- Not too long ago,
I made a community post asking my subscribers
to upload their best performing YouTube thumbnails
so Nate from Channel Makers and I could take a look at them
and tell you how to make them better.
We got hundreds of responses,
and you guys have some really great looking thumbnails.
But I passed those thumbnails off to Nate
so he could score them and so we could figure out a few
to really highlight some to help you learn
how to make better thumbnails for your YouTube videos.
So we're gonna call Nate and see what he came up with.
- Hey. - Nate, what's up, dude?
How's it going?
- It is going good.
Going good, good to talk.
- Good to talk for sure, man.
Hey, do you get a chance to check out that collection
of thumbnails that I sent over to you that we collected
from the community the other day?
- Abso-freaking-lutely.
I've been looking at hundreds of them.
I picked some favorites.
- Let's get into it then and show everybody
how to start getting more clicks on their thumbnails.
So we're gonna do that and we're starting right now.
- Okay, so one of the biggest questions
that I was having when I was looking through
all of these thumbnails.
There was hundreds of thumbnails,
which, thank you, everybody in Nick's audience.
You guys have some awesome, awesome thumbnails.
So as I was looking through these,
I realized one of the best things
that I could share with you would be a way
to measure your own thumbnails because we know,
you're here, you've watched a lot of Nick's videos,
you know how important thumbnails are on YouTube, right?
So in order to do that,
this is for Nick and for you watching this,
I came up with a simple four point system
to measure to judge your own thumbnails
on four different aspects of your thumbnail.
The first is audience match.
Like how well that thumbnail matches
the audience that you're looking to target.
The second is the overall quality of the thumbnail,
the images, the graphics, your face, if your face is in it.
And the third is the clarity.
How easy is it to understand the message of that thumbnail?
And then the fourth is the curiosity or the idea match.
Like how curiosity inducing,
how interesting or appealing is the thumbnail?
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go ahead
and share my screen here with Nick watching also
and share several of the thumbnails that you shared
and give ratings as well as commentary
on each of those four aspects of the thumbnails
so you get a good sense of how to judge your own.
- And I'm taking notes too, Nate.
I know you're getting ready to drop some fire right here,
so I'm taking notes myself.
Super looking forward to this.
- Okay, so first video,
this is from the channel Better Mind Journey,
which as of recording, has 50 subscribers.
You're doing awesome.
This video has almost three times that amount of views,
and this video is, is this important to understand,
as we're looking at the thumbnail,
it's four tips to switch off after working from home.
So let's look at the thumbnail.
So first things that I'm liking about this thumbnail,
it's got a great original image,
but I do like that this image was created originally.
We've got some graphics,
as well as the creativity of using the words relax O' clock
because we're trying to switch off
after working from home, right?
I give it a score between one and five.
You can do this for your own thumbnails.
This one, match for the audience.
Hey, we're looking to improve mindset.
I'm gonna give it a four outta five.
It's pretty clear.
I like the creativity of this right here,
the relax O' clock.
I like that it's kind of a fun play on words,
and it does have an original image
so it's going to be eye catching.
The next thing I'm looking at on this thumbnail is quality.
The thing that I measure here is the quality of the images,
but also does it feel generic?
And in this case, the use of these paperclips, this clock,
most of the time, I don't normally suggest
using kind of clip art type of stuff,
but in this case,
it's been tied together with a nice color scheme
so it does bump it up, that score, in my mind.
So as far as overall quality, the image looks good.
I'm gonna give it a four.
Next factor I'm gonna judge this on is the overall clarity.
Now, this is the rule, I would say.
If you're looking at your thumbnails and you're saying,
how clear is the idea of this thumbnail?
And especially if I were to go way back,
I call it the six foot away rule,
or if you're on your phone,
you could just pull up your phone
and look at your thumbnail on a phone screen,
and say how easy is it to discern all the elements
of this thumbnail and how well can I understand
the concept of the thumbnail from at far away?
This one's doing pretty well for me,
so I'm gonna give it a three out of five.
Now the last factor to judge your own thumbnails
is the idea or the curiosity match.
Now, if I were to put this in a succinct way,
it would be how intriguing is that thumbnail
to the right audience,
to the audience that you're targeting with your content?
Now, this one I was left wanting
because it doesn't necessarily give me
any strong compelling reasons to watch it.
It's got kind of a posed picture over here.
We've got a clock.
It's like, okay, it has to do with time.
We've got relax 'O clock, which is creative,
but it's not necessarily curiosity inducing to me.
So on this, I actually gave it a score of one out of five.
The important thing to remember here is
that each of those aspects are important,
and you can nail one and lose the others
and still not have an effective thumbnail.
So we're not just gonna leave it at that.
What would we change about this?
This is a couple of guys and Nick and myself
getting together and saying, look, here's a thumbnail.
The impression, what would actually this thumbnail
that much better?
So for me, I can start off here.
