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May I ask a not so smart question... What is the big deal with thumbnails for YouTube videos. Like, I am always hearing about these thumbnails as if they can ma
by chirau 2y ago
May I ask a not so smart question... What is the big deal with thumbnails for YouTube videos. Like, I am always hearing about these thumbnails as if they can make or break a video/channels outcomes.
- Conan_Kudo 2y agoBecause they can. The thumbnails are the first impression of a video, and if it isn't attention-grabbing, the video suffers.
- danielheath 2y agoAt the end of a video, youtube shows thumbnails for several "suggested next videos". The thumbnail, video name and channel name are the only bits of information potential viewers see - if your thumbnail isn't good, they aren't even going to _start_ your video, let alone keep watching it.
- smohare 2y ago[dead]
- xingped 2y agoThink of it like a book cover. Regardless of a book's title or summary, an attractive (attracting? attention grabbing?) cover will get more people to click it. Also depending on where the thumbnail is displayed, you may not see the full video title, such as the grid after a video finishes playing.
- technion 2y agoI have tobwonder how many variations of "gaping mouths and shocked expressions" we can come up with.
- smohare 2y ago[dead]
- xingped 2y agoI do hate that style of thumbnail too. But hey, it just tells me not to click on the video. So it serves its purpose for me. But metrics I guess tell the youtubers that that thumbnail brings in lots of traffic. I think especially younger kids gravitate to it, unfortunately.
- KetoManx64 2y agohttps://dearrow.ajay.app/ https://dearrow.ajay.app/ will replace those thumbnails automatically for you
- dylan604 2y agoUnfortunately, the addage doesn't hold. You can pretty much judge the YT video by the cover.
- pyinstallwoes 2y agoI guess you’re in the minority of thinking people.
- vunderba 2y agoThough I haven't seen stats to back it up - I've heard from multiple sources that thumbnails which include a gigantic bobblehead of the author with a particularly exaggerated stupid looking expression on their face induce more people to click through. Even if it's for the sake of feeding the algorithm, I do my best to skip them. I also internally prioritize videos which: - avoid usage of superlatives "TOP X", "BEST OF Y" - have more than 5k views and less than 250k views. After a while, my YT recommendations have become mostly solid.
- ryandrake 2y agoIt's called YouTube Face[1] and the fact that it works makes me weep for humanity. 1: https://allscience.substack.com/p/on-the-grim-reality-of-youtube-face https://allscience.substack.com/p/on-the-grim-reality-of-you...
- zozbot234 2y ago> It's called YouTube Face[1] and the fact that it works makes me ( ͡ಠ ʖ̯ ͡ಠ) (fixed it for you)
- araes 2y agoFrom looking at the link you posted, the immediate consideration, is it looks like they're all optimizing for a pornography face. Would not be very surprising based on the reputation of the internet.
- gblargg 2y agoI mostly skip videos with arrows in the thumbnails.
- CyberDildonics 2y agoEveryone knows you need the mouth open dumb face or the completely fake AI image for max brain rot which drives views and "engagement" (commenting on the fact that it's nonsense with people then defending the video as an authority as if it isn't stock footage with an AI voice reading a reddit comment).
- giuseppe_petri 2y agoI've been calling this concept "enragement". I'm sure I'm not the only one.
- grandempire 2y agoMr Beast says he designs the thumbnail before making the video, then plans how to make a video to fit it.
- SunlitCat 2y agoThat sounds kinda like first finding a name for a software project (or the final product) and then design the product around that name! :D
- cl0ckt0wer 2y agoMore like designing the storefront before designing the business.
- speckx 2y agoOr getting a domain name before doing everything else.
- grandempire 2y agoIt does sound silly, but it also points to shallow nature of YouTube content. If you don’t have a good thumbnail it’s going to limit the success of your video because some percentage won’t click on it. It’s just how it goes.
- loeg 2y agoIt's like a headline in visual form. The most attention-grabbing thumbnail gets the clicks.
- phire 2y agoYou know how YouTubers are always talking about how "the algorithm" didn't like this video, or loves that video. Or that "the algorithm" is a huge black block which nobody knows how it works. Youtube's "the algorithm" will make or break both videos and channels. But "the algorithm" isn't really a mystery. At a basic level, it just shows a bunch of video recommendations to viewers, and measures if they click it or not (watch time, comments, likes also factor into the algorithm, but none of that matters if they don't click first). The higher the click-through rate, the more the video is pushed in recommendations. And the only things a viewer sees is the thumbnail, channel name, and video title. They have to decide which video they are going to watch based on just that. So really, a large chunk of "the algorithm" is just how appealing your thumbnail is to potential views.
- mrheosuper 2y agonot sure if this is good thing, but recently i've seen youtube recommend videos from very small channel(sub <10k)
- dboreham 2y agoLike thread priority inversion.
