Graham Stephan's YouTube channel has been making waves in the business sphere as of recently. He specializes in real estate and stock investments while holding an enthusiasm for cars.
He has developed great habits that are key to being successful in the YouTube space, generating explosive growth for his channel.
From creating great thumbnails to producing engaging content, Graham continues to develop his extraordinary career on the YouTube platform.
Graham has been producing content on YouTube for over 4 years now since he was 26 years old.
To hit success at such a young age is quite an impressive feat. It's not every day you find young talent that is successful in a similar fashion.
Graham Stephan's YouTube Thumbnails.
One of the best thumbnails we have seen has come from Graham Stephan's YouTube channels.
Graham Stephan is a MASTER when it comes to designing the best thumbnails that attract the most clicks.
Want to know his secret to designing the most eye-catching thumbnails?
SIMPLICITY!
We see too many beginner channels BUTCHER their thumbnails with millions of words, colors that cause headaches, and pictures that you can only see with a microscope!
Or worse yet… Some creators will not upload thumbnails at all! Don't be this muppet and observe what successful creators like Graham Stephan are doing with their thumbnails!
If you look at Graham's thumbnails, you will notice:
- Vibrant and highly saturated colors.
- Blurred-out background that focuses on the main subject.
- Faces with cheesy emotions.
- Loud visuals that tell stories.
- Word or two of text.
- Titles that do not reveal what the video's topic is.
Do you want to know one more secret that most viewers don't notice??
Graham uses the same photos of his face throughout his thumbnails! However, It doesn't matter because Graham can change the background. No one will realize that he's repurposing his old photoshoots!
Remember this… Without an eye-catching thumbnail and an exciting title, you will miss out on attracting THOUSANDS, if not MILLIONS of ideal viewers, to your video.
Your video will not matter because your viewers scrolled past your thumbnail without even thinking about it!
That is why Graham told the Colin and Samir Podcast that "the thumbnail is probably the thing that we spend the most time on. We know that if we miss the mark on the thumbnail, all the work is going to be for nothing."
He also told them that "One bad thumbnail is like you made a bad chess move, and they take one of your pieces."
Don't blow off your thumbnail designs!
Your goal is to get viewers to scroll through their home, suggested, or search page and quickly stop on your thumbnail.
That is why the most successful creators will use thumbnails with colors and visuals that are easy to see, display emotion, and provide a topic that interests the viewer.
By keeping it simple, Graham can catch your attention straight away and then make you decide whether or not you'll click on his video.
Let's analyze Graham's Dogecoin thumbnail that received 1,000,000 views after posting it on May 12, 2021.
What captures your attention straight away? The smartphone says, "Investing $2,322,402.82."
What is so significant about this phone? Obviously, the white 7 figure number, and MOST IMPORTANTLY the green line graph trending up.
The color and size of the text are what cause your brain to want to click the video. Green, black, and white complement each other VERY WELL and stand out when you look at the image far away.
Green symbolizes money and positive growth. Two factors everyone wants to see happening to their bank accounts!
The next place your eyes will go is to the two faces.
The first face is Graham looking shocked with his mouth wide open and the white of his eyes visible.
The second face is the Doge Shiba Inu.
The emotion on Graham's face reveals shock as if he can't believe that Dogecoin prices are going up by millions of dollars.
Now combine that with a vibrant, glowing Gold, a color that represents wealth.
When you combine everything, the thumbnail tells this story:
By investing in Dogecoin, you will be shocked that you could make millions of dollars, which will positively grow with time to the point that you will become a rich millionaire!
It's crazy to think how fast our brains can process an image and tell a story with such a small dimension size!
Graham Stephan's YouTube Titles
After you create eye-catching thumbnails, you must create click-worthy titles.
Graham Stephan is a prime example of how you should develop your titles.
What does he do? He keeps his titles simple, short, and questioning, three qualities that make the title mysterious.
Remember this. The thumbnail is what hooks the viewer, while the title compliments the thumbnail.
