[00:00] We are live. Hello everyone. I'm Andrew Cannon. Today we're going to be talking about one of the most overlooked parts of YouTube growth in general, and that's the YouTube thumbnails of it all.
[00:17] So YouTube thumbnails are so important. I'm excited because Opus Clip has put out their brand new YouTube thumbnail generator. Now, I recently lost my voice, but this is so important that I wanted to go live here still.
[00:30] so the thing about YouTube thumbnails is you can have a killer video you can have the best title but if your thumbnail doesn't earn the click if it doesn't convince people to watch that video unfortunately nobody sees all that hard
[00:47] work you just put in so that's why thumbnails are so important so we're going to be testing out open clips new thumbnail generator live we have a link in the description if you're watching the replay, and you can also follow along.
[01:01] So there's going to be no requirement for photo editing. It uses AI. I'm going to walk you through it. We're going to create one together, and I'm going to show you how to make thumbnails that you can really work with.
[01:13] You can use these for layout testing. So all you have to do is click that link in the description. I also have it pinned. I'm just really excited to be live with you all here today. Now, another thing to keep in mind as we go on here is that these things that we're talking about,
[01:30] whether you use OpenClip or whether you've generated them yourself, they're all relevant to what we're going to be doing here today. And that's one of the things I like the most when it comes about using new tools like this,
[01:42] is that it can be used for inspiration. You can test. You can see what works best with your audience. So these are all things that's going to be very important and helpful as we go through the live stream. Now, I have a question for you watching.
[01:56] How long do you spend on your YouTube thumbnails? Does it take 15 minutes? Do you spend hours? Let me know in those comments whether you're watching live or in the replay. For me, it is one of the things I love to work on but I can stress the most on because, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, they are so important.
[02:13] so for me if I'm being very honest it can take me anywhere between one hours to you know multiple because when it comes to making thumbnails click-through rate
[02:25] all of that matters to get people to watch your video even this YouTube thumbnail of the live stream you watched was generated using opus clip and as we continue to go on with this you might notice that there are other things and
[02:39] other thumbnails from when you watched it. So let me know how long does it take for you to make a YouTube thumbnail? Always very curious on that. So one thing I want to talk about as we are waiting for people to get in is just how easy it
[02:54] is for you to actually create your own thumbnail. So let's go ahead I'm going to share my screen so you can see what I'm talking about. And from there we're going to go deeper so we're going to go ahead and share screen gonna bring up now if
[03:13] you're familiar with Opus clip you should understand this workflow create viral YouTube thumbnails in one click just drop a link and get bold thumbnails that drive clicks instantly and then they give examples down below from
[03:26] different creators they tell you to drop an unlisted or public link to your YouTube video and you can include a face. So these are some of those easy things you can do. So we're going to get a YouTube video in fact we might use one
[03:39] from the Opus Clips YouTube channel and we're going to go a little bit deeper and see what this can create. Now one cool thing you can do when you're using this is use Opus Clips YouTube thumbnail generator for an easy way to come up
[03:52] with A.D. tests. Now A.D. testing on YouTube is important because you want to make sure that you know you are putting out your best content with the best thumbnails possible so I think for what I'm gonna do we're gonna go ahead and
[04:06] use one of the videos I made it up this clip we're gonna drop the YouTube link and free thumbnail now it's gonna start processing our thumbnail it's gonna
[04:18] think about three minutes as you can see it's generating the slide that's analyzing our video which is another unique thing that Opus clip does a lot of these AI thumbnail generators it does it's best with text but Opusclip actually analyzes your video to better understand what it's about and put
[04:34] that into account when it's coming up with your YouTube thumbnail and as I'm talking you can see how quickly it's going in adding final touches the video I used again was one of the videos I made on the Opusclip YouTube
[04:48] channel which talks about the auto import feature and as you can see here progress 93%. We're doing pretty well, pretty quick for while we're talking, it's going ahead and doing this. Now, while this is going on, I want to make sure we talk about some things to
[05:03] keep in mind. So, on YouTube, if you've only been using open slips to make YouTube shorts, thumbnails might be a little bit different if you've never made a YouTube video. So, thumbnails get something that are shared out that you can see via impressions. Impressions are
[05:19] how YouTube is sending out your YouTube video to more people to see. So if your video is getting a lot of impressions, that means that YouTube is sharing it out. So click-through rate is kind of that first signal to use the creator and YouTube that
[05:35] shows that when people see the video, they click through to watch. A lot of times people will say CTR, but it's actually impressions CTR. But I see our final thumbnail is here. so automatically convert new YouTube uploads into shorts so you can see it as
[05:51] a PC workflow and as a clip software shorts ready video export it's a little text heavy so I might go ahead and create a new thumbnail this video again but this isn't a bad idea and I could go ahead download the image and use this
[06:06] now in fact I like to just that let me go ahead and download it and again the beauty of this is you can use these new thumbnails for A B testing so I'm gonna go ahead auto import thumbnail I'll say V2
[06:26] so now I have a new thumbnail it took while we were demoing it live for it to generate and I think it goes to show how quick Opus is nowadays with just getting these pieces of content created so I'm going to go ahead and reshare my screen
[06:42] If you want to follow along, here's the video. I'll make sure to put it in the chat. I make sure I put it in the description down below as well But this is the video and the idea is we going to be taking this link and generating new thumbnails and to do this we can create a new thumbnail it take us back here let
[07:03] say I wanted to include my face we click here I would go to where I have my file saved I would put I could do this keep in mind when you're uploading an image
[07:15] for faces, but there is a five megabyte limit. I'm gonna go ahead and select this face, get a free thumbnail, that's gonna be taken into consideration with what
[07:28] this video is about with my new face or image. So this is just something again it's really quick. It's estimated three minutes we've been going through it and it gives us a chance to talk more about thumbnails right. One thing I like to do
[07:43] when I make a thumbnail is think about, you know, how does this best incorporate to make people think more about the video and the story I'm telling, right? So as this is loading, this one is automatically converting your YouTube uploads into YouTube
[07:59] Shorts. That's what this is about. So how well does this thumbnail tell that story and get people curious about it to maybe click through and watch? These are how I always think.
