Transcription
Have you ever looked at thumbnails like Mr. Beast or Mark Rober and thought, "I could never do that." Or have you tried to uplevel or improve your thumbnails and had your videos perform even worse after you attempted it?
See, the good news here is you don't have to do either one. In fact, I'm here to tell you, you probably shouldn't even try because by the end of this video, I'm going to show you a new kind of thumbnail that is way more effective and so simple, I've given them the name Unthnails.
Howdy howdy everyone, Nate here. After reviewing thousands upon thousands of YouTube thumbnails, I have realized that they can all be placed on a scale. On one end of the scale, we have raw thumbnails and on the other end, we have highly engineered thumbnails.
So, here's the thing. Many small to midsize YouTube channels are aware of this scale, if at least subconsciously, where on one end is the very raw, unpolished, and on the other end is the highly engineered. And many creators think, "Oh, in order to be successful, I need to create these highly engineered thumbnails." But what happens most of the time is that they arrive in this dead zone where their thumbnails are actually worse than these other thumbnails on the scale.
I'm going to show you the spectrum of thumbnails you could be making for your channel and point out why the un thumbnail is actually the superior choice for most YouTube creators. By the way, if you want a simple visual way to remember what I'm about to show you, you can join my group and I will send this to you. Print it off and stick it on your wall to remind you how to make un thumbnails.
As we walk through this spectrum of thumbnails, I need to provide a quick disclaimer. Each of these thumbnails can be successful depending on your audience expectations and the style that fits your content. And if after watching this you find that one of these thumbnail styles is crushing it for you already, please keep doing what's working. That is correct, right? Oh my gosh. No need to fix what isn't broken. But notably for some of these, especially on the raw end of the spectrum, they don't perform consistently. So if you find yourself not having consistent results with your videos, listen up.
All right. Starting left to right on this thumbnail spectrum, we have raw thumbnails. Thumbnails are exactly what they sound like. Raw, spontaneous, a screenshot, a single moment in the video with not a lot of edits or changes done to them after the fact. Shown you this channel before. This is Daniel Thrasher. He's doing very well with this raw side of thumbnails. Like this one, "When your superpower is really, really bad." It's almost exactly just a screenshot from the footage itself. Or this one, "When you have an allergy." Some of these thumbnails tow the line between raw and an unthnail, but we'll get to that in a moment. For another example of a raw thumbnail in action, this one was recommended to me recently. It's called "Henry Cavill being sharp as attack for almost 2 minutes." But if you look at the thumbnail, what's happening here? It's just a moment from the video and it's even got some what I think is called encoding blur on it.
So, who should be using raw thumbnails the most for their videos? Well, because of the nature of raw thumbnails, they tend to be more sporadic or unpredictable. They rely entirely on the spontaneity of the raw image itself that doesn't always connect or perform well with a smaller audience. So, nine times out of 10, to get consistent results with a raw thumbnail pattern, it has to be a larger channel with an already existing dedicated audience. Because, pausing for a random algorithm moment here, if the core audience enjoys the video and they're going to watch whatever video you publish, no matter what the thumbnail looks like, even if the thumbnail looks totally absurd, they're still going to click on and watch that video, you've got that core set of data that the algorithm just eats up and loves. And if the algorithm doesn't have that core set of data from the core audience that's large enough, then that video will never spread very well and it will probably be dead in the water. Just like my goldfish. In a nutshell, these raw thumbnails perform the most consistently for these channels that have a sizable core audience that just like that raw style.
Now, let's swing to the other extreme of this scale, and that is the highly engineered thumbnails. These are the types of thumbnails that you most often see when you think of, ooh, eye-catching, flashy thumbnail. This is what we're looking at. Now, there's a good chance that you watching this could list off several channels off the top of your head that are doing these types of highly engineered thumbnails. Many of these highly engineered thumbnails almost transcend reality in that they often contain images that are highly manipulated or situations that didn't actually happen, but they're meant to represent something. Every highly engineered thumbnail still needs to tell a compelling story to be effective. It's not the polish itself that makes it a good thumbnail.
