YouTube Opinion Beside thumbnails and good title, number of views attract people to click

[tropicthunder]

This is from my own perspective as a viewer. When I saw a video on youtube whether it's on home page or suggestion tab, I click on a video which is interesting to me. Thumbnails is the first impression, then title, then also the number of views. That because I'm curious "why is this video have such high amount of views ?" while other videos have an attractive thumbnails and titles, but the view counts also makes me want to click on the video even more.

Is it me or do you guys feels the same way as I did ?

 

[SILTHW]

I think this is an important question because so many people tend to ignore their own behavior when they are creating YouTube content.

Here is how I use YouTube:
- Search
- Click on the thumbnail that looks the most promising. Note - I assume the title has words that I searched for, so I don't look at the title until after the thumbnail, and often not until I have done the next thing...
- Click and preview the first 10-15 seconds of the video. If the quality is poor I move on. If the audio sucks, I move on. If I have to deal with a 15 second rambling intro, I move on. If the person's voice and affectations are annoying to me, I move on. If I notice the title doesn't match the thumbnail or if the title doesn't hit my search, I move on.

I rarely notice view count or subscribers. I do notice hidden sub count. I personally find that sketchy, but I know it doesn't bother many others. I assume that Search and Discovery has taken views and engagement into account before it recommended me the video based on my search. What I learned from my own behavior is this:
- Need excellent SEO
- Need a thumbnail that is clear and tells me what the video is about
- Need to get to the topic fast
- Need to make sure the production quality is as high as possible
- Need to pay attention to my "performance" and watch for vocal tics, etc. that others may find annoying.