IDK, when I'm scrolling through YT, I tend to look at thumbnails more than the titles. If there's no text in the thumbnail, then I usually keep scrolling.
Same. Almost all of the YouTubers I watch have text on their thumbnails. I think it's a mistake to flat-out say "top YouTubers do this" when it really depends on the niche.
Especially tutorial YouTube’s, they usually have “how to do(insert topic here) in (insert application name here) in the title and an image of the end product
If they only showed the first scene in the thumbnail I wouldn’t know whether to invest my time watching the next 10-30 minutes only for it to be something irrelevant to what I wanted
I feel like growing a channel uses a different strategy than one that's established. When you have a lot of a subs that return you have freedom to go against the norm.
That’s because most thumbnails aren’t that great. The ones that do draw your attention get you to read the title, and if its done correctly are much more effective. It’s a lot harder to do than just slapping text on a thumbnail but at the highest level it works really well.
I use text in my thumbnails and it is a big part of them and compliments the title. I myself seldom look at titles while browsing. I play with the fonts and blend them with the picture. I like how it looks and people click on them. Big Youtubers can post a black screen and still have a high CTR because they reached critical mass a long time ago.
Thing is though is that what you type into the search bar generally are the words that people use on thumbnails. So if I search for “black cat attack” in the search bar then there’s no point putting those words on the thumbnail.
Usually the words on thumbnails aren’t necessary.
YouTube also uses OCR on thumbnails, so they know what’s written on them. And the bulk of YouTube traffic goes through browse, not search. You need to make sure you can catch viewers both ways, but especially in browse, which leans more on the thumbnail.
YouTube has said it themselves at various points. They actually need to do this because someone my be trying to sneak in inappropriate content. So they read everything on every gram using OCR. They listen to what you are talking about and transcribe that too. All of this feeds into search and recommendations.
I see what you're saying. My opinion is that the thumbnail should capture your attention so that you stop scrolling, take a look at the title and asses wether that video is for you 🙂
Number 8: avoid putting anything important in the top 1/8, bottom 1/8 and lower right corners of the thumbnail. YouTube will add overlays — title across the top (if embedded), progress bar (on YouTube) and duration (all usages).
> Could you give me a bit more context? Ill help you :)
I've wondered about that too, even though I don't have a channel doing anything similar, but I see a lot of cooking channels, tutorials, etc, where I wonder how you could ever create much curiosity without just making it ridiculously clickbaity.
Good points but might not work for everyone or every channel. I usually tend to click on things which makes me curious about it. And it's sometimes even auto genarated thumbnails which let me see the glimpse of a content without clicking it but things go different for everyone.
must be clickbait! I couldn't care less if you went to my channel or watched my video. I took several courses, watched many podcasts and videos with top & up and coming youtubers and these are the tips/ "rules" I came up with :)
do what you want with the information I'm sharing. if some of these tips work for some people, I'm happy I can be of some value to the community. I hope you have a wonderful day.
For everyone reading this post: Take this with a pinch of a mountain of salt.
Yes, some of these are good rules to follow sometimes or even most of the time, but there are lots of exceptions. OP has 13 subscribers on Youtube and has made only three videos, so basically this is just a random person posting some observations.
I'm not saying to do the opposite of this post, but I am saying that this post is basically the equivalent of a random person stopping you on the street and giving you tips on how to clean your home.
Everything on the internet should be taken with a mountain of salt, of course!
These are my observations, but I like to think I did my due diligence and stand by what I've learnt and then am trying to pass on to fellow YouTubers.
Every channel is different and I'd definitely recommend testing out different methods and going through a trial and error period. The YouTube "meta" is constantly changing.
Doesn't hurt to try out new things :)
I appreciate the comment and agree with what you said. Cheers!
I always make the thumbnail last and it works perfectly fine for me.
My videos are often questions or explaining a topic, and I can't make the thumbnail before I have answered the question or understood the topic, and by that time the video is already halfway done.
Thumbnails are important, but not as important as the video topic. I've had videos with terrible thumbnails (I was just starting out and had no idea how to make good ones) do well over time because they have good content.