But hold everything here because here is where it starts to get tricky. Many small to midsize creators look at these highly engineered thumbnails and think, "I need to make that." And on the journey of attempting to make a highly engineered thumbnail, they end up in the dead zone. Keeping in mind that the channels I'm about to show you are really awesome people. This channel, Day Home Decor, is doing really well, especially for the size of the channel, 1.85K subscribers. However, the thumbnails on this channel are in the dead zone. Let's pick on a few of these thumbnails to demonstrate this. Let's use this one as an example. "New dining room set makeover reveal May refresh." When we look at this thumbnail, the colors are all very similar on a similar spectrum across each of these images. There isn't necessarily a clear delineating line between each of the images, which leads the viewer's eyes to be confused. And then it's especially noticeable when you look at the thumbnails smaller on the screen. The font is harder to read with the background behind the font almost blending in with the rest of the image. And also in this thumbnail, there are far too many words going on here and here to make it easily digestible.
Now, before you go on and say, "Hey, this type of thumbnail works all the time in the decor space," I'm going to show you later on how I would fix this thumbnail using real examples from other decor channels. Well, we'll get to that in a moment. Many of these thumbnails try to be visually interesting, but in the end, they end up being cluttered and not having a good focus. And unfortunately, there's a reason I call it the dead zone. It doesn't lead to as many clicks as it could.
So, what kinds of thumbnails are actually exploding the channels of small to midsize creators right now? Introducing the UN thumbnail. You might be thinking, "Okay, Nate, well, how do you know that these unth thumbnails work?" Recently, I conducted a study of thousands of YouTube videos. The purpose of that study was to find standout videos from fairly small YouTube channels that have been published recently, and I was originally looking at the titles on those videos. But guess what? Of that same data set, 72% of the standout explosive videos had unth thumbnails on them. That to me is not a fluke. That's a pattern.
So, what exactly is an un thumbnail? Let's break it down and look at some real examples so you can see it in action. Also, if you're anything like me, sometimes you'll hear information, but it's not as easy to recall it to memory, which is why I created this handy dandy thing. I'll send you if you join the group. By the way, people that are already part of the radical creators group, I sent this to you just this morning.
All right, here are the four simple ingredients that make up an un thumbnail. Number one, use an original image or images. These are not stock images. They are original to each video produced. And the really effective images lean into raw authentic images that are showing or demonstrating something. Next, you add subtle enhancements to those images. Just slight color correction, improving the lighting on one part and decreasing the lighting on another just to enhance things. Next, most of the time they include short, compelling text. Think typically in the two to four words range that are clear and bold and portray the value of that video combined with the title of the video. And fourth, this one is optional only if it enhances the effect of the un thumbnail, including familiar symbols. And these can include emojis, arrows, or other symbols that increase the clickability or the eye-catchingness of the thumbnail without distracting from the core message.
If that sounds simple, good. That's exactly what I wanted it to sound like. It is freaking powerful, which I'm about to demonstrate for you with some examples. I'm going to show you two channels that are dominating it with also showing their face in the thumbnail and two other channels that are dominating it without showing their face in the thumbnail.
This channel, Farmhouse on Boone. These thumbnails are quintessential un thumbnails. You'll notice a few things on each of these. They include some form of original image. And yes, these images are enhanced and color corrected. Each of those images typically include some sort of action or activity happening. Like this one for example, "Lazy dinner ideas." The main character is holding what is presumably a pot of food. It's demonstrating with this original image, this is dinner for this video. "Simplifying the summer as a family of 10." Again, we've got a lightly edited image that has some simple text on it. Now, a key thing to note here is even though it's called an un thumbnail, many times the original images used in the thumbnail are in fact staged images. As is the case with this video, this is probably a staged image to portray something. You'll notice that this part of the image down here is an original image. We've got some interesting line layering going on up here. Then we've got the text, "Old barn, new farm." And then this image over here is not native to this background image. It is in fact a separate image that has been juxtaposed over this image. But each image is an original photograph. And this one on the right is placed over it to give the impression of standing in front of this barn. This is what we mean by taking original images and suddenly enhancing them by placing them together.
