How To Create A Youtube Thumbnail

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Youtube

Thumbnails are the storefront to YouTube business. I'm Kris Krohn, I'm Grant
Thompson with Self Made and today, we're going to show you how to get those rocking
thumbnails rocking. Let's dive right in.
The way you get a video watched on YouTube obviously as it pops up and
there has to be something that makes you want to click on it. I mean when a video
comes up for you Kris, what helps determine whether or not you actually
want to watch that video? This is thumbnail. What's the title of that?
What's the thumbnail and does it honestly pull me in and look intriguing
enough to like...if you spent a million dollars making the most fantastic video
the world has ever seen, but nobody clicks on, it then it's not going to do any
good. So... by the way I just got to say, have
you actually ever been to a site where people are like selling cars or and
that's like no picture available or you're looking at real estate and
there's like no picture available. I don't know about you, but I just skip it.
Yeah. Like imagine having no thumbnail and competing against someone else that
actually put a little bit of time, effort and attention into that, it's going to be a world of a
difference. Yes, we have over 1 billion hours of YouTube being consumed every
day. So if you don't have something that immediately grabs someone's attention,
they're going to skip onto the next thing. You got to make yourself relevant so
we're going to give you a few tips and tricks to make some excellent clickable
thumbnails. I'm excited for this, because I've made hundreds of thumbnails or Nate
has. And I'm really excited to see what your specific tips are based on, what's
trending, what's popular and what are people really liking today. Hmmm, well I
don't really have it figured out because our views are dropping.
I did try clickbait thumbnails and that actually did pretty well for a while, but
then I sacrificed my reputation for it. So let's get started talking about
clickability. Because really what it comes down to is getting people to click
on your video. So what makes it clickable? Now, I do have to say right off the bat, I
did go to a conference or a seminar, where they emphasized how important it
was to have clickable thumbnails. And so about 8 months ago, I went through a
phase where I dressed my thumbnails up. I made them a little bit brighter, a little
bit more animated, because a lot of the videos that were getting clicked and had
a huge views had that style of video. So I started trying that on my channel, but
the feedback I got from a lot of people was very negative. Really? I've always
been known as an upfront, honest guy, I put everything on the table. And so when
I started doctoring my thumbnails to look more clickbaity, I started getting
a lot of kickback because people, I think they felt like it violated my
integrity. Can you actually tell us what you mean by
clickbait? Yeah, clickbait is often... it's actually out of context nowadays, but
what true clickbait is, is you put up a picture of something that somebody is
going to click on you know maybe it's a nice red Ferrari. You click on that video
and there's nothing in the video about a Ferrari, whatsoever. That's like a
bait-and-switch. It's a clickbait. And you weren't doing that, but that's now the
way that term has really been morphed into. "Oh I made my
thumbnail look so prestigious or not yes or glam. I think the
essence of it, is you're overselling and then really under-delivering. You're
getting people to come in the door to watch your video but then there's just
no substance. And so they are they left feeling empty. Now in my videos, what I
always try to do is deliver a lot of great content. I was just trying to get
people to click. And the interesting thing was, I did notice the click rates
went way up. I was getting double the views on a lot of my videos, but I had to
ask myself was that worth the, you know the integrity drop. Because as a result
to this day, I still have people who talk negatively against me because they feel
like I became the king of clickbait. Wow so that's one thing to consider, is like
as you're dressing up your thumbnails, how do you stay true to yourself? Yeah so
one of the things that we do in our thumbnails is, we'll usually... it's
interesting when we're actually shooting a video, we'll actually, intentionally try
to figure out a really fun way to to communicate whatever the message is like.
There was this one video that I did with my wife and I am talking about
communication styles and you know one of the things that was funny as she rolled
up a piece of paper like a trumpet and she was blasting something in my ear and
I was just, you know, so I was just kind of being a little bit cheesy, a little
bit fun. If people kind of know my style, my video, I can totally be a big nerd. We
nerd out a little bit on some of our thumbnails and I think Nate goes out of
his way. That's my producer, he'll actually.. I think if you take a video of
yourself and like it's amazing how you can pause in the middle of saying
something and look so unattractive. And Nate really has like this ability to
like find those moments. He's like "hey Kris, look what I loaded up on your
YouTube page." And I'm like, "wow you made me look even darker than I think I might
really be in life." That's right. So along that note, you know one of the things
that we use in our video production process, is an intentional thumbnail. So
at some point during the process, when we feel like, "hey this is the meat and
potatoes of the content. This is the stuff that will sell the video. Let's
pause for a second. Let's take an intentional thumbnail."
We're not in the middle of talking or we could just focus on the product or
get that real shot that we want. You want to think of, if you're putting a product
in your eBay store, your Amazon store like what is going to be attractive that
people are going to want to click on and you want to think the same thing with
your YouTube videos. Let's make an intentional thumbnail that looks good.