Graham Stephan's titles are purposely created to prevent you from receiving too much information about the video topic. By revealing too much, Graham would risk summarizing the video to a point where viewers don't have to watch it anymore.
NEVER Summarize the video in the title or thumbnail. Viewers want to feel emotion when seeing your video on the home screen, suggested, and search bar. Revealing too much obvious information will bore your viewers to death and cause them to scroll past your video.
STOP revealing too much of your secret sauce and develop more mystery and emotion!
How does Graham Stephan use the title to complement his thumbnail?
Let's use the video Graham posted on May 5, 2021, titled "The Freaky Truth of $1 Dogecoin".
As you can see, the title is SUPER short.
Graham structures his titles to make them readable to his audience with 6 words and 31 characters. This allows him to make short titles that will fit on computer and smartphone screens.
At first glance, this thumbnail makes ZERO sense. That's why it hit 1 million views.
Because it doesn't make sense, viewers will wonder wtf it means, causing them to click on the video.
The thumbnail leads with the negative with Dogecoin underwater, and Graham Stephan worried. Graham suggests Dogecoin is declining; however, the title states a positive saying that the Dogecoin price is going up to $1. Emotion in the title causes viewers to click on the video.
Graham Stephan's YouTube Strategy Attracts A Broad Audience
Real estate and stock investments capture the attention of a vast audience. Everyone is always interested in making more money. Graham took advantage of that and made sure he provides value on almost a daily basis to his viewership. By consistently giving value to his audience, they are more inclined to click on more videos and learn more about what he has to say.
This creates a cycle between himself and the viewer.
In addition, Graham utilizes basic video editing techniques such as the 'jump' cut regularly. We're talking every 5 seconds or less. By consistently cutting to a new clip of him talking to the camera or an article that is relevant to the topic, it's easy to see why Graham has had such an incredible YouTube career.
No one becomes that successful on YouTube without engaging most of their audience through a vast amount of content. These simple techniques involving poking at the attention center in your mind every few seconds keep you entertained to watch entire videos on Graham's channel.
Understanding this natural flow of providing entertainment and education is key to success on YouTube.
Graham Stephan's Estimated YouTube Income
Graphing out the estimated monthly revenue allows us to peek at the ultimate potential a YouTuber can earn. Of course, keep in mind this is an estimation and may not be as accurate as the current date.
With an average total of roughly $150,000, Graham is comfortably sitting at the top of the YouTube game amongst the highest-earning content creators in the business.
According to the gathered stats, YouTube is his largest income source. Even without looking at the data, it is clear that is the case because you can see the daily effort he puts into his channel.
Creating high amounts of quality content is no small task and is a full-time job. It is also highly likely that someone like Graham would have a team running operations in the background.
As they say, Teamwork makes the dream work. As a content creator, Graham's primary focus should be to simply film and shoot content while leaving everything else to his team.
When it comes to the higher level content creators on YouTube, it becomes a more complex game. There would be a significant portion of Graham's income that would be reinvested back into the business.
That might look like buying better equipment or buying a space or a studio specifically to shoot content. Many creators love to spend money on wild things to entertain their audience.
The best part about YouTube is that there are no limits to this game. Shooting content and creating new ideas for your fans is a passion that drives many. Studying new and exciting topics on the YouTube platform allows us as an audience to absorb massive levels of value while still being entertained at the same time.
Conclusion
Graham Stephan's YouTube strategy has allowed him to excel on the platform and make a ridiculous amount of money. By consistently posting and engaging his audience, the holy YouTube algorithm noticed his efforts.
When you sit down to watch one of his videos, you'll notice you get drawn in to be educated by his content, and odds continually are you'll start clicking on more of his videos as YouTube recommends more of them to you. This is how content creators succeed by getting you to come back to get another piece of what they have to offer.
If you're a content creator yourself and wondering how you're going to take the next step in your digital career, we have something for you. By understanding how someone like Graham set up his YouTube channel, you can gain more traction and an increased audience by optimizing your channel.
