“Epic Face-Off!” is a title that could sit on top of any clip from any channel. That’s exactly the problem with it. When I compared an AI clipping tool with my own edit, the titles were one of the clearest differences: the tool’s were generic, and mine were written the way that creator writes his own.
Titles get less attention than cuts or captions, but they’re often the first words a viewer reads. They also tell a regular viewer whether this is really your channel. A short that sounds like someone else’s doesn’t feel like yours, even if the footage is.
Here’s how I approach it.
Start with the creator’s own titles
Before I write a single title, I read what the creator has already published. Not the five most popular, but a long run of recent shorts, plus their long-form titles for context. I’m looking for the pattern, not for ideas to copy word for word.
The patterns I’ve seen on real channels are very different from each other:
- A fight-analysis channel uses a character name, a verb like “was” or “got”, and one word in capitals: the shape is
<Name> was <CAPS PHRASE>. The slang is part of the voice: “cooked”, “fraud checked”, “styled on”. - A money podcast uses a plain hook sentence of four to eight words, like “Check this before you move pensions”, or a direct question.
- A street-interview series uses a formula along the lines of “Millionaire reveals …”.
- A business-biography channel uses Title Case, three to seven words, naming the person and the lesson.
- A solo builder channel posts one plain, slightly cheeky sentence in lowercase: a claim or a reveal, no emoji pile.
- A relationship-debate show uses a Title Case claim or quote with one emoji at the end.
- A trades channel uses plain Title Case topic titles, with no hype at all.
None of these is the “right” style. Each one fits its audience, and the right title for one channel would feel wrong on another. That’s why a style guide of my own doesn’t work here. I’m not writing in my voice; I’m writing in theirs.
What I write down before drafting
I keep a short note for every creator, and it covers:
- Shape. Statement, question, quote, or topic label? Which words are in capitals, if any?
- Length. Two words or eight? Titles that run to one line or two?
- Slang and vocabulary. The words the creator and their audience actually use. I take these from the creator’s own captions and titles, not from what I think a fan would say.
- Punctuation and emoji. Whether they use them at all, and where. A single emoji at the end is a style decision, not decoration.
- Hashtags. Some channels add a fixed one, some never do.
- Where the title lives. It can be an on-screen title on the video, the post title on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram, or both. These can be different things, and I write them separately.
That last point matters. On one channel I looked at, the on-screen hook was a short capitals question, while the post title was a Title Case claim with an emoji. They’re two different jobs, so they get two different treatments.
A title names the moment
Matching the voice is only half the work. The title also has to say what the clip is about.
A creator I make fight-analysis shorts for has been clear on this point. He retitled several clips himself, and the new titles were more specific than mine: they named the exact thing that happened in the clip, not a general feeling about it. The lesson I took was that a title shouldn’t tell the viewer how to feel (“insane!”). It should tell them what they’re about to see, in a way that makes them curious.
A few things follow from that:
- Use the specific thing. “Went to the body early” beats “great strategy”.
- Put the point in the title, not just the topic. A topic label is fine on a channel that already uses topic labels. Otherwise, a claim or a reveal gives the viewer a reason to stay.
- Don’t promise something the clip doesn’t deliver. If the title says one thing and the first ten seconds are about something else, viewers notice quickly. This is also why I check the cut’s opening against the title. If the opening has nothing to do with it, the cut needs fixing, not the title.
- Give each title one idea. If a title needs “and” to describe the clip, it’s often two clips.
Some creators like a mix. One of my regular clients wanted a few snappier, matchup-style titles alongside his usual ones, with a rough ratio of two or three in ten, as long as each still sold a moment. A mix like that is a good example of how a voice can have some range without losing itself.
Emphasis inside the title
If the title has a coloured or emphasised word, the same rules apply as in captions. I covered them in which words to highlight, and the short version is that the colour goes on the word or phrase that carries the point, not the one that happens to fit.
In a title this shows up quickly, because there are so few words. If the point of the clip is that a fighter “went to the body”, highlighting “the body early” splits the idea. A single word or the whole phrase works; a slice doesn’t. And a title with no highlighted word at all is fine if that’s how the creator does it.
Names and spelling
A title is the worst place for a misspelt name. Characters, guests, players and places should be spelt the way their owners spell them. I walk through how I check this in captions that don’t lie; the same list I build for the captions is the one I use for the titles.
Where titles go wrong
The mistakes I see most, in generic tools and in my own early drafts:
- Generic hype. Words like “epic”, “insane” and “you won’t believe” can go on any video, so they say nothing.
- Over-polishing. A creator who writes lowercase sentences doesn’t want a Title Case headline. A neat title can sound wrong.
- Borrowing the wrong pattern. What works on a business podcast doesn’t carry over to a gaming channel. I try not to import a format from a different niche just because it did well there.
- Dropping the creator’s signature words. If their audience has a nickname for something, use it. Replacing it with the “proper” term makes it sound like an outsider wrote it.
- Forgetting the platform. A title that fits a two-line on-screen box can be too clipped as a post title, and a long post title is too long to overlay on the video.
Titles are the easiest thing to fix
Titles are text, not a re-render, so they’re the cheapest part of a short to change after a creator has seen it. Creators also tend to have strong opinions here that I can’t fully guess from a back catalogue, and the fight-analysis creator above is a good example. So I treat my first batch of titles as a draft in the creator’s format, and I expect some of them to be rewritten.
It also helps when the brief answers a few title questions up front. My five-minute brief template asks whether you want a title burned in or whether you add your own, and that one answer can save a lot of wasted work. Telling me which of your own shorts you think had the best titles helps even more.
A quick check before a title goes out
- Could this title sit on someone else’s channel? If yes, rewrite it.
- Does it name what happens in the clip?
- Does it match the creator’s usual shape, length, slang and punctuation?
- Is every name spelt correctly?
- Is the emphasis on the word that carries the point?
- Does the opening of the clip actually deliver on it?
If the answer to the first question is “no” and the rest are “yes”, the title is probably ready.
If you want to see what this looks like on your own channel, I can make a free short from one of your videos, titled the way you would title it. You keep it either way.