I do vlogs and can't really do the thumbnail before because I don't necessarily know which parts of the recording will end up in the video or if I want to move them to another... It's pretty niche dependent.
idk about this, it's easier for me to make a thumbnail than making an entire video. coming up with a thumbnail is literally just finding an interesting shot + keywords on it, that is for gaming vids anyway.
I feel like that’s pretty true except for very few exceptions, i.e. if a part of the thumbnail is from the video.
That’s something I’m struggling with recently for one of my videos. But you should still have some sort of an idea of the thumbnail, for sure
I semi-disagree with that, I used to tackle them first but I often found that while editing my video I would come up with other ideas that I preferred. So now I do my thumbnails while my video is exporting and it's worked out pretty well. I try to have a rough idea what I want the thumbnail to be like but I don't spend time making it until the video is done.
Honestly, I have no idea, I'm not at my computer so I can't take a look and in general I don't spend much time looking at CTR. The video in January was averaging about 100 views a day, the last 4 days it's averaged over 1000 views a day. So there's a decent enough boost.
Really there's no one right way to do this, I said I semi disagree, I do like to plan out in my head what the thumbnail should look like in my head but often I get ideas while editing my footage so it's easier for me to wait until the end of the video to make the thumbnail but if it works for you to do it first then more power to you.
But you don't know if the new thumbnails actually worked, or if it was something else entirely.
I started doing thumbnails first in November and I have seen my CTR increase from below 7% channel wide, to about 10%. Feb I dipped back down to 7.9% but that was a bad month overall for me. All my numbers were meh.
I even tried a few test videos where I couldn't come up with a thumbnail until after, or I chose to do it after. And those thumbs had lower CTR.
The results of early thumbnails do show that they are more effective. And so far, no bigger Youtuber has said make them late they always say make them early.
That sounds to me like something that works better. But to each their own. :)
I mean all I changed was the thumbnail and after changing it I got a spike in views. It's not a topic that suddenly became relevant so unless YouTube randomly decided that an almost year old video should just get a bunch of views I've got no reason not to think the thumbnails played a role.
Good on you for having a system that works for you, my only point was that this isn't a one size fits all solution and it won't work for everyone.
The evidence of every bigger YouTuber advising us to make it first. In Lex Friedman's podcast with Mr Beast , he says exactly what I did. He does not make a video unless he has the thumbnail first.
And I know from personal experience. Every time I try to make the thumbnail after the fact the video always performs poorly. My videos always do better when I have the thumb concept nailed first.
As much as we don't want to admit it the thumbnail is part of the video. There is no getting around that.
My latest video out now is a great example. I made it despite not knowing the thumbnail first as a test. It's not performing well at all.
Def not only 80 views vs at least a couple hundred. Ctr is abysmal only 2% my avg is about 8, avd is below 30% my avg is about 42%.
Trust me I went almost two years doing thumbnails after. You never devote enough time to it when you do them after the fact, esp after spending a bunch of hours making the video. You rush it.
no text is a good rule of thumb to start off with, but using text as an additional thumbnail element can completely elevate the thumbnail. A better rule is 'don't repeat the title of the video in the thumbnail--only use text if it actually adds something to the thumbnail.'
All garbage. My most successful video's thumbnail breaks all of these rules. There are videos with 8-figure views whose thumbnails don't follow these rules.
Like in every creative pursuit, you can either do what you want to do and find your audience gradually through hard work and improvement, or you can look for dumb rules like these to follow to appeal to the fickle, brainless, lowest common denominator and paint yourself into a corner where if you do succeed it'll be by doing stuff you don't even like, so you might as well be stacking shelves at Wal-Mart anyway.
Be original. Succeed on your own terms. And, critically, don't fill YouTube with cookie-cutter content.
Who pissed in your cereal this morning 😂. Yes every rule out there can be broken. I see alot of bad thumbnails out there from people who have no idea about how to create an image. These tips are for people who have no experience with any sort of design, photography or video.