Another channel that absolutely crushes it with these unthnails is Ali Abdaal. You'll notice with many of these like this one, "I'm starting a new series about financial and time freedom." This thumbnail has been lightly enhanced. The image over here is slightly brighter than the background. You'll notice the background is slightly darkened and we don't know if this background back here is the same image as this image up here. Then simple text is added over here with a familiar symbol in the form of an arrow pointing to another familiar symbol/part of the image. That is a stack of books.
Now let's look at some that don't utilize showing a face as a main character in the thumbnail. Channel Pickup Limes. If you look at many of their videos, many of them do feature a face as a main character in the thumbnail. However, many of them either don't show a face or have the face as a background character as part of the background of the video. Take this one for example. "High protein meals, 30g+ protein meals for 30 days." With this one, the person's face is simply a background object right here for the framing of the food right here. And yes, this image has some subtle enhancements. The foreground is in focus and the background is blurred out back here. And then as with the other ones, we've got some simple text to add some additional layers of value portrayal for the thumbnail packaging. Here's another one that performed very well for this channel. Almost half a million views on it. We've got simple text up here at the top and then an original enhanced image here. And the remainder here and here is all the same image.
Now, for another example of a channel that doesn't show their face at all, we've got this one, Aussie Dingo. This one's in the gaming space, but you'll notice an interesting thing with each of these thumbnails. The background image on each of these is a screenshot from the footage of the video itself. We've got an enhanced image that's the screenshot from the footage. We've got a familiar symbol right here as well as other familiar symbols. And then we've got some simple text. "AOE4 is the video game. And then 'Season 11 is here.'" The only thing that would make this thumbnail better is if it had a a boop the like button on it or or something like that. Thank you for booping the like button on this video if it's being helpful and eye-opening to you thus far.
So, I hope thus far you're getting this that un thumbnails are actually simpler to make. So, let's answer that question we brought up earlier. If you find yourself, especially in the dead zone, how would we fix it? First, join the group because it's awesome and it's free, but also I will send you this that you can then print off and stick on your wall. Next, you can use this video you're watching right now as a guide to audit your own channel. Let's talk about how to fix dead zone thumbnails if you find yourself there.
For this channel, let's look at some examples here. I pulled up another. If you look at this thumbnail versus this thumbnail, there are some subtle differences on this one. Each item is just slightly easier to see and understand. Same goes with thumbnails like this one or this one. With what I would argue is the big value on this thumbnail being the text demonstrating "how to decorate like a pro on a budget." It's clearly explaining here's what you're going to get out of this video.
Now, what about this channel? How would we turn these thumbnails into un thumbnails? Well, I pulled up some examples. Porchcast 850 are way outpunching their weight class in terms of the size of their channel and the amount of viewership they are getting. This thumbnail is borderline on a raw thumbnail because of how pixelated and raw the background image looks. But what they are doing is they've got large text, "Pickled pig's feet," and a clear emotion going on over here. So, for each unknown, a simple change that could be made is simply having the characters be larger in the frame and clearer to understand. Here's another one from that same example channel. Again, we've got an original image with some subtle enhancement. The green toxic smoke coming out of this can and then the text "Canned snails." This guy's face, it it's just selling that video. Or another angle that could be taken with this trying gross foods from this channel, The Boys, we've got this thumbnail. Large disgusted emotional face, a familiar object in an arrow, and then an original image that's probably not the same image as the face, but it has been zoomed in to show the disgusting food that they're about to test.
Find that you are not currently doing on thumbnails and what you are doing is not performing as you would like it to, I highly recommend you test them out. And also remember that deep dive I talked about earlier where I analyzed thousands of YouTube videos to find the titles that were standing out. The reality of the matter is thumbnails, even un thumbnails, are just one side of the coin of good packaging. And if you want to know what kinds of titles are absolutely crushing it right now on YouTube, [Music]