The main thing, and this is why I scored it so low
is I don't have a strong appealing reason
to watch this video.
Now, the video we know is called four tips
to switch off after work from home,
which I think is a good concept.
It's a good idea for video,
but based on this thumbnail,
there's no strong like, yeah, yeah, I wanna watch that.
So what it needs to me is some sort of like actual listical
or showing like tip number one,
and then maybe we blur out the other ones.
So it's non-obvious feeling.
It feels like, oh, she's gonna share
some really good information in this,
and I'm not getting any of that thus far.
- In addition to that, on my end,
one of the things that I think
would be really helpful for this,
the clarity in terms of relax, o'clock,
really with this thumbnail,
just saying relax after work
might just add a lot more clarity
because you got words on there anyway.
So if you're gonna take up
that screen real estate with words,
then go ahead and just make it clear,
you know, relax after work.
So then that way it's crystal clear.
They don't have to put any thought into it whatsoever.
But in addition to that,
I also think you need to make it stand out a little bit.
If you look at the thumbnail,
you can see that you're wearing a purple shirt,
you have the pinkish purple background,
you have the pinkish purple relax word there.
And because of that,
it's just kind of like a muted thumbnail
and it doesn't really pop, so to speak.
So because of that, I would either change
the entire background to maybe like a soft yellow
or maybe like a soft blue,
or change the word relax into like a yellow
with maybe a thicker black on the border
or maybe a light there as well
just to kinda help it stand out against that pink.
You could even experiment with orange in that area as well.
And if you're like really high level Photoshop,
then in that case, if you did take the approach
where you were changing the color of the word,
you might also want to change
the colors of your shirt as well
and change it from that purple to a color
that would match the blue
just to kind of pull it all together
and create that final good looking in product, so to speak.
- All right, next thumb I was looking at here
is from the channel TLO Mike Rogers,
and it's just over a thousand subscribers, congratulations,
and is doing pretty darn good in terms of views.
And it's what I look for when hunting mule deer part one.
Now, this thumbnail was very interesting to me,
but the first thing I'm looking at here is audience match.
Meaning how well does this thumbnail match the audience
that I'm trying to attract on YouTube?
And where it's hunting, I thought this did,
it was pretty good.
Not very descriptive, and so I give it
a three out of five.
It's fine.
It's doing fine.
The next aspect I'm looking at here
is the overall quality of it.
Now, this is just an image.
Just a photograph and there's two words
and a couple of arrows.
It's kind of middle of the line,
so I give that a three out of five.
Now, as far as clarity,
the clarity scoring here, I could read this.
I mean, it's a little bit odd that the Os are filled in
and the R is filled in, but I could read this from far away.
It's good.
It gives is the right impression.
But again, it's middle of the line.
I'm gonna give it a three also.
Now, the last aspect is intrigue
or how appealing the idea of the video itself is,
again, for the target audience.
This one actually scores higher for me,
which is actually why it stood out
when I was looking through all of the thumbnails.
I'm gonna give this one a five actually.
And here's why.
It leads my eyes clearly,
look here to something happening,
and therefore, I had the curiosity of what is happening
and I need to know what it is.
I think I was nicer than I should have been, Nick, here.
- If this were to show up on a homepage
next to a bunch of other hunting related content,
then there's a really good chance
that if that other hunting related content
had imagery that was more symbolic of hunting,
that somebody's attention would be pulled
more to that than it would this.
So I think that how he's got like the open field in there,
I think he's halfway there.
I think he's on that path
because this could be something related to hunting,
but I just think that he needs to dial in a little bit more.
You know what would be a great fix for this
to where he could leave everything exactly as it is
if he just put a scope as like an overlay
right on top of this because then that way,
a hunter might recognize that.
That would be experiment number one.
- Next video we're looking at,
this is from the channel The Film Cactus,
which has just over 500 subscribers.
And the video's done pretty well, 7,600 views.
And it's making the protein bars from "Snowpiercer."
Now, I personally, haven't watched the show,
but let's take a look at this thumbnail.
Okay, so first things I'm seeing,
again, in terms of audience match, it's about a show.
The audience, I'm assuming, based on the name of the channel
The Film Cactus, they're doing commentary on films,
and so films or shows, right?
And so, "Snowpiercer," we've got it going up here.
Protein bars, we've got an image from the show behind here,
and then an image of the channel maker right here
showing them eating the same thing.
So as far as matching the right audience,
I might give this a three out of five.
It feels like, okay, this is good.
It's going to appeal to the right audience.
The next factor being quality overall.
This is where I have kind of the biggest issue.
Well, quality and clarity.
Because quality, we can see something's going on.
We put the logo of the show up here, right?
It's "Snowpiercer," we've got an image,
but the problem is it's too flat.
And this plays into clarity also.
I see, it almost looks like this image right here
and this image are the same image and it feels like
the image of the channel maker needs to pop out more.
It needs to be more distinct
from the rest of this background.