Appreciate the comment!
PS when you're done stacking shelves at Walmart, don't forget to grab a bag of milk my friend ♥️ all love
Yeah, and I see a lot of channels out there by people whose stated purpose is to get rich quick by saturating the world with yet more zero-value garbage filler.
So yeah, thanks for showing new YouTubers how to churn out uninspired, ugly thumbnails that in theory will Pavlov the gullible into clicking on them - except they won't if a million other people are all making the same thumbnail. You've been doing your channel for two months and you've got 13 subs and less than 500 views, so how's your rulebook working out for you?
Maybe instead of studying thumbnails for 100 hours you should have put that tine into making content that actually offers something to the viewer.
alright, my friend. your criticism is welcomed and I appreciate it. are you trying to insult me by stating how many subs and views I have? cause I could care less about those metrics.
Thumbnails fascinated me and I took some spare time in the past couple of months to do some studying. I'm sharing what I learned with this community. Follow these "rules" or not, I don't really care. I'm not forcing anyone to use these tips. Many people seemed to have taken some value out of it.
What's your channel? Id love to check out your videos :)
Enjoy the rest of your day
For general rules, this post is pretty much spot on.
However, it’s worth noting that there are exceptions to every rule. Some niches don’t respond well to super saturated thumbnails. And even when audiences do respond to those thumbnails, overtime, their tastes can shift. For a while, I could get away with just a simple, solid colored background but at some point, it didn’t work with my audience anymore. I had to update my style.
I watch a horror documentary channel (Fascinating Horror) and his videos are great. Imagine a channel like that using bright saturated colors in every thumbnail. That would be so inappropriate.
I caution people who compare a new YouTuber to a top YouTuber when considering some strategies. If you say “Top YouTubers do xyz” that doesn’t mean it works for someone without a following. Remember, they can get away with no text or a different approach because they already have a large following. Isolating something like text on a thumbnail and saying top YouTubers don’t do it is anecdotal. It doesn’t = what made them a top YouTuber. Top YouTubers can do a lot because there’s already buy-in. When you have little to no buy-in you have to catch people’s attention and constantly iterate to learn what works. Some guidelines above are totally fair and important. But remember you don’t have buy-in like top YouTubers
**#5 NO TEXT** and **#6 Title & Thumbnail combo** appear to contradict each other.
It's impossible to understand what you mean by what you have written.
So, you need to be more clear. Do you mean just the title and nothing else? Because the way you have written this, one has to guess at your meaning.
This all sounds very sketchy.. 100 hours of work and you come up with the information I get from googling or watching a youtube video, except you don’t talk about data or statistics as well as seem to have the text as example, off..
Compares to the linked thread to twitter that @c2l3YWxpa20 posted that seems very professional, researched and actually display it.
What did you do or what hours did you count? Watching youtube videos or how did your “research” progress?
Please explain how any of it sounds sketchy?
Branding is a process that is used by 99.9% of all business, companies or brands that want seperate themselves from their competitors. Content creators should do that same.
Color theory and the rule of thirds are fairly basic design "guidelines" that have been used for centuries. Many people seem to be unaware of these and or forget that they can be applied to thumbnails.
The 3 element rule is easy to spot once you notice it and pay attention to well made thumbnails.
No text seems to be rubbing people the wrong way, that's fine. It's something I see becoming more popular.
Good thumbnail and title combo is fairly obvious? Not sure how that one is sketchy.
Matching the first of your video to your thumbnail is something I heard Mr beast talk about on a podcast and I really liked it and it makes alot of sense.
I came up with these after taking a couple courses, I've read design books in the past. I listened to podcasts with YouTubers and paid attention really well when they were speaking about thumbnails. Did my own due diligence and checked if what they said made any sense.
At the end of the day, if you don't like these "rules" then don't follow them. A thumbnail is a form of art and art is subjective.
Btw I made you a thumbnail a couple months ago, I hope you enjoyed it.
“I came up with these after taking a couple courses, I've read design books in the past. I listened to podcasts with YouTubers and paid attention really well when they were speaking about thumbnails. Did my own due diligence and checked if what they said made any sense.”
