Do video thumbnails matter?

[Jungle Explorer]

;-)

 

[Gourmet Gamer]

I think they do but I cant find any concrete evidence. I have been going back and adding more flashy,eye catching thumbnails to all my videos.

 

[adams eats]

I would say yes it matters, but it has a lot to do with what type of content you make. I could not get away with crappy thumbnails in a million years lol, I'd be lynched. I have 1 or 2 in video thumbnails because I just didn't have the time to take a proper photo, and those videos didn't do very well at all

 

[Gourmet Gamer]

I would say yes it matters, but it has a lot to do with what type of content you make. I could not get away with crappy thumbnails in a million years lol, I'd be lynched. I have 1 or 2 in video thumbnails because I just didn't have the time to take a proper photo, and those videos didn't do very well at all

I just wanted to say its a shame you dont have more subscribers. Some of the better quality cooking/food videos I have seen.

 

[Jungle Explorer]

I have been doing the same thing. But it is really hard for me to tell, because my channel has a such a broad spectrum of content. I always try to think of myself as the consumer and do what I think would attract me, but I am not your run of the mill person. I tend to shy away from thumbnails that look too professional or flashy, because most of the time when I click on those, I get more PROMO type stuff then hands on videos from other users.

 

[adams eats]

I just wanted to say its a shame you dont have more subscribers. Some of the better quality cooking/food videos I have seen.

Wow! thank you so much, that's really nice of you to say! I think maybe the lack of subscribers might be down to not really knowing what im doing haha. Just kind of winging things at the moment until i figure out what works.

 

[MintApocalypse]

Thumbnails definitely matter, you want people to be curious enough about the thumbnail that they want to see it in action. I personally prefer when I can do a custom thumbnail because that puts me in control of deciding how to draw people in, where as youtube could pick some really bad parts of the video for the default thumbnails.

 

[Jungle Explorer]

Wow! thank you so much, that's really nice of you to say! I think maybe the lack of subscribers might be down to not really knowing what im doing haha. Just kind of winging things at the moment until i figure out what works.

There are few things you can do to get more subs. In my limited experience applying a Branding image to your videos is about the best. Branding is a little image that appears on all your videos in the corner that people can click on to subscribe to your channel. I have tried many other things, but branding has produced the best results for me.

 

[Brian Benedict]

So i actually tested this recently on my channel. I had some videos that previously got good views but died down. Then i updated the thumbnails with Photoshop and i did see a significant amout of views starting to come about. And the views are still coming slowly but surely. I think making the thumbnail more eye appealing helped out very well and it proved a point to me. That thumbnails are extremely important, especially if you have a small channel like myself.

 

[javacentral]

I consider thumbnails like box art on a video game. Say you have no idea what the game is about other than the name/title and the box art. If the art is bad, how likely are you gonna buy it compared to one that looks nice, crisp and really awesome looking? I know I'd be turned off to it!