How to add a title or hook to a short video
Last updated 13 August 2026
A vertical clip gets about one second to explain why it is worth watching, and the audio is often off. An on-screen title is what fills that second: a short line of text that tells a scrolling viewer what they are about to get. YouClip puts the title on the preview so you can place and style it exactly where it lands in the export — typed by you, or drafted from the transcript and edited by you.
Step by step
Decide what the clip is actually about
The title is not a summary of the video, it is the reason to keep watching. Write down the single promise the clip makes, in the plainest words you have.
Write it yourself, or have it drafted
Type the title verbatim if you already know what it should say. If you want a starting point, YouClip can generate one from the transcript at the intensity you choose — from a straight description to something more punchy — and you can edit whatever comes back.
Keep it to a glance
A hook that needs reading twice has failed. Aim for a handful of words that fit on one or two lines at phone size, and cut every word that is not doing work.
Place it on the preview
Drag the title where you want it on the preview, which shows exactly what will be exported. Titles usually sit in the upper third — above the captions, clear of the platform's own overlays at the bottom and down the right edge.
Style it to sit apart from the captions
The title and the captions are doing different jobs, so they should not look identical. A different weight, size or colour keeps the hook readable as a headline rather than blending into the caption block.
Render with it burned in
The title is baked into the export at 1080x1920, so it travels with the file to TikTok, Reels and Shorts rather than living in a platform caption box.
Hooks that work, and ones that do not
- Concrete over general: "We cut render times by 80%" beats "thoughts on performance".
- Open a loop: a question or a claim the clip resolves gives a reason to stay to the end.
- Do not spoil the punchline: a title that gives away the ending removes the reason to watch.
- Avoid the label trap: "Episode 42 clip" describes the file, not the value.
Title and captions are not the same layer
Captions run the length of the clip and follow the speech word by word. A title is a headline that sits still. If they share a font, a weight and a position, the eye reads them as one block of text and the hook stops functioning as a hook. Give the title a distinct treatment and its own space in the upper third, and both stay readable.
Writing titles at volume
The hard version of this problem is not one title, it is twenty — one for every clip cut out of a long recording. Generating a draft from each clip's transcript turns that into an editing job instead of a writing job: you skim the suggestions, keep the ones that landed, and rewrite the rest. Pair it with automatic highlight detection and a long recording arrives as a set of clips that each already say what they are about.
Take it further
- Style the captions underneath the title.
- Add your @handle so a reposted clip still points home.
- Repurpose a long upload into a week of hooked clips.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a good hook on a short video?
Specificity and tension. A concrete claim, a surprising number, or a question the viewer already has beats a vague label like 'podcast highlights' every time. If the title could sit on any clip you have ever made, it is not a hook.
Should the title stay on screen the whole time?
Not usually. A hook earns the first few seconds and then competes with the captions for attention. Long-running text is better suited to clips people watch on mute with no captions at all.
Where should the title go in a vertical frame?
Upper third, centred. It stays clear of the platform's caption bar and handle at the bottom and the button column on the right, and it sits above your own word-by-word captions.
Is an AI-written title any good?
It is a fast first draft, not a final answer. Generated titles are useful when you are producing several clips from one recording and need a starting point for each; the good ones usually still get a word or two changed by hand.
Do I still need a caption in the post itself?
Yes. The on-screen title works on the video, the post caption works in search and in the feed preview. They can say different things, and often should.
Can I use the same title style on every clip?
Yes — save the font, size, colour and position as a preset and it carries across clips and across a bulk render, so your hooks always look the same even when the words change.