🎥MrBeasts’ 2 Secret Strategies

Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, is laser focused on being the best YouTuber ever.

His channel, which he started back in 2012, surpassed 112 MILLION subscribers mid-November. He is the most-followed creator on the platform.

His content appeals to a wide audience. Both adults and kids are drawn in by his eye-catching thumbnails and titles:

Once he grabs your attention, MrBeast knows how to keep it.

Every video premise, camera angle, and font color is meticulously designed to keep you watching further.

In the first 2 seconds of Million Dollar Hotel Room video, he captures the viewer’s attention immediately with the camera motion from the drone shot, colorful text, and the impossible-to-ignore premise that he endearingly shouts at the audience.

It’s a strong start.

But, retaining viewer attention for a entire 15-minute video requires immaculate storytelling and structure.

MrBeast uses two techniques in all of his videos that we can borrow:

The Open Loop

MrBeast is the master of suspense. He has perfected the art of the “open loop.”

During the intros of his videos, he inserts clips of the action to come.

Flashes of future scenes at the pinnacle of the action automatically creates questions in a viewer’s brain that need to be resolved.

“How will that resolve itself?”

Our brains release dopamine whenever we get answers to questions. It’s why learning feels good.

Great video editors leverage this to their advantage.

MrBeast also regularly uses phrases like “it gets really crazy towards the end of the video,” and “you won’t believe what happened here.” These verbal cues along with the video visuals assist in building suspense.

Pacing

One of the most impressive things about MrBeast’s videos is the pacing.

Within the first 2 minutes of the Million Dollar Hotel Room video, he and his crew have already traveled across the world to various hotel rooms 3 times. That is wildly compact and effective storytelling.

He includes only the funniest moments from each hotel room experience and cuts all the fat. He adds timestamps, plenty of graphics and sound effects so there is not one dull moment of screentime.

MrBeast’s videos feel like a compilation of highly energetic Tiktoks, strung together to make one complete storyline.

It’s impossible to click away from his videos because frankly, there’s something new and exciting every 5 seconds or so.

Comedians learn the art of perfect comedic timing through years of practice on-stage. They’ll evaluate a good set by the laughs (or punchlines) per minute.

MrBeast learned the art of Optimal YouTube Pacing through years of shooting, editing, publishing, and analyzing. He’s optimizing for open & closed loops per minute.

It’s not enough to just hit publish, Jimmy Donaldson is the best YouTuber on the planet because he spends hours on the backend analytics of videos to understand where the audience drops off and how to improve the pacing.

If your audience isn’t sticking around to watch your videos, make sure you include Open Loops that need to be resolved, and lively pacing on the path to resolution.

Have an ELITE Week,

Hannah

Elite Video of the Week:

Creating boundaries on what you do and what you share online is possible. You can be 100% real online and still be private. In this episode, Hannah talks about how to maintain privacy on social media while still sharing your true authentic voice.