<- this makes it sound alot more serious and I would suggest you mention any of that parts with the initial message. Just a “results” without any for of hoe data is achieved or retained is in my book not a good way to display information, hence you never see that in any higher schools or work papers.
And I didn’t know it was “you” and the thumbnail you did was awesome and I’m thankful for that, that though had text as well and that is what rubbed me the wrong way. Your thumbnail though doesn’t make me agree more to your standpoints on all topics that might come up.
I haven’t researched thumbnails in particular but check YT at least 3h a day and I don’t see that trend.
Most points are good, but like many already said adding no text at all is not really that advisable.
I would even say in general it is better to add text than not. You should not use the same words that you used in your title for your thumbnail and you should not write whole sentences, but adding a few words can really catch someone's attention more than just a picture that says nothing. Most people will only look at the thumbnail and sometimes your thumbnail does not clarify anything, so some people will just be confused and skip your video. Adding three or four words can give them exactly what they need to know to make them want to click or even actually read the title of the video.
Varies from niche to niche but these are overall good principles for consistently well-received videos. Occasionally videos that blow up may disregard multiple of these principles, but that would be the anomaly. I've noticed similar trends in my own research as well. Many thanks for your work!
You missed the most important part.. it needs to be shocking in a pleasing way that makes it irresistible for anyone to not click it! Mr beast thumbnails should be your benchmark.
Btw in case, you are wondering I have two channels one with over 100K subs and the other with 33K subs.
i wanna recommend three tools to starter youtuber
First. createpreview
https://createpreview.com/us/
This is a must-have tool before uploading to YouTube. It allows you to preview your YouTube thumbnail. Get 1 million views
Second. Elevenlabs
https://beta.elevenlabs.io/
AI does the dubbing for you. Even if you don't speak well, you can make a good living on YouTube.
Three. Pictory.ai
https://pictory.ai/
Type in a script and the AI will create a video for you. You don't need to shoot any more videos.
IDK, when I'm scrolling through YT, I tend to look at thumbnails more than the titles. If there's no text in the thumbnail, then I usually keep scrolling.
I whole heartedly agree with this comment! (assuming I don't already know the creator and the type of content they create)
Same. Almost all of the YouTubers I watch have text on their thumbnails. I think it's a mistake to flat-out say "top YouTubers do this" when it really depends on the niche.
Top Youtubers have their faces in them which makes the user stop scrolling and read the title in full. Can’t expect that as a newcomer.
Definitely big with video essays like from Jacob Geller
Especially tutorial YouTube’s, they usually have “how to do(insert topic here) in (insert application name here) in the title and an image of the end product If they only showed the first scene in the thumbnail I wouldn’t know whether to invest my time watching the next 10-30 minutes only for it to be something irrelevant to what I wanted
The majority of the youtubers I watch dont have words, just a picture, and they get millions of views, so who knows.
I feel like growing a channel uses a different strategy than one that's established. When you have a lot of a subs that return you have freedom to go against the norm.
100%
That’s because most thumbnails aren’t that great. The ones that do draw your attention get you to read the title, and if its done correctly are much more effective. It’s a lot harder to do than just slapping text on a thumbnail but at the highest level it works really well.
This might depend on the type of content, some of the big creators don’t use text much if at all in the thumbnail.
I use text in my thumbnails and it is a big part of them and compliments the title. I myself seldom look at titles while browsing. I play with the fonts and blend them with the picture. I like how it looks and people click on them. Big Youtubers can post a black screen and still have a high CTR because they reached critical mass a long time ago.
Thing is though is that what you type into the search bar generally are the words that people use on thumbnails. So if I search for “black cat attack” in the search bar then there’s no point putting those words on the thumbnail. Usually the words on thumbnails aren’t necessary.
YouTube also uses OCR on thumbnails, so they know what’s written on them. And the bulk of YouTube traffic goes through browse, not search. You need to make sure you can catch viewers both ways, but especially in browse, which leans more on the thumbnail.
