I made only 3 videos on my channel and all of them went viral. One of the main reasons for that is of course, thumbnails. So this is the full breakdown of how I make viral thumbnails.
If you want to learn how to make a viral youtube thumbnail, or how to make better thumbnails overall, I'm sure you're gonna get something from this one.
Hope you enjoy
If you want to learn how to make a viral youtube thumbnail, or how to make better thumbnails overall, I'm sure you're gonna get something from this one.
Hope you enjoy
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00I made only three videos on this channel, and all of them got over 100,000 views.
00:04Believe it or not, it all comes down to these four steps.
00:07I already explained how I use storytelling to get more retention.
00:10Now it's time for step two.
00:12You ready?
00:13If no one clicks on the video, they don't watch.
00:14The point of a thumbnail is to create a journey.
00:16From the thumbnail to even the tie quality images are crucial.
00:20Add some intrigue.
00:20And make people want to know what happens next.
00:22Making sense that we need to make better thumbnails.
00:26I don't mean these guys are wrong, but let's be real.
00:28You already know all these basics.
00:30Even if you don't, they're just common sense.
00:32Do you really need to be told to keep your thumbnail simple
00:35five different times in five different videos from five different gurus?
00:39I guess not.
00:40So here's the full guide on how to actually make a thumbnail that gets clicks.
00:44We will go from the design rules I use to thumbnail types.
00:46Getting inspiration.
00:47Branding.
00:48Word choice.
00:48Visual effect.
00:49Testing.
00:53The first rule is pretty simple.
00:54But it takes your design from a mess to a piece of art.
00:57Just take any popular YouTuber's thumbnail and draw four lines like that.
01:01Do you see what's going on there?
01:03Almost all of them, even my thumbnails, follow these lines at the core.
01:06Well, you might know the rule of thirds from photography,
01:09which basically says put the objects over these lines to get a nice shot.
01:13That's why almost every channel has a thumbnail like this.
01:16Because it works.
01:17So just add those lines to guide you throughout the entire design.
01:20Trust me, it's a game changer.
01:22We'll come back to the layout.
01:23But before that, you need to choose a color.
01:25You probably heard people talking about the color wheel.
01:28The idea is to get enough contrast in your thumbnail.
01:31You should choose two opposite colors from this circle.
01:34And if you dive deeper,
01:35you would see there are more techniques that's used to get fancy combinations.
01:38But here's the plot.
01:39I don't use them.
01:40There's a much easier way to find a color for your thumbnail and for your entire channel.
01:45So here's what I do.
01:46Take any color you like as your main color.
01:48I chose yellow for mine.
01:50Then add three more.
01:51One black, one white, and one in the middle.
01:53You can slightly tweak these to match your main color.
01:56But I like to keep it simple.
01:57And finally, add another color to highlight things.
01:59There we go.
02:00A color palette.
02:01That's actually useful.
02:02Even though my sister says it looks like a Minecraft house made from diamond and gold.
02:06I like it.
02:07You can use it in your editing too.
02:08But that's for another video.
02:10Now you might ask,
02:10wouldn't that be too repetitive if I use the same colors in all my thumbnails?
02:15That's right.
02:16The solution is simple.
02:17Just change the highlight color.
02:19That way you can keep the fresh vibes while still being recognizable by your viewers.
02:25It's simple.
02:26Just pick a basic font that isn't overused and you're good to go.
02:29For those who are asking,
02:30the font I use is called Eastman.
02:32And it looks pretty good.
02:36All right.
02:36We talked about the rule of thirds and how to make a good layout.
02:39It's nice.
02:40But you can't just invent something new in this square for every single video, right?
02:44Well, you don't have to.
02:45If you paid attention while browsing on the homepage,
02:48you may already have catched some thumbnail types that most YouTubers are using.
02:52Shout out to this legend for breaking them down into 21 categories.
02:56But here's the best 10 that will work for 99% of the time.
03:01YouTubers like Airak and MrBeast use that style all the time.
03:04But even if you're not an entertainment channel,
03:06you can still use this type of thumbnail.
03:08Take a look at this.
03:09Hey, what's he doing?
03:10Dude, put that chicken down.
03:13Oh, this is how airplane engines are tested.
03:15They test it with chickens.
03:17See, that's the target emotion of these thumbnails.
03:20Just shock the viewer while scrolling on the homepage and make them click.
03:23It's easier to say, but think about what you have in your video that would shock the viewers.
