week)

- Obstacles (example: the crush has an aggressive ex.)

You can feel your heart rate speeding up simply thinking about the character’s story in the example. Does it have a happy ending or not? We want to know!

Raise Questions After Questions

A good storyteller knows that as soon as they answer a question for their audience, they need to present another one. The audience will always need to have a puzzle in their mind, one that needs to be solved. That is what will keep their interest.

For example: If the hero ends up going to the prom with his crush, the next big question can be: Will they kiss at the last dance?

This continues building on the tension and increasing the stakes evermore.

Check out the suspenseful story from YouTuber, MissRemiAshten . The way she tells the story, we discover more and about her psycho neighbor and the incident gradually. A little bit of information about the neighbor is revealed at a time… not all at once.

Include a Cliffhanger

We’ve all had those moments at the end of an intense television show where we are shouting at the screen because it suddenly cut to black as the main characters were left in a precarious position. That emotional outburst is brought to us by a good cliffhanger, and a good cliffhanger can assure us that the audience will return for more.

But there needs to be more! A cliffhanger is a promise to the viewer that eventually they will be rewarded for their patience and it will be satisfying.

In this cliffhanger from Casey Neistat, he simply asks us a question, “Was that good?” This calls upon us to recall all the awesome YouTube videos we have seen created by filmmakers that aren’t considered “prestigious.” A cliffhanger does not have to end with an epic reveal; it can wrap up with loose ends and allow the audience to tie it up themselves.

How to Deliver a Good Cliffhanger

Applying good cliffhangers to your YouTube videos is a balancing act. You want to draw your audience in, but you also need to have a payoff that is worth the wait.

Done well, a cliffhanger will leave your audience wanting more. Done poorly, a cliffhanger will leave your audience feeling to mislead and a little ripped off, hesitant to listen to more stories from you.

A good cliffhanger does not have to be life or death, but it does have to be the moment the story has been leading up to.

Before you start telling your story, consider the key details that are most impactful.

Once you have the points you want to hit, plan out the reveal. Weave the story together, but withhold the pivotal details until the cliffhanger. Thendeliver it on camera confidently .

Here are two ways you can present your cliffhanger for amplified effect:

1. Slow Down and Have Pauses

As your story intensifies, bring the pace down — or stop completely. The silence becomes the cliffhanger. It can last a second or more, depending on how confident you are in the tension you have built.

Your next words or shots can be the reveal. If you are skilled enough, you can lead into another story one that connects to the previous. If you are trying this, make sure that in the end, the payoff has double the impact. The reveal needs to be twice as powerful if you are going to take the audience on another journey before wrapping up and answering the long-awaited questions.

2. Use Repetition

Whether you want to misdirect your audience or hammer home a point, using repetition throughout your story will help you build the tension you need to establish the cliffhanger.

In this example, we see YouTuber, A little bit of Monika uses both pace and repetition in her storytelling method.

The video starts off at a speedy pace, all the way until the last scene where the confrontation occurs. That’s her slowing down the story so that we are all anticipating the reveal. Is she or is she not actor, Saoirse Ronan?

Through this short video, the repetition of the name is used to show her confidence that her roommate is not who she said it is. The more affirming she becomes, the more likely we as the viewers are going to side with her. This is a simple example of misdirection.

The more you say something or show something, the more important it becomes for the audience — at least, you want it to appear important.

2. Use Empathy

A storyteller must be empathetic.

If your audience cannot empathize with what you are communicating, it would not have the intended effect. Storytelling is all about taking people out of their bodies and putting them in someone else’s.

If you are telling a story about the time your car broke down, you want people to empathize and feel the helplessness of being stuck on a highway, waving cars down to help.

Empathy makes people feel more human. Telling a story people can relate to, even if it didn’t happen to them, is a sign of a quality storyteller.

Don’t Use Too Many Facts and Figures

If you began your story by saying that 1/1,000 cars on the highway break down, that doesn’t evoke any major emotion. There is nothing human about it.

It’s an interesting stat, sure, but the audience is unsure how they should respond. Is that a lot? Is that because of the highway? Is it because of the drivers? Nobody knows… it’s numbered with no context.

However, if you told the story about that time you had to abandon your vehicle and walk down the highway in order to make your important appointment. Suddenly, the audience can empathize with the tribulations you have gone through.

Facts and figures are useful in reports, but not as much in compelling stories.

Evoke the Senses

If I talk about hot melting chocolate, standing in the rain, or the smell of your grandmother’s bedroom, your senses are activated. From all your life experiences, your brain is able to form familiar sensations without any physical changes to your surrounding. That’s the power of storytelling.

Good storytellers use these sensory details and descriptive imagery to spice up a story. This draws the audience in and gives them a more immersive experience when listening to your stories.

Ask yourself these questions:

- What does it smell like?

- What can you hear?

- What do you see?

- What can you physically feel?

This example from YouTuber, Kiril Dobrev perfectly exemplifies what sensory igniting storytelling can do. He illustrates the sensation of being in Hong Kong, not simply through visuals but physical motions and audio effects.

Use Metaphors

As a YouTube storyteller, sometimes you will have to communicate complex ideas. When that happens, use a metaphor to increase the impact.

If you are telling a story about how much you dislike your teacher, you can list off all the ways she is unlikable or you can sum it up with a line like this: “My teacher makes the school a prison.”

That is a metaphor comparing school to prison. Most people haven’t been to prison, but understand what the metaphor is insinuating. School is not a fun place to be because of that teacher.

By connecting two different things, you allow the audience to paint the image in their mind quickly. It doesn’t take a lot of words to create a memorable metaphor. I encourage you to use metaphors anytime you need to address something complicated.

3. Take the Audience on a Meaningful Journey

Perhaps the most important element of a good story is that the journey is meaningful.

- Is it educational?

- Is it entertaining?

- Is it motivational or inspiring?

Knowing how you want to leave your audience feeling is foresight that will improve your YouTube storytelling abilities. Before you start telling your tale, ask: How do I want to change my audience?

YouTuber, Jamie Windsor tells a few stories connected to creativity and plagiarism. Anyone who has ever created anything can relate to his story and thus his audience can empathize.

It is also clear as a viewer that at the end of this 15-minute long video, his audience will have gone on a meaningful journey with him.

His story is a cautionary tale. He wants to educate us so that we can avoid making the same mistakes he did. He used his real-life experience to teach us and that makes it a meaningful video to watch. That was a good story.

Are there any YouTubers that you consider to be fantastic storytellers? Please share it in the comments box below.

Select a Versatile Video Editing Software to Stand Up from Numerous YouTubers

Users worldwide highly recommend Filmora because it comes loaded with various features, which helps to discover the editing skills, add an image to the imagination, and empower creativity.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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