YouTube thumbnails are so important when it comes to snagging viewers attention
and increasing your click-through rate, which is a very important metric. If your thumbnail
isn't appealing then it's likely your video isn't going to get the views that you want.
A few days ago I discovered that YouTube has no plans to enable custom YouTube thumbnails
on Shorts videos in the same way as long form videos. Shorts thumbnails are visible on channel
pages on the shorts shelf or Carousel, as I like to call it, and in search. So how are you
going to make sure that your Shorts video is as appealing as possible if you can't add a custom
thumbnail? So this week I put my thinking cap on and I've come up with this fabulous solution
[Music] So in this video I'm going to show you how easy it is to create your own custom thumbnail for
YouTube Shorts video using just Canva. So the first step of course is to record your Shorts
video on your smartphone. Once you've done that you're going to upload it to Canva rather than
share it immediately to YouTube. The next step is to follow my instructions over on Canva.
From here you need to open up a blank mobile video template and this is very important. So
from the banner right at the top here find Videos and click on it and then select Mobile Video
and click on it to open up a blank template. This will be the exact size you need for a Shorts
video. Next you want to upload your Shorts video to Canva. So go to the left hand side
toolbar and click on Uploads, click Upload Files to find your video file on your local device.
Once uploaded you'll find it under the videos tab, and here is my video. So I'm going to click
on it once to add it to my template. Underneath your template in the design editor you'll find
the video editor timeline, so on the far left you'll find the play button and this black bar
here with the inverted black triangle over the top is the video playhead. It can be dragged
along the video by holding your cursor down over it and then moving it from side to side.
There are some huge benefits to editing your YouTube Shorts video within Canva. You can add
your own custom text, your brand colours, you can add music, filters and animated stickers. You also
have access to the beautiful video transitions. I've already created an in-depth tutorial about
how to use Canva's video editor so I'll leave a link in the description underneath do check
it out. But just to show you really quickly to add text go to the left hand side toolbar, click Text,
add a text box. I'm just going to make this bigger so you can see,
and then edit your text within the box.
I'm just going to change this so you can see it easily.
Okay you'll see that this text box has been applied to the
entire video so if you want to add it to just one portion of your video you'll need to do this. Drag
your video playhead to the position in your video where you want your text to end, so let's say I'm
going to drag it to the 10-second mark.
Now with the video still selected in the video editor
I'm going to right click and press Ctrl at the same time to access this little menu of features.
I'm now going to select Split Page and you'll see that you now have two portions of your video.
In the second portion you can either delete the text or you can edit it to say something else.
Okay so that's how you add text to a video in Canva.
Now that you've split your clip you can go ahead and add some beautiful transitions.
You can do this in one of two ways: hover your cursor in between both portions or pages and click
on Add Transition. Or hover your cursor over the far right hand side of your video clip, click on
the three little dots and select Add Transition. And that will bring up a menu of transitions in
the left hand side column on your page. I know I'm going through this really quickly but again
you can find all the details in a previous tutorial I published so I'll leave the link
to that video underneath this tutorial. So for now I'm going to select Slide as my transition.
You can also add music from the Canva library, so go to the left hand side
toolbar and click on Audio. Use the filters right at the top to narrow down your search,
so let's select Happy. Preview or pre-listen to a track by clicking on the little play button at
the centre of the thumbnail. You will notice that a lot of this music is available for Pro accounts
only so if you'd like to test out this music and add it some to your templates for free then click on
the link in the description box underneath this video to get instant access to Canva Pro for 45
days rather than the standard 30 days. When you've decided on a track you want to use in
your YouTube Short make sure the playhead in the video editor is dragged to the start of your video
and then drag and drop the music track into the video editor timeline. And there it is.
To add filters to your video select the video, go up to Edit Video and you'll find
all the filters in the left hand side column. Click on See All to open up the filter menu
and they're all free to use.
Now here's the really important bit. We're going to create our own custom thumbnail image.
Start by adding a blank new page to your video, so hover your mouse between the
first and the second page until you see the plus icon. Click on it to add a new page.
Now hold this page down and drag it to the start of your video. And here it is right here. a§§
Next we need to change the timing of this new page. By default it will be on screen for 5
seconds before it changes to the next page. Now since YouTube Shorts only last for 60 seconds at
most we want to reduce this timing to between 1.5 or 2 seconds. So with this page still selected go
up to the little clock icon in the toolbar, click on it to edit the timing, now type either 1.5 or
2 seconds into this box here. Hit enter and that's done. Now you can begin to use this page to create
a relevant and eye-catching thumbnail image in exactly the same way as you would to an ordinary
YouTube thumbnail image. And here is my custom thumbnail that I created. I've got my custom text,
I've added a background to my video short,
I've added my text, I've used some eye-catching stickers so I'm all ready to go. The last step
is to download my video from Canva, so to do that go to the Share button and click on it,
select Download, make sure your file type is an MP4 video. I have all my pages selected
and now all I need to do is click on Download.
I'm now going to hop over to my smartphone and upload this video into YouTube.
Obviously start by uploading your video by tapping the plus icon at the bottom of your screen.
Tap Create a Short. In the top right of your screen select whether you
want a 15-second YouTube short or a 60-second YouTube short.
Next tap the window in the bottom left to upload your video from your device.
Tap on the video thumbnail to select it.
Your video will appear on your screen and will start to play. If you like you can now
crop the video by tapping the video editor at the bottom of your screen and dragging the sidebars
from either end. Tap Done in the bottom right and wait for YouTube to process your video.
Next click on the tick mark in the bottom right of your screen
in the next screen. You have the opportunity to make some further edits if you want
but you know what this is why I love doing all of my editing in
Canva so that it's completely on brand and I can skip through all of these sections.
Once you're done editing just click on Next in the top right of your screen to go to the next stage.
Now this step is super IMPORTANT because it's here that we're going to add our custom thumbnail
image to our YouTube Shorts video. If you look in the top left hand portion of your screen
you'll already see a sort of thumbnail image in place, so to edit and set your thumbnail
image you're going to tap on this little pen icon in the top left hand corner of that image
on your screen. You'll now see some screenshots from the video you've just uploaded.
The first screenshot is taken from the very start of your video and this is another reason why I
suggest creating your YouTube Shorts in Canva so that you have a custom thumbnail image already.
If you did want to select another thumbnail image hold your finger down over the first thumbnail and
drag it along the editor underneath until you see an image you prefer. Now click on Done to
confirm your YouTube Short thumbnail. You can now complete your YouTube Short by adding that
all important title and all the other details underneath. Once done tap on Upload Short.
Once your video has finished uploading you'll see a little blue tick in the
bottom right of your screen. And this is what my thumbnail image looks like in my video library.
Don't forget to check out my previous tutorials which I mentioned throughout this video you'll
find the links in the description box underneath. And of course help yourself to that fabulous
45-day Canva Pro upgrade and help yourself to author premium Canva features. If you haven't
discovered Canva's AI features yet please do check them out, they are absolutely amazing,
and you'll find the link coming up in just a second. Thank you so much for watching don't
forget to subscribe to my channel for more videos just like this and I will see you next time.