- In this case, if they were actually looking
at the key camera instead of looking down at the bar,
then that would create a little bit of a separation there.
A little bit of a drop shadow on the person
so that it's clear that they're away from that background
just a little bit.
And I also think that since the creator's in this anyway,
would you agree that emotion here
would really take this one to like an another level?
- I wanna know how that bar tastes.
Because I'm not getting a sense.
And I get, I think the thinking going into this was,
I'm gonna basically recreate this over here, you know?
I'm gonna make the exact same image.
It'll be creative, right?
I'm gonna create the same thing,
but I don't think it's serving.
Overall quality, I'm giving it a two.
Clarity, again, a two, just because of the factors
that we talked about.
A little drop shadow, maybe a white outline,
maybe a little glow.
Just I would experiment with a lot of those things
because it needs to feel like this is my image.
Appeal for the audience.
Again, I'm gonna score it low.
I'm gonna give it a two or three
mostly because it it's good.
It's like, hey, I actually made these.
You know, we've got the quotation pro eating bars, right?
From what I understand from the comments,
they put bugs in the bars and stuff.
And so, I wanna see a reaction.
And so, the intrigue factor would be,
exactly what Nick was saying, that emotion.
I wanna see you eating it and like, ugh, this is disgusting
or eating it like, oh, that's not bad.
Just some sort of reaction
I think would really improve this.
- Now, Nate, really quick while we're sharing
all this information about thumbnails,
you have like an hour long training
inside of your project 24 YouTube system, right?
- I do actually.
Because what I've found is, oftentimes,
what people need is a tool to walk them through
systematically, methodically,
how to produce an effective thumbnail
as well as really recognize what aspects of other thumbnails
were successful versus not,
like actually how to judge thumbnails across all of YouTube.
- Awesome, and you have other
growth related things in there too.
So pretty much anything someone needs help with
with their channel, you've got all that covered in there?
- Yes.
I think that perhaps one of my strengths
is system and just seeing patterns,
and so I have a methodical just this, this, this, this.
It's incredibly helpful, yes.
- Because I know Nate's not gonna say it,
but just so everybody knows,
you can find that over at channelmakers.com.
So make sure you check that out
if you need some help with your thumbnails.
- All right, next one.
I had to pick this one
because they did something really interesting with it.
So the channel's Para.
Just over a hundred subscribers as of recording.
Doing really well.
It's teen reacts to Dream versus 5 Hunters grand finale.
Now, the interesting thing here is actually Para
submitted two different thumbnails as well as a screenshot.
Let me show you.
So this was the first thumbnail, thumbnail A.
They tested this one,
and then they tried another thumbnail, which was this one.
Now, if you compare it to the other one,
there's some significant differences.
Now, he's reacting.
It's the classic reaction face
we got going over on this side.
But the main difference was we added an arrow over here
and showed a different scene from the grand finale,
what he was reacting to.
So, Nick, I wanted to have a little fun with this one
and say which one of these thumbnails
do you feel like did better in terms of overall views?
- I would think that the other one would do better.
So I would think that the one without the arrow
and the other one would do better
just because it's more easy to recognize,
but of course that those arrows and circles,
man, those things work like a charm.
So, but I'm just gonna for the sake of playing the game,
I'm gonna say that the one right here
with the majority of the Minecraft imagery was the winner.
- So everybody watching, just so you know,
Nick is, he knows his stuff.
Let me show you this screenshot.
We had a spike, and then it kind of leveled off
when he switched it to B.
And then he switched back to A, and it took off again.
Crazy, crazy.
So let's talk about why A, this thumbnail A,
we think it did better.
- One of the things that we always talk about, Nate,
is how important it is to help people recognize
that your content is something that they care about
or that they would be interested in.
And in this example,
I think that having the Minecraft elements
in the bottom thumbnail, in the B thumbnail,
you know, it has those elements in there,
but it's just much easier to recognize
with the one in the top.
But in addition to that,
we also have the color of the shirt.
So here changed his shirt color to red,
which also grabs more attention than the white does as well,
especially for light mode users.
- And the other big thing,
and I genuinely think this is one of the biggest factors,
it's reacting to a large Minecraft YouTuber.
And it's not obvious in this thumbnail visually
that that's that YouTuber.
But this one, he's got the same look in every video
that's like his branded look, Dream's branded look.
And it's very clear in this one, as well as up here,
there's five people looking down on them.
It's a more intriguing image overall.
- Yeah, that part about it being
about another content creator, I didn't even know that.
Yeah, so that part standing out in terms of also
tapping into that other content creator's branding,
yeah, that's like next level stuff right there.
- Next level stuff. - Yeah, that's awesome.
Now look, in addition to thumbnails,
I know you also wanna make your lighting
and your set look better.
So we made a video on Nate's channel
sharing all kinds of tips about how to improve your lighting
and your set design.
You can click into that right here, right now.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.