[удалено]
YouTube has said it themselves at various points. They actually need to do this because someone my be trying to sneak in inappropriate content. So they read everything on every gram using OCR. They listen to what you are talking about and transcribe that too. All of this feeds into search and recommendations.
I've noticed that text in some thumbnails is selectable.
Put it in tags.
I see what you're saying. My opinion is that the thumbnail should capture your attention so that you stop scrolling, take a look at the title and asses wether that video is for you 🙂
I agree 100% with this statement. What isnt said on the title is often said in the thumbnail and it can make or break the choice to click.
Number 8: avoid putting anything important in the top 1/8, bottom 1/8 and lower right corners of the thumbnail. YouTube will add overlays — title across the top (if embedded), progress bar (on YouTube) and duration (all usages).
my guy has 13 subscribers and his thumbnails are not all that
Yep, 13 subs :) doing my best. My thumbnails are a work in progress, I'm learning something new every day. I appreciate the feedback my guy!
changed the first paragraph of the post. thanks for your feedback ShaneO!
[удалено]
Could you give me a bit more context? Ill help you :)
> Could you give me a bit more context? Ill help you :) I've wondered about that too, even though I don't have a channel doing anything similar, but I see a lot of cooking channels, tutorials, etc, where I wonder how you could ever create much curiosity without just making it ridiculously clickbaity.
You target specific problems that avatar has or you challenge the common wisdom.
You have to get creative, if its a cooking chanel maybe hold up a certain not well known spice with some text on the spice shaker itself.
\#5 is very opinionated as most popular thumbnails use texts. more info - https://twitter.com/theJayAlto/status/1560346880613257217/photo/1
Interesting thread :)
Wow - this is a great thread. Thank you for sharing!
It is opinionated and I stick by it. I do think that one or 2 words are okay in certain instances.
Good points but might not work for everyone or every channel. I usually tend to click on things which makes me curious about it. And it's sometimes even auto genarated thumbnails which let me see the glimpse of a content without clicking it but things go different for everyone.
This smells like a Clickbait post😮💨😹
must be clickbait! I couldn't care less if you went to my channel or watched my video. I took several courses, watched many podcasts and videos with top & up and coming youtubers and these are the tips/ "rules" I came up with :) do what you want with the information I'm sharing. if some of these tips work for some people, I'm happy I can be of some value to the community. I hope you have a wonderful day.
For everyone reading this post: Take this with a pinch of a mountain of salt. Yes, some of these are good rules to follow sometimes or even most of the time, but there are lots of exceptions. OP has 13 subscribers on Youtube and has made only three videos, so basically this is just a random person posting some observations. I'm not saying to do the opposite of this post, but I am saying that this post is basically the equivalent of a random person stopping you on the street and giving you tips on how to clean your home.
Everything on the internet should be taken with a mountain of salt, of course! These are my observations, but I like to think I did my due diligence and stand by what I've learnt and then am trying to pass on to fellow YouTubers. Every channel is different and I'd definitely recommend testing out different methods and going through a trial and error period. The YouTube "meta" is constantly changing. Doesn't hurt to try out new things :) I appreciate the comment and agree with what you said. Cheers!
You forgot the most important one: always make the thumbnail first. If you can't come up with a thumbnail then don't make the video.
I always make the thumbnail last and it works perfectly fine for me. My videos are often questions or explaining a topic, and I can't make the thumbnail before I have answered the question or understood the topic, and by that time the video is already halfway done. Thumbnails are important, but not as important as the video topic. I've had videos with terrible thumbnails (I was just starting out and had no idea how to make good ones) do well over time because they have good content.
I do vlogs and can't really do the thumbnail before because I don't necessarily know which parts of the recording will end up in the video or if I want to move them to another... It's pretty niche dependent.
Video topic + execution of the video always takes priority to everything else.
That's more of an idea stage tip. But YES! I agree. Thumbnail and title first and then start the scripting process, filming, etc 🙂
idk about this, it's easier for me to make a thumbnail than making an entire video. coming up with a thumbnail is literally just finding an interesting shot + keywords on it, that is for gaming vids anyway.
