"If Ali Abdaal can't think of a sufficiently intriguing thumbnail for his video ideas, he won't even make the video. No matter how great the idea is, the YouTuber with 5 million subscribers it's not worth the effort of writing, recording, and editing a video if he doesn't have a showstopper thumbnail for it - because no one is going to watch it."
""Thumbnails are absolutely critical," Paul O'Malley, whose YouTube channel on tips for improving efficiency, skyrocketed to success within a matter of months. "They're often the first thing viewers see, and a compelling thumbnail is the often difference between someone clicking on your video or scrolling past it. In my content area, a better thumbnail can often be the deciding factor between my video being chosen over someone else's that might be covering the same topic.""
"Buffer's Senior Product Designer, Alicja Suska, agrees. At the start of her journey with Outdraw Design, a channel that helps product designers level up, she went for simple thumbnails to free up time to focus on filming and editing her videos. "I used my photo with a dark background and title written in highlighted text," she says. "It was great for consistency and"
Some creators will not produce videos without a compelling thumbnail, abandoning even strong ideas if a showstopper image cannot be conceived. High-profile creators invest heavily in thumbnails and generate many options per video. YouTube reports that 90 percent of top-performing videos use custom thumbnails rather than auto-generated stills. Thumbnails act as the primary visual cue for viewers and often determine whether someone clicks or scrolls past. A more effective thumbnail can make one video chosen over another covering the same topic. Many creators use consistent, simple photo-based thumbnails to save time while filming and editing.
Read at Buffer: All-you-need social media toolkit for small businesses
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]