YouTube Thumbnail Strategies

How YouTube Works 📈

The thumbnail (and secondarily the title) is arguably the most important part of creating a YouTube video. If no one clicks your video, it doesn’t matter how good it is.

YouTube is broken up into traffic sources. The main ones are search, suggested, and browse (the homepage).

Each traffic source has its own click through rate (CTR), and if the CTR is poor in one traffic source, it will stop pushing the video in that location. However, if the CTR is low in search but high in browse it can keep pushing the video in browse.

Design your thumbnails to work in the traffic source you desire views in.

The homepage (where the fast views are) is a lot more competitive than search so requires a lot more strategy and design skills to win big.

• 3 Keys to Powerful Thumbnails
• Thumbnail Design checklist

Clickbait

- This is when you make a thumbnail and title the video is not about 

• It is not clickbait when you show something in your image that might not feature heavily in your video 
• It is not clickbait when you image is an over exaggerated version of what happens in the video 
• To avoid clickbait, make sure you satisfy the reason your viewers clicked on your video  

Curiosity Gaps

• This is when you make a viewer want to find out what happens as a result of your thumbnail. You make them curious and then they click to fill the information gap.

The Hero Concept

• The hero of your image is the thing you want to stick out to your viewers first so that it gets attention and sets relevance as fast.

Frequency Bias 

• People notice the things they are interested in quicker than the things they are not which is why working out what they are interested in is so important.   

The Hero Concept

• The hero of your image is the thing you want to stick out to your viewers first so that it gets attention and sets relevance as fast.

Frequency Bias 

• People notice the things they are interested in quicker than the things they are not which is why working out what they are interested in is so important.   

THE 8 THUMBNAIL STRATEGIES - VIDEO 3

The Awe-inspirer

• Show people something they’ve not seen before or make them say “wow”. (The world’s largest, smallest, fattest, thinnest, and most extreme can do this)
• Best used in browse + suggested.

The Story

• Show a snapshot of the story you want to tell. Ideally, the scene will have stakes to it.
• Best used in browse + suggested.

The Curiosity

• Create a big question in your viewers’ minds that they want answers to.
• Best for browse + suggested.

The Result

• Show the result the viewer wants from your video.
• Best for browse, suggested, and search.

The Comparison

• Show a before and after in your image (usually shows the result people want).
• Best for browse, suggested, and search.

The Star

• Make a famous person, product, or brand the hero of your image.
• Best for browse, suggested, and search.

The Emotion

• Capture a raw moment in time that creates concern or intrigue.
• Best for browse, suggested, and search.

The Say What You See

• Show the thing the viewer typed into the search bar.
• Best for browse, suggested, and search.

**Which one do you pick?
**
Research what other people have used based on your topic and see which strategy brought in more views.

THUMBNAIL DESIGN SYSTEM -  (VIDEO 4)

Step 1 - ALWAYS find videos other creators have made around the topic you want to talk about and save the thumbnails that have picked up lots of views to a vision board. 

If you find all the thumbnails with high views suck, examine a wider niche 

Step 2: Plan 3 thumbnails for the same video based on your research. (Keep this very draft)

• What emotion/expression might you use?

• What strategy will you use? 

• What items/assets will you need?

• What will the hero be?

Step 3: Feedback 

• Share your three draft concepts and ask questions that will help you work out which one might worst best

• Keep your questions simple and ask things like “what sticks out first” or “what do you think this video is about” or “what questions appear in your mind when you see this”

Never go with your first thumbnail idea

Step 4:  Produce the images 

• Take your photos and edit your images 

Step 5: Turn your 3 images in to 15

• Make very subtle tweaks and save the image. This might mean changing the colour of the background or text or swapping an item in the image. 

Step 6: Add you 15 thumbnails along with their titles in to  thumbsup.tv, screen shot them and then place them in a vision board so you can pick your top three (but also have some fantastic back up options too)

Step 7: Ask in the Discord which from the top three would you click on