03:29Of course, big things always get more attention.
03:31Don't take this out of context.
03:32People are curious to know what a $50 million house looks like
03:36or how this dude earns $900 just by listening to music until they realize he doesn't.
03:43Among all those over-edited and screaming thumbnails,
03:46another way to stand out is keeping it really simple.
03:50Just an interesting chat from Discord, a chair, a red button, or this thing.
03:54Whatever this is may get more attention.
03:58It's usually just a screenshot from the video
04:00and a simple question that makes you curious to know what's going on.
04:03Channels like DrInsanity or Zack are doing it so good that it makes it impossible to skip.
04:10If you're a small channel in a popular niche,
04:12social hacking is probably the best way to gain the first traction.
04:15Basically, take the face of a famous person in your niche and slap it into your thumbnail.
04:20Oh, the video must be about that person though.
04:22Otherwise, it's called clickbait.
04:24All the videos you see with MrBeast's face are using this strategy and it works pretty well.
04:28Even Dream used it in his first videos.
04:31So don't underestimate the power of a popular face.
04:34All right, let's speed things up.
04:37This is the style you see all over YouTube.
04:39Just the creator next to something bigger.
04:42Yeah, the one I use in this channel.
04:44Basically, an interesting text at the top to give more context about the video.
04:49It can be anything to compare to.
04:51Before and after.
04:52Something cheap versus expensive.
04:54iPhone versus Android.
04:55Fin versus AI.
04:55You got the point.
04:58Blurring the main character or the final result.
05:00So people have to click to find out.
05:08I don't know if you realize, but all of those viral thumbnails that I showed in this video
05:12and even all the ones that you saw on your homepage have one thing in common.
05:17They're not just using one of these formulas.
05:19They're combining them.
05:20Look at MrWho's The Boss' series where he buys every release of a tech like iPhone or PlayStation.
05:25I showed you this in big numbers.
05:27But if you look closer, you would see that he also uses header comparison
05:32and even social hacking formulas all at once.
05:34Or take a look at this chair.
05:35Which types could you spot?
05:37It's branded because of their logo right here.
05:39It's simple because, well, there's nothing else than a chair.
05:42And it's using social hacking because everyone saw this chair at least once.
05:46We can even include it as a weird object if you think chairs are weird.
05:50Even I used big numbers and header styles in my first video on this channel.
05:54I wouldn't say it's very creative, but it worked for sure.
05:57I can go on with all the thumbnails that I show.
05:59But the idea is choose two or three styles, combine them,
06:02and try to stick to it for around five videos.
06:05It will make your audience understand it's your style.
06:07But don't stick to it for too long because using the same formula 100 times
06:12would probably make the viewers feel like you just keep repeating yourself.
06:15And it will lower the chances of click.
06:17Unless you're a reaction channel.
06:21Well, it's one of the most popular advice that you can hear from YouTube gurus.
06:25Just look what other YouTubers in your niche are doing and try to replicate it.
06:29But I completely disagree with that.
06:31And I have evidence to support my opinion.
06:33Take my first video as an example.
06:35Trying YouTube shorts is definitely not a unique video idea.
06:39What about the thumbnail?
06:41That style seems to work for many people.
06:43Well, in that case...
06:47You're a smart guy.
06:48Just copy what works, right?
06:50The problem is you're not the only one.
06:54That is the worst thing to do.
06:56If you see many similar thumbnails from different channels about the same topic,
06:59hopping on that train is probably not a good idea.
07:02If so many channels are already doing that, it's the cliche thumbnail now.
07:06And your audiences are basically the same.
07:08So there's no reason for people to click on your zero view video instead of their 100k.
07:13Even worse, people will probably notice they're too similar.
07:16And you might become just a copycat of your competitor.
07:18So what should you do then?
07:19You can't reinvent the wheel for each new video, right?
07:23Well, just kidding.
07:24Of course, it's not really possible to do that.
07:26If you're posting consistently, sooner or later you'll run out of thumbnail ideas.
07:30And when that happens, you should just look at channels outside your niche.
07:34For that video, I went through the channels I follow in completely different niches
07:38and came up with this thumbnail.
07:39Same thing applies to almost all of them.
07:41So get inspiration from the channels with different niches.
07:44That will make your video stand out from the crowd
07:46because your audience with those channels are different.
07:48But it's the same with all these other channels.
07:51So when it appears alongside those, yours will be much more likely to get more attention.
07:56Experimenting with new things is always good.
