Get the Message: Why titles and thumbnails are crucial for online video
Unpacking the big messages from SXSW 2024
Recently we shared the first part of this series on some of the big messages we heard from the stage at SXSW 2024; Episode 1 was about how long people listen to podcasts.
Our aim with this series is to look at a single piece of data, or a quote, that caught our attention. We’ll then dive a little deeper, unpack it, and develop insights into how audiences are spending their attention. We hope these insights will help you make decisions about the content you make.
One of the things we make for clients is videos. This week, we’re looking at why thumbnails and titles matter so much if you’re making short-form video on YouTube or similar.
The Message:
If you make video for YouTube, take your thumbnails and your titles very seriously.
This piece of advice came from a few sources at SXSW, but most notably Marc Hustvedt, President of Mr. Beast.
The Quote:
“The greenlight process always includes the title and the thumbnails because that’s what directly impacts on the success of a video on YouTube”
- Marc Hustvedt
The Insight
At the SXSW 2024 Brand Storytelling Speakeasy, Marc Hustvedt, President of YouTube star and influencer MrBeast, who now has a whole media empire, spoke about the importance of getting titles and thumbnails right on YouTube. This was also something Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss discussed in their SXSW main stage session. It’s one thing having a YouTube megastar like Mr Beast as the face of the video, but it’s details like this that really help drive the kind of views he can get. It’s not the first time Mr Beast or his team have mentioned this. At VidSummit 2022, Mr Beast spoke about having a six-person thumbnail team that makes around 20 different versions per video.
The idea that having a good title and thumbnails for a video shouldn’t be a huge revelation for content producers - film titles and posters have been doing this for cinema for over a century. Rex Sorgatz said good key art is “elegantly efficient. It communicates so much so quickly. At a glance, you instantly know the universe within, like a pin in the map declaring YOU ARE HERE.” They are the first impression you don’t get a second chance to make. But unlike video that appears on streaming platforms like Netflix, the YouTube thumbnail need is quite specific. They are designed to catch people’s attention in the stream where the potential to click on something else is half a thumb scroll away.
People reading the message above might think that ‘take your thumbnails and your titles very seriously’ is about attention spans getting shorter. We don’t think it is. We believe this message points to something much more interesting and useful. At Storythings, we have a mantra - albeit a mantra we stole from the very smart Category Pirates. That mantra is that people don’t have short attention spans. They have short consideration spans.
It’s not that people won’t commit a lot of attention to something; they will - episodes of Joe Rogan - the most popular podcast in the world - are frequently over 3 hours long. It’s more about the short amount of time in which they give consideration to whether to click on something. That’s why the thumbnails and titles have to be good. They’re not competing for your attention in terms of the time you will commit to something. They’re competing within people’s “should I click” time. In research, Netflix discovered users spent an average of 1.8 seconds considering each title they were presented with.
The Action
Don’t make your thumbnails an afterthought. Obsess over them and give them the same attention you would to your writing, photography, video or whatever your craft would be. Study them. Film posters are always worth studying, as are sites like Art of the Title. But be aware of the context in which people will find your work and how they are choosing what to watch, listen to or read.
Chucky Appleby, who is on Mr Beast’s thumbnail team, talked to the Creator Insider podcast about what they aim for when developing thumbnails and made an important point about the importance of trust in all the tweaking to thumbnails. Thumbnails need to avoid the clickbait trap and be true to the video. The video needs to deliver on the promise fast. Audience expectations have to be met quickly - unlike traditional TV, which often sets expectations for what’s going to happen at the end of the episode, YouTube videos need to do it from the beginning because users are more likely to click away quickly if they get the slightest inclination that the thumbnail and title are not representative of the video.
Reading list
Mr. Beast’s Marc Hustvedt IDs His Top Five Trends For The Creator Economy (6 minute read)
SXSW 2024: Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose: The Random Show! (recorded live, where they mention the use of thumbnails and AI in video, along with a lot of truly random stuff!) (1 hour listen)
Why appealing YouTube thumbnails matter (2 min read)
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