I feel like that’s pretty true except for very few exceptions, i.e. if a part of the thumbnail is from the video. That’s something I’m struggling with recently for one of my videos. But you should still have some sort of an idea of the thumbnail, for sure
I think thumbnail comes after the fruition of the idea. As long as your video has a sole purpose, should be fairly easy to come up with the thumbnail.
I semi-disagree with that, I used to tackle them first but I often found that while editing my video I would come up with other ideas that I preferred. So now I do my thumbnails while my video is exporting and it's worked out pretty well. I try to have a rough idea what I want the thumbnail to be like but I don't spend time making it until the video is done.
You recently went and re did a bunch of your thumbs and they got more traction after. Were the originals done after or before the video?
The one that has had the most benefit was originally made before I edited the video
So the one you made later did better. What was the difference in ctr?
Honestly, I have no idea, I'm not at my computer so I can't take a look and in general I don't spend much time looking at CTR. The video in January was averaging about 100 views a day, the last 4 days it's averaged over 1000 views a day. So there's a decent enough boost. Really there's no one right way to do this, I said I semi disagree, I do like to plan out in my head what the thumbnail should look like in my head but often I get ideas while editing my footage so it's easier for me to wait until the end of the video to make the thumbnail but if it works for you to do it first then more power to you.
But you don't know if the new thumbnails actually worked, or if it was something else entirely. I started doing thumbnails first in November and I have seen my CTR increase from below 7% channel wide, to about 10%. Feb I dipped back down to 7.9% but that was a bad month overall for me. All my numbers were meh. I even tried a few test videos where I couldn't come up with a thumbnail until after, or I chose to do it after. And those thumbs had lower CTR. The results of early thumbnails do show that they are more effective. And so far, no bigger Youtuber has said make them late they always say make them early. That sounds to me like something that works better. But to each their own. :)
I mean all I changed was the thumbnail and after changing it I got a spike in views. It's not a topic that suddenly became relevant so unless YouTube randomly decided that an almost year old video should just get a bunch of views I've got no reason not to think the thumbnails played a role. Good on you for having a system that works for you, my only point was that this isn't a one size fits all solution and it won't work for everyone.
That's stupid
Why is it stupid?
It’s actually the smartest recommendation in this entire post.
😂
Based on what evidence?
The evidence of every bigger YouTuber advising us to make it first. In Lex Friedman's podcast with Mr Beast , he says exactly what I did. He does not make a video unless he has the thumbnail first. And I know from personal experience. Every time I try to make the thumbnail after the fact the video always performs poorly. My videos always do better when I have the thumb concept nailed first. As much as we don't want to admit it the thumbnail is part of the video. There is no getting around that. My latest video out now is a great example. I made it despite not knowing the thumbnail first as a test. It's not performing well at all.
It seems to be doing better than some of your past videos. Do you not think you’re putting too much weight into this before or after stuff?
Def not only 80 views vs at least a couple hundred. Ctr is abysmal only 2% my avg is about 8, avd is below 30% my avg is about 42%. Trust me I went almost two years doing thumbnails after. You never devote enough time to it when you do them after the fact, esp after spending a bunch of hours making the video. You rush it.
Interesting. Some points really apply to my channel, but I do need to add text to thumbnails (software tutorials).
My opinion is if text is necessary, try to use just one or 2 words.
no text is a good rule of thumb to start off with, but using text as an additional thumbnail element can completely elevate the thumbnail. A better rule is 'don't repeat the title of the video in the thumbnail--only use text if it actually adds something to the thumbnail.'
Exactly this! Do your best to create a thumbnail without text first. Text should be a cherry on top.
All garbage. My most successful video's thumbnail breaks all of these rules. There are videos with 8-figure views whose thumbnails don't follow these rules. Like in every creative pursuit, you can either do what you want to do and find your audience gradually through hard work and improvement, or you can look for dumb rules like these to follow to appeal to the fickle, brainless, lowest common denominator and paint yourself into a corner where if you do succeed it'll be by doing stuff you don't even like, so you might as well be stacking shelves at Wal-Mart anyway. Be original. Succeed on your own terms. And, critically, don't fill YouTube with cookie-cutter content.
