iPad Student Video Format

Ali Abdaal shares how he got his first viral YouTube video by replicating a successful format.

"We have this strategy we acutely call 'viral replication.' The way you grow a YouTube channel is by getting a viral video, and the easiest way to get a viral video is to copy the title of another video that's already gone viral.

Back in the day, I saw some guy made a video 'How I use my iPad as an engineering student.' That video had 2 million views and the creator had only 20,000 subscribers. I thought that was interesting - there's something about that title that really popped.

So I made 'How I use my iPad as a medical student.' That was the first video on the channel that went viral, getting over a million views. Then we made 'How I take notes on my iPad Pro in medical school' which ended up getting 60 million views. That was about a year into my channel."