07:58But just try to keep the core elements like colors, fonts, and style consistent.
08:03That makes your audience notice your video on the home screen way faster.
08:06And with enough time, boosts the CTR.
08:10This is where you gotta be creative.
08:12You can use a big number if that suits your video,
08:14a bold statement opposite of a common belief,
08:17or just a title that represents your video.
08:19If nothing fits well, leaving it blank is always an option.
08:22Congratulations, you just learned how to make a viral thumbnail.
08:26Right?
08:27I don't think so.
08:29Look, you learned the theory, which is really important.
08:31But it doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to use it.
08:34Most people will probably close the video at this point,
08:37take all that information, and go make a thumbnail like this.
08:41But if you stick around, you'll learn how I turn this into this.
08:44Hey Finn, what do you call it?
08:46Photoshop, baby!
08:47Photoshop, baby!
08:49How do you say it like that?
08:50With just a few simple effects and some ancient Photoshop sorcery
08:53that I learned from this guy.
08:55Yeah, hey everyone.
08:56I'm still here.
08:57Got stuck in this timeline.
09:00Dude, you need to work on your jokes.
09:01Photoshop!
09:05After choosing your concept and sketching a detailed draft on paper,
09:08open Photoshop, create a new project, get your lines, add your character,
09:12text, a nice background, and other elements.
09:14It already looks better than that.
09:16Make the text fancier by double-clicking here.
09:19Then change the color, add inner glow, outer glow, and whatever this is.
09:23Just tweak the settings to make the unique effect you want.
09:26Here are the adjustments that I usually do if you want to get a similar style.
09:29After you're happy with the look, save it as a new style to use it next time.
09:33You can do that for other elements too.
09:37It's the effect that I used in this thumbnail to bend this chart.
09:40You can bend anything by just clicking the corner of an image.
09:43Looks good, but they seem too distracting in the background.
09:46Let's add some blur.
09:48Select the image, filter, blur, Gaussian blur.
09:51That might work, but we can do even better.
09:53Let's try again.
09:54Select image, filter, pixelate, mosaic.
09:57Oh, we made it worse.
09:59Again.
10:01Again.
10:03That's it.
10:04Even though these blurs might be a little bit too much,
10:06I'm still happy with the look.
10:07I'm still happy with the effect.
10:09Again.
10:11That's it.
10:12Even though these blurs might not suit this thumbnail,
10:14they work very well in some cases.
10:16So it's nice to know how to use them.
10:17All right, let's move on.
10:20We fixed these images, but the background is too shiny.
10:23It's almost hard to read the text.
10:26So we need to make it darker.
10:27Take the brush.
10:28Whoa, whoa.
10:29Calm down.
10:29You don't have to be a Bob Ross to use this, okay?
10:31Just try to keep up.
10:33Make your brush big and soft.
10:34Reduce the flow to something like 5% and increase smooth.
10:38Now open a new layer on top of your background
10:40and start painting behind text, character, and things like that.
10:44Okay, we're getting somewhere.
10:47That background image looks nice, but I don't really like the color.
10:51I said, but I don't really like the color.
10:55How to change it?
10:55Glad you asked.
10:56Select the background.
10:57Click image.
10:58Adjustments, hue and saturation.
10:59Here you can choose a specific color to change or tweak the entire image.
11:04Noise.
11:05We're almost done, but I'm looking so unnatural over there.
11:08I mean, the text above my head is shiny.
11:10There should be some light reflections in reality, right?
11:14Pick the selection tool.
11:15Select the thing.
11:15Create a new layer.
11:16Take the brush.
11:17Make it smaller.
11:18Pick a nice color and brush over where the light is coming from.
11:21Oh, don't forget to change the layer blending style to overlay.
11:24If it doesn't work for your image, try other styles and colors too.
11:29After everything's done, I like to send it to my phone
11:31and play around with the colors in Lightroom.
11:33So it goes from this to this.
11:38Before publishing the video, you need to test how it looks on YouTube homepage.
11:41To do that, go to ThumbsUp.tv.
11:44Add your title and thumbnail and see if it looks good.
11:46If it does, you're good.
11:48If not, go back to the drawing board again.
11:51But hopefully it does.
11:54Here it is.
11:55I know, it's probably not the best way to make a thumbnail,
11:58but that's just how I do it at the moment.
12:00It will definitely change with time.
12:01But for now, this is all I do, and it works for me.
12:04So may work for you as well.
12:21Photoshop, baby!