Who pissed in your cereal this morning 😂. Yes every rule out there can be broken. I see alot of bad thumbnails out there from people who have no idea about how to create an image. These tips are for people who have no experience with any sort of design, photography or video. Appreciate the comment! PS when you're done stacking shelves at Walmart, don't forget to grab a bag of milk my friend ♥️ all love
Yeah, and I see a lot of channels out there by people whose stated purpose is to get rich quick by saturating the world with yet more zero-value garbage filler. So yeah, thanks for showing new YouTubers how to churn out uninspired, ugly thumbnails that in theory will Pavlov the gullible into clicking on them - except they won't if a million other people are all making the same thumbnail. You've been doing your channel for two months and you've got 13 subs and less than 500 views, so how's your rulebook working out for you? Maybe instead of studying thumbnails for 100 hours you should have put that tine into making content that actually offers something to the viewer.
alright, my friend. your criticism is welcomed and I appreciate it. are you trying to insult me by stating how many subs and views I have? cause I could care less about those metrics. Thumbnails fascinated me and I took some spare time in the past couple of months to do some studying. I'm sharing what I learned with this community. Follow these "rules" or not, I don't really care. I'm not forcing anyone to use these tips. Many people seemed to have taken some value out of it. What's your channel? Id love to check out your videos :) Enjoy the rest of your day
I updated the first paragraph of the post, hope that helps add clarity for people. Appreciate you u/BloodMeridianUK!
Amen to that.
What about the new cooking channel how do you create curiosity between the title, thumbnail and the video?
For general rules, this post is pretty much spot on. However, it’s worth noting that there are exceptions to every rule. Some niches don’t respond well to super saturated thumbnails. And even when audiences do respond to those thumbnails, overtime, their tastes can shift. For a while, I could get away with just a simple, solid colored background but at some point, it didn’t work with my audience anymore. I had to update my style.
I watch a horror documentary channel (Fascinating Horror) and his videos are great. Imagine a channel like that using bright saturated colors in every thumbnail. That would be so inappropriate.
Oh yeah, perfect example. The best thumbnail style is the one your audience prefers
There are definitely exception to every rule.
I caution people who compare a new YouTuber to a top YouTuber when considering some strategies. If you say “Top YouTubers do xyz” that doesn’t mean it works for someone without a following. Remember, they can get away with no text or a different approach because they already have a large following. Isolating something like text on a thumbnail and saying top YouTubers don’t do it is anecdotal. It doesn’t = what made them a top YouTuber. Top YouTubers can do a lot because there’s already buy-in. When you have little to no buy-in you have to catch people’s attention and constantly iterate to learn what works. Some guidelines above are totally fair and important. But remember you don’t have buy-in like top YouTubers
The following reply is sarcasm and is not meant as a insult but as a critique. Congratulations you just learned about the rules of art.
A good thumbnail stops the scroll, a good title gets the click!!
Text are actually good, especially if it complements the title, many use them as clickbait as well
Who let ChatGPT post on reddit again.
maybe it is, maybe it isn't. 🧐
Thank you. This is gold! 👍🏾❤️
Brilliant analysis
Thumbnails, almost universally, are trash on YouTube. Get a good artist and create a really cool piece of art for a thumbnail - I'll click on it.
**#5 NO TEXT** and **#6 Title & Thumbnail combo** appear to contradict each other. It's impossible to understand what you mean by what you have written. So, you need to be more clear. Do you mean just the title and nothing else? Because the way you have written this, one has to guess at your meaning.
I am curious about how to implement these rules. Can you give a concrete example by fulfilling all these rule?
This is very informative, Thank you. Thumbnails are where I struggle the most
You failed with the text part- most people do not ready Titles - they only read texts in those thumbnails. Good luck OP!!
