Effective YouTube Thumbnails
Testing quite a few thumbnails on YouTube and Facebook, we need to ask ourselves which thumbnails are the most effective. This article provides the results of the experiments conducted.
Prerequisites
- Intermediate Skill Level Doodly Tutorial #23: Choosing Color Combinations
- Intermediate Skill Level Doodly Tutorial #24: Using Contrasting Colors
- Advanced Skill Level Doodly Tutorial #15: YouTube Thumbnails on Facebook
What is an Effective Thumbnail?
One that grabs the viewer’s attention and gets a click on your video. The thumbnail is the only thing a viewer has in a split second decision whether to click your video production on YouTube or someone else’s production. This is one thing that grabs your viewer’s attention and makes them say “I should watch this or I want to see this”.
YouTube Thumbnail Training
Contrasting colors and big bold font is necessary for making a good YouTube thumbnail.
Testing Results
We have tried a variety of thumbnails with varying degrees of success. A very long story short, there is a reason that big companies still use click bait thumbnails; because they work. Even the official Doodly channel uses click bait thumbnails because there is something about seeing a person making funny faces on the video thumbnail that just makes you want to click on the video.
