Today, most videos aren't even watched on a computer anymore or even on an iPad. They're watched on a cell phone. So what does that mean? Well, it means your thumbnails shrunken down a lot. So it's very small on the phones for them to really understand what the thumbnail is, with it being so small have to work even harder. So the thumbnail is small.

What does that mean? The more simple the thumbnail is, and the more clean the text is more legible, the easier it is to read when it's shrunken down. understand the concept the thumbnail, the better the video is going to do. When I first started fuzzy puppet, I would do really elaborate thumbnails with fuzz with 100 toys around them and a big castle in the background isn't that when it gets shrunk down to this big on a phone and you can barely even see what it's just a jumbled up mess you know just no one understands it but then say when I started to do an all white background like this with a clay ninja turtle sitting in a chair and that's it, kids could see that immediately. Oh, cool. Clay ninja turtle chair.

I'm watching that video. The simple thumbnails are better if you think about it. It's almost like a movie poster for your video and a lot of ways it's it's like I said it's more important than the video itself. You should actually in some regards. Spend more time and thought in the thumbnail than anything else, I would almost suggest sitting down with a piece of paper and brainstorming cool viral thumbnail ideas is so much more important than the video itself. Because you could have a kick butt thumbnail that gets so many people to click on it.

And the video doesn't even have to be that great. No, people probably watch it anyways, just really focus your energy on making awesome thumbnails. And here's a little tip. I don't create one thumbnail per video, I create 2345 thumbnails for a video. And I send them out to my friends, probably a group of about 15 or so people. I message them on Facebook I say hey, which out of these five thumbnails are you most likely to click on?

And I kind of mix up the order to get a get a really honest response. Because sometimes people just you know, it's really the psychology of the brand. They'll just say the first one on the list. Yeah, that one. So I kind of mix them up the order and I send them to 1520 people and sometimes I'm surprised even me because the one that people say they like is not even one I would have guessed, but sometimes it's very clear winner. Everyone's like, Oh, yeah, that one's the one.

And I'm like, Wow, really, okay, this is great feedback. But let's take it a step further, I would suggest putting that thumbnail on your video up there for a little while and see how it does. And you're gonna, you could take the video down and re upload it again with a different thumbnail, see how that one does. Or if you just switch the thumbnail, you don't have to take the video down. So picking the right thumbnail is very important. And you you know, you want to get the one that's going to get the most clicks.

So these are just a few ideas. You know, hopefully I get the ball, the wheels turning in your head, and maybe you'll be thinking of some ideas I haven't even thought of but it's a good head start for you to see just how important the thumbnail is. And you really want to get a good one out there. Sometimes have spent an entire day just doing one thumbnail. And sometimes it'll be a thumbnail I don't even end up using Yeah, my wife spent a day of my life making this thumbnail and I didn't use it. But think about it again.

If you get a video that gets 10s of millions of views that could be potentially 10s of thousands of dollars and a thumbnail could mean all the difference this thumbnail versus that one could mean the difference between 100 views or 10 million views. If you look on the sidebar say look at my fuzzy puppet videos, you'll notice that the other channels, the videos are very hard to tell apart from one from another, they looked like they could all potentially be from the same channel or endless channels. There's no real common theme to instantly identify like, Hey, this is a fuzzy puppet video when you look at these other ones, you know, but with my channel, one of the things I think sets me apart is I have fuzz in every thumbnail and have a kind of a certain look and a style to my thumbnail that's very easy to identify.

I'm going to put some of them up on the screen now as I'm talking when you look at that sidebar, and it's very easy to identify. Oh yeah, that's the fuzzer that's the fuzz video versus these other channels. You see, these are all different channels and I don't know which one is which you know, that's not good. You're gonna lose your audience. They're gonna go somebody else's channel. We don't want that you have to tell a story in the thumbnail, a story that's a cliffhanger that you it's almost like what's going to happen next, and you're only going to find out by clicking on this.

So you almost have like a beginning and a middle and an end to the thumbnail. I got guys in the air he's flying something's about to hit the ground. Oh, what's gonna happen next I gotta click on this to see you know, you want to leave them curious you want to show them a picture that just they can't help but click on because they just got to know what that what the mystery is of this thumbnail I saw I saw Casey Neistat video where he his thumbnail was a laptop it was just a laptop smashed on the ground that was the thumbnail I thought it was a great thumbnail because you're sitting there wondering like why is it smashed what happened you know I want to know title No, no no words just smashed laptop and makes you want to click it to find out so a little bit more.

A couple more things about the thumbnail. Just briefly again with the Make sure your your texts the lesser the texts, the better. You can use these little tricks that people use with the arrows and the circles those are all good too. My best advice there is you want to have I usually when my channel I like to have the colors be very bright for kids videos. I saturate them I sharpen I'll make people like clicking on sharper images, more than fuzzier images so I give it a lecture punch. Lots of color.

I try to make it oh in a little corner too. There's a A number of how long the videos how many minutes I didn't I never put a title on that part of the thumbnail because it's gonna get covered up. So another thing I want to say about thumbnails is whatever your video is about, okay, you kind of you've gotten to the point where they clicked on your video from whatever you do with the thumbnail and the title and now in a way you kind of have to verify that you didn't trick them by clicking the video with however the video starts. Okay, whatever whatever your video is about, let's say your video is about how to make a YouTube video okay, that's what your video is about. You got to kind of get to the point right away. You don't want to start off the video you know telling your life story for five minutes and then get to the part where you say how to make a YouTube video what's going to happen again is people are going to start Washington that what is this this isn't about how to you know make a YouTube video and they're going to click off almost right away.

The algorithm is going to see people clicking off your video in the first minute it's going to say this video is not about how to make a YouTube video because everybody that we send here who clicks on it clicks off within the first minute. So you can I want to verify to the viewer that yes, this video is about that and kind of get to the point as soon as you can. One last piece of advice about thumbnails when you're researching these other big videos, I try to make thumbnails that are similar to the thumbnails you'll see on those videos, get a lot of views don't copy it exactly if it's similar, you know, again, why reinvent the wheel if those thumbnails are clearly something about that, that design and layout getting a lot of clicks, you might want to do your own version of it.

Don't copy it similar but your own version. That's my advice and thumbnails. Let's keep going