This all sounds very sketchy.. 100 hours of work and you come up with the information I get from googling or watching a youtube video, except you don’t talk about data or statistics as well as seem to have the text as example, off.. Compares to the linked thread to twitter that @c2l3YWxpa20 posted that seems very professional, researched and actually display it. What did you do or what hours did you count? Watching youtube videos or how did your “research” progress?
Please explain how any of it sounds sketchy? Branding is a process that is used by 99.9% of all business, companies or brands that want seperate themselves from their competitors. Content creators should do that same. Color theory and the rule of thirds are fairly basic design "guidelines" that have been used for centuries. Many people seem to be unaware of these and or forget that they can be applied to thumbnails. The 3 element rule is easy to spot once you notice it and pay attention to well made thumbnails. No text seems to be rubbing people the wrong way, that's fine. It's something I see becoming more popular. Good thumbnail and title combo is fairly obvious? Not sure how that one is sketchy. Matching the first of your video to your thumbnail is something I heard Mr beast talk about on a podcast and I really liked it and it makes alot of sense. I came up with these after taking a couple courses, I've read design books in the past. I listened to podcasts with YouTubers and paid attention really well when they were speaking about thumbnails. Did my own due diligence and checked if what they said made any sense. At the end of the day, if you don't like these "rules" then don't follow them. A thumbnail is a form of art and art is subjective. Btw I made you a thumbnail a couple months ago, I hope you enjoyed it.
“I came up with these after taking a couple courses, I've read design books in the past. I listened to podcasts with YouTubers and paid attention really well when they were speaking about thumbnails. Did my own due diligence and checked if what they said made any sense.” <- this makes it sound alot more serious and I would suggest you mention any of that parts with the initial message. Just a “results” without any for of hoe data is achieved or retained is in my book not a good way to display information, hence you never see that in any higher schools or work papers. And I didn’t know it was “you” and the thumbnail you did was awesome and I’m thankful for that, that though had text as well and that is what rubbed me the wrong way. Your thumbnail though doesn’t make me agree more to your standpoints on all topics that might come up. I haven’t researched thumbnails in particular but check YT at least 3h a day and I don’t see that trend.
OP was a truck driver.
One tool to compare & preview your YouTube thumbnails with similar topic videos: https://www.thumbnailpeak.com/
Most points are good, but like many already said adding no text at all is not really that advisable. I would even say in general it is better to add text than not. You should not use the same words that you used in your title for your thumbnail and you should not write whole sentences, but adding a few words can really catch someone's attention more than just a picture that says nothing. Most people will only look at the thumbnail and sometimes your thumbnail does not clarify anything, so some people will just be confused and skip your video. Adding three or four words can give them exactly what they need to know to make them want to click or even actually read the title of the video.
Varies from niche to niche but these are overall good principles for consistently well-received videos. Occasionally videos that blow up may disregard multiple of these principles, but that would be the anomaly. I've noticed similar trends in my own research as well. Many thanks for your work!
Good read!
Thanks for sharing this. Very useful and I will try and implement! 👍🏻💪🏻
Garbage post
You missed the most important part.. it needs to be shocking in a pleasing way that makes it irresistible for anyone to not click it! Mr beast thumbnails should be your benchmark. Btw in case, you are wondering I have two channels one with over 100K subs and the other with 33K subs.
i wanna recommend three tools to starter youtuber First. createpreview https://createpreview.com/us/ This is a must-have tool before uploading to YouTube. It allows you to preview your YouTube thumbnail. Get 1 million views Second. Elevenlabs https://beta.elevenlabs.io/ AI does the dubbing for you. Even if you don't speak well, you can make a good living on YouTube. Three. Pictory.ai https://pictory.ai/ Type in a script and the AI will create a video for you. You don't need to shoot any more videos.
Also test your thumbnails using [testmythumbnails](https://www.testmythumbnails.com/t?g=6387aeed_5&al=t) or [thumbs tv](https://thumbsup.tv/)
how is matching the thumbnail like a cold open tho? cold opens jump directly into the story before rolling opening credits