- SoftTalker 2y agoI think there’s a randomized inclusion of new content just to see if anyone clicks it.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoI think the mystery is in the categorization of interests and user profiling. The click is central to the process, but the magic is getting your pie video in front of someone on a baking video binge, and not someone trying to to fix their oven.
- chaorace 2y agoThere actually is an outcome worse than a missed click: if too many viewers are abandoning your video within the first few minutes (i.e. before midrolls), you'll experience substantial downranking. More or less, the art of making a successful video requires: * An attention-grabbing thumbnail * A curiosity-provoking title & premise * A strong hook which convinces the viewer to put the screen down and let it run * Editing which delivers the information at an engaging (yet monetizable) pace * Packaging said information so that it is intelligibly balanced across the mediums (audio/text/video) * ^^^ Doing this all in a style which still retains enough uniqueness to establish a repeat viewerbase "The algorithm" is a system for efficiently delivering novel videos with these qualities to the audiences who will most eagerly consume them, which is an essential function for a platform with 2 billion monthly users. For every video on lowest-common-denominator celebrity junk, there's a dozen niche videos tailored to some ravenous subculture or other. Not all magazines are tabloids... but just about anyone can kill time with a tabloid, so that's what leads. Unlike magazine stands, however, the platform will eventually learn to only show you the thumbnails for videos you'll want to finish watching. It's almost embarassing to share... but here's an example batch of 12 recommendations, almost all of which I'm likely to (eventually) click on and fully watch: https://i.imgur.com/dygfXXb.png https://i.imgur.com/dygfXXb.png
- bloqs 2y agoYoutube content is driven heavily by children and sheltered people who are easily engaged with animalistic displays of expression and bright colors. I wish I was joking
- chris_wot 2y agoHey, some of less unsheltered adults are swayed by it also!
- typeofhuman 2y agoDo YouTube engineers make great content, are they allowed to? I've interacted with Google, Meta, Amazon, Twitch engineers. But yet to with a YouTube engineer.
- KetoManx64 2y agoMostly videos about:getting chai lattes on the roof, 3 course meals from 4 star restraunts for lunch and yoga sessions in the early afternoon after a quick meeting with the manager. Aka "Average day in the life of a YouTube engineer"
- wahnfrieden 2y agothose are produced by recruiting
- all2 2y agoSo I need a job on the recruiting team. Got it.
- eru 2y agoGoogle food isn't actually all that great in most of their offices. Sydney, where I used to work for them, is pretty good; New York is decent. But I was rather underwhelmed by my visits to Mountain View.
- 2y ago
- DidYaWipe 2y agoIt's really embarrassing at this point. Even once-respectable content creators feel that they must now resort to absurd mugging in every thumbnail.
- brudgers 2y agoFrom my practical experience, they seem to make a difference in initial engagement which in turn makes a difference in algorithmic promotion which in turn makes a difference in overall “performance.” Tracking what you click on versus what you don’t, you might recognize that certain thumbnails make you more likely to take a pass. For clarity, my experience is at hobby scale and part of that hobby is learning about youtube. Trying to make the line go up is fun (until it isn’t) and a little attention to thumbnails seems to make the line go up.
- JohnTHaller 2y agoIt's a smart question. It wouldn't seem to make much difference since you'd assume people would have channels they're subscribed to or search for something specific. Much of YouTube watch time is based on discovering new videos. And a big part of that is the thumbnail people see when they're looking at suggested content, related content, or search results. Colors, whether there are faces, fonts, images, etc all make a difference. And it varies over time and genre. YouTube has tools built in so you can A/B test different thumbnails and automatically select the better performing one. Note that I haven't done any of this myself except for making a couple thumbnails for personal videos. I was curious and watched a YouTube video about thumbnails and why they're important.
- ako 2y agoWhat capabilities was gimp missing to create these thumbnails?
- numpad0 2y agoI think there's a minor confusion going on here with respect to what constitutes a good YouTube thumbnail as well as what are good YouTube contents. Very few of channels I subscribe and watch, such as Forgotten Weapons, Technology Connections, Scott Manley, USCSB, CuriousMarc, media.ccc.de, etc. uses that open mouth YouTube face for their thumbnails, if they display a human face in a thumbnail at all. I would consider Doug Demuro videos to be embarrassingly deep into "typical YouTube stupidity" realm to admit watching, but even he tend to leave his mouth less than fully open. Do they not engineer their thumbnails to "appease the algorithm" - they do, by showing accurate and intriguing previews of what is to be presented, that for those channels often happens not to be an adult male human face with all orifices articulated to near or past mechanical limits, which, by the way, is an another one of optima. The statement "one can(not) judge a book by its cover" is not functionally equal to "books dipped longest in fluorescent yellow dye sell the most", at all. Apples and oranges both have their place.