Some of the ways that you can do that, don't give away the ending. I mean if
your video is about a question or something that's going to happen, don't show
the final result in your thumbnail. Because then people don't have a reason
to click. You know, if your videos like what happens if you try lighting x and x
mixture and you show a big green flame. They're like, "oh it burns with a green
flame, no need to watch the video." So I find it's helpful, to actually show the
moment prior. Yeah. You know the mixtures mixed together, with the lighter
about to ignite. So it builds a little bit of anticipation. And I really like
that because you guys do that well in your videos. One of the things that I
always like to do is make sure that you just have really good clear readable
fonts. And something that really resonates with your brand, because I want
by my thumbnails. I want people to come to recognize me and like oh that's a you
know, that's a Limitless Wealth TV, you know, thumbnail or that's a Self Made
thumbnail. And so all of a sudden it's like, I'm building some brand recognition
there for individuals but it's also very clearly communicating more about what
the video is rather than just a picture of me just standing there.
My old thumbnails were like lame. It was just me talking and it would
have the words on the screen for what I was talking about, but it didn't really
wasn't showing anything in relation to what I was really going to be speaking
of. And that's the biggest change that I've made. Where we've really seen a big
uptick and people you know, finding more interesting clicking on what we're doing.
Perfect! I think it's also important to size your image as large as you
practically can. You got to remember, the thumbnail on YouTube really is only
about the size of your thumbnail. It's going to be very very tiny and so if you
have a very large picture of nothing with you know the main attraction in the
center, all you're going to see is... you're not going to see anything. So if you can
use some kind of editing software like Photoshop or some of the online free
graphic design software to blow that up and really show the viewer, what the
emphasis is. That's going to make a huge difference.
Also using graphics or text, if you want to add a red arrow or add a
circle, to direct attention or even some text with a question mark, what you're
doing is you're ultimately getting the viewer to ask themselves a question,
that's going to create suspense where they have to get the answer to.
You know television does this really well. You know, the reason people binge
watch Netflix I'm sure, is because the very last thing that happens in the
video is there's a cliffhanger that has to be answered. Oh...I know, it's so good
they do such a great job making you click that next video. So the whole goal
of title and a thumbnail, is basically to create a cliffhanger that people have to
click. You create a need for them to jump in there. The other thing is to make sure
that your thumbnails are large, that they're relevant and that they are very
colorful. You want your thumbnails to pop. You know if you look
at YouTube, you see what everybody else is doing, what little things can you do
differently, so that your thumbnails stand out. Your advertising to an
audience that is immediate consumers, you have about one second to make an
impression. Maybe even less. At first glance, what's going to make your
thumbnail pop out. So being large and being colorful is definitely going to
give you that advantage. We also use templates on our videos. We have a little
photoshop border that we add to each of our thumbnails, just to give it a little
bit of branding. Because when a video pops up in this suggested, I want
people to know this is a King of Random video. It's King of Random approved. So
you'll notice, our videos nowadays have a little caution bar on the top and the
bottom. And a little symbol in the top right. It's that's part of that branding
and that recognition that we're talking about. Yeah. "Oh my gosh, there's a video or
that's a King of Random video." So that you really want people to like, you know
be able to easily recognize it and get used to it. Yeah. Are you going to put a red
border around your thumbnails? Are you going to put some branding on it? Are you
going to maybe fade the edges? So it kind of blends into the page or is there some
other way you can manipulate that image to get it to pop. Really anything that
you can do to make it stand out from any other's video to get people's attention
is - step one, and then step two, is to create some kind of a need where they
feel like they need to click it. So hopefully, you know, big colorful, relevant
and something that formulates a question in the viewers mind that needs to be
answered. Awesome. Hey friends, so that's our information today on how to make a
thumbnail that's going to resonate, it's going to scream out, its going to say click me.
I want to know more about it. And remember, I think the best advice really
end with, is that this is your storefront. So, you put all this time into making the
video, you put all this time into getting it all prepped, now you got to make sure
that you have a still image, that people want to click on, so they can finally get
to the meat and potatoes. That's right. So happy working
on your thumbnails, and all the best with future clicks. Hey guys, I hope you
enjoyed some of these tips. These are things that we personally use. We're
always constantly tweaking them and we don't want to give the impression that
we've got it figured out. It's a constant work in progress but these are some tips
that I think are universal and your ingenuity, your creative nature is going to
figure out how that's going to work for you. Thank you so much for joining us today.
We really appreciate you and if this video is useful for you, feel free to go
ahead and share it with some of your friends and family and share with them
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How To Create A Youtube Thumbnail

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