- YouTube has changed a lot over the years.
New designs, new creators.
- Hey, It's Fred and I'm gonna go grocery shopping!
(mouse popping)
- New rules, but I never expected this one.
Go to your YouTube app, scroll down, stop.
And watch as the video thumbnail disappears
and the video starts playing.
This is called The Inline Player.
Now, this is not anything new.
You've seen this on YouTube pretty much all this year.
However, I'm going somewhere.
You stop scrolling, and then the video plays,
hopefully helping the viewer get a taste
of your content before they decide to click or skip.
And for creators like you and me
this change is a mix of good and bad
and scary. (loud crashing)
And this video I wanna share what this
change means for the future
of thumbnail art on YouTube, your video's performance,
and how you can work with this change to see better results
on your YouTube uploads.
Thumbnails used to serve
as the only visual gateway into your content.
They were the deciding factor
between viewers clicking or passing up on your video.
But now with the inline player
introducing new viewing behaviors,
your video thumbnail is becoming a little bit obsolete
and your video intro actually matters a lot more
than ever before.
Perhaps even more important than your thumbnail itself.
And I'm not crazy because this is not my opinion.
According to YouTube director Todd Beaupre
intros are becoming increasingly important
as the YouTube homepage and search
incorporate more inline video previewing
versus static thumbnails.
For many viewers, the video intro is the new thumbnail.
Those are words directly from the director at YouTube.
Your video intro, those are what.
Girl, I'm trying to record a video like Cindy, baby.
Girl, you gotta take that over there.
Video intros for a lot of viewers are becoming
the new thumbnail, and we confirm this by asking all of you.
71% of viewers polled on our channel
said that they used these previews in the app to decide
if they want to continue watching a creator's video
which is actually crazy because viewers are not
just looking at your title and thumbnail
when making the decision to watch a video.
Your video intro is a third factor
and YouTube could move away
from custom thumbnails on the homepage entirely.
It's really not that strange
of a thought when you think about it.
Most platforms have already moved away
from thumbnails in the home feed.
Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn.
You don't see thumbnails in the main mobile feed.
Even Netflix has an autoplay feature.
Videos that autoplay also seem to
boost engagement and retention.
On Facebook, autoplay increased likes, shares, and comments
by 25% according to one report.
And Twitter revealed that brands saw a 700% increase
in completions of promoted videos via autoplay,
boldly labeling the change
as a new standard in viewability.
This could honestly be a win-win for platforms and creators
and I wouldn't be surprised if YouTube's already
planning to shift away from thumbnails in the near future.
After all, this whole inline player update
we saw this year started as a test in 2017.
And in 2018, YouTube was already experimenting
with replacing your custom thumbnails
with auto generated ones with a small percentage of users.
A bigger shift away from customized thumbnails
in a viewer's recommendations may not be that far off.
For many of you, this might be incredible news.
If you're anything like me, I'm not a graphic designer,
you're probably not a graphic designer.
Most of us suck at making thumbnails.
Let's, can we just be honest?
Can we just be open here?
And countless videos get held back
by poor titles and thumbnails.
Even Mr. Beast had to change the thumbnail on this video
five times before finally seeing the performance
he was looking for. It's the same video.
The content itself wasn't in the way.
It was the thumbnail.
According to his manager.
The video saw an increase of
around 10 million views after changing the thumbnail.
But what if we didn't have to worry
about our thumbnails limiting the success
of our videos at all?
What if we could just focus
on creating content and let YouTube's robots do the rest?
I'm not opposed to that.
Hey, but listen here, buddy.
That future is not here yet.
You still need to focus on making great thumbnails.
Plus, I don't see custom thumbnails disappearing
in other parts of the platform.
Like in screens, playlist, your channel page,
which are huge traffic sources.
And if you minimize a video that you're currently watching
that whole autoplay thing just stops entirely.
So thumbnails are not out the window yet.
(loud crashing)
With this in mind, it's critically important
for you to consider title, thumbnail,
and intro while packaging your videos.
Not only to future proof your content
if thumbnails go bye-bye.
But to increase your video's performance today.
Because we also learned in our polls
that 41% of viewers will move on
from a video entirely if they decide it's not interesting
within the first 10 seconds.
Which is even more reason for your intros to be on point.
And I don't know if you knew this
but your bad intro might be killing your click-through rate.
In the past, your click-through rate was calculated based
on how many viewers watched your video
after seeing the thumbnail on YouTube.
But if nobody sees your thumbnail
what's considered an impression?
And if the video is just always playing,
what's considered a view?
Well, direct answers are hard to find
but I did some digging.
- I'm tired of this, Grandpa. - That's too!
- YouTube did update their help docs to let creators know
that autoplay from the home page do count as impressions.
They also told creators that autoplays
in the home feed will be counted as views
when determining click-through rate.
But when is an autoplay impression counted as a view?
Since the video is always playing.
Now they ain't telling us that much.
But based on some testing, AKA me sitting there
and watching videos at different lengths
until I see when it enters my watch history,
I think we can make an educated guess.
It looks like the video shifts from an impression to a view.
After holding the viewer's attention for 10 seconds.
Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap.
Because like I said, 41% of viewers in our poll said
that they will move on from a video
within 10 seconds if it does not capture their attention.
In this inline player
because you know the viewer really never committed
to the video, just makes it too easy
for them to keep scrolling.
Meaning that if your intros don't hook the viewer
that impression may never move on to a full view.
And a lot of impressions plus little views
equals the saddest little click-through rate.
So I repeat your video title, thumbnail, and intro
are not only important for your video success today,
but in the future.
And like we saw in the Mr. Beast example,
if your content is underperforming
because of a poor title or thumbnail
you can switch that sucker out as much as you'd like.
But if the intro is causing people to lose interest
that's a little, that's a little tougher to fix.
While a better title or thumbnail will help
it won't solve the problem completely.
That dip is kind of out of your hands after publishing.
That's why I made this video to help you hook viewers faster
and keep them watching longer.
Smash the subscribe button and I will see you over there.
- Which is pretty scary.
But we're already optimizing the intros.
I just love packaging, like I love titles and thumbnails.
It's like a weird passion.
It's like my favorite thing about creating.
And so that the idea that that would be obsolete is sad
but there's always a way to, to be innovative and creative.