[08:11] and I try to think about my YouTube thumbnails with a viewer mindset. So, as you can see, we're on the final touches. Should be loading here soon.
[08:24] And so, as this loads, I want to know what you guys think as you're watching. You know, how you guys think about your YouTube thumbnails. How much emphasis do you put on them when it comes to your YouTube configuration?
[08:36] And did you know about Opus Clips' new free thumbnail generator? I really am excited for it. This is only going to keep improving. I know the Opus Club team takes feedback really seriously when it comes to features like this.
[08:51] So as it is loading, I want to go ahead and just go full screen. And I really want to take a moment. You know, we kind of talked about the viewer mindset. And when you're thinking like a viewer, you need to take away your personal bias.
[09:05] Okay, so we have our image. And so if I take away my personal bias, viewers don't owe us a click. Our audience don't owe us a click. We always have to earn it, right?
[09:17] And so if I look at this thumbnail, this is about converting new YouTube videos into YouTube shorts. Now, I don't know if this image would do that for me personally, so I might generate this again.
[09:33] But we should download this image and test, right? And when we download and test, I'll show you how you can set this up for an A-B test on YouTube's backend. So now, as I'm downloading that image, it gives us new things to think about, especially when it comes to how we consider this.
[09:55] So now, as we're in the Office Club backend of the YouTube channel, I should say, we're going to A-B test. We're going to view test report because we've already run.
[10:09] We can see there was a preference. We're going to run a new test. And now as we're running this new test, we're going to use Opus's different versions, right? So we like this thumbnail.
[10:22] So I'm going to go ahead and re-upload that as one of the choices. and when you're uploading thumbnails or you're you know thinking about these things it's important that whenever you make a thumbnail especially if you're A B
[10:39] testing one you've already made you should include the one that you've already have so I just want to make sure that we have that set up and ready to go so we have the default one we're gonna go out of here we're gonna go to down
[10:56] and we're going to test these. Now, I do not know which thumbnail.
[11:10] My theory is it's going to be the one here, but who knows? That's why we do the A-B testing. We're going to hit Done, then we're going to hit Save,
[11:22] and all of a sudden we now have this running an AV test with the thumbnails we generated in Opus. I will actually take a look back and see how this does, but we don't have to just use Opus, right?
[11:40] Our own videos. We can make thumbnails about anything. If there's a topic from a creator that you like or something that you've already made and you make them unlisted, you can use that to generate thumbnails with a thumbnail generator.
[11:55] And again, I like it because you do not know all the time what you want to do for a thumbnail. So if it gets your mind going creatively, that can be very helpful when it comes to it.
[12:09] Now, one thing I want to talk about is some big thumbnail mistakes I see. and keep in mind as you're going through using AI, Otis is always working on this to improve it. But there are things you can be on the lookout for.
[12:30] One of the things you can be on the lookout for and as you're looking at other thumbnails is too much text. Some thumbnails are minimal, some have way too much.
[12:42] and it's always a balance. So when I look at it and I'm thinking, you know, what kind of thumbnails do I want, too much or unreadable text can be a problem.
[12:55] Like this is an ad, but that's a lot of text. This is much simpler. Fewer text, but it shows a clear before and after. And it's got a focal point to the story.
[13:12] And again, it is this balance, right? Like, this is a simple thumbnail, but that's a lot of text.
[13:26] And I think maybe it should be Idea Bank, the first three. Now, this is not a thumbnail, like, review or breakdown, but it goes to show, right, as we're thinking about this, and as we're using Opus, you know,
[13:38] this is the focal point of the story for this one, but there too much text Another thing that can happen is you know you can have bad color contrast or mismatches which can cause things not to stand out well and these are things
[13:52] you should look at another thing is like look at this thumbnail is emotions there's emotion there's tension so you want to have some strong emotions in the faces like that's one of those things that you want to make sure or it's very
[14:08] if you're going to use text. This is a battle simulator game, right? 14 million zombies and you see the zoom out of it, it makes a lot of sense. So you can
[14:21] always have that level of clarity, especially when it comes to your thumbnails. Now, I will say that you
[14:34] You should be not being discouraged when you look at other thumbnails, but there's a difference between studying what works and then never making it because you can't do something that's good. It's about learning.
[14:46] It's about trying. It is about continually getting better one thing at a time. And the thumbnail generator from Opus Clip, the idea is to empower that creativity.
[14:58] So if Opus tries something and it makes something and you're like, I actually think I could give that a shot. that's when it is very useful for you to try yourself. Like this one, this thumbnail, wouldn't be too hard for me to do.
[15:14] Hold up my keyboard, you know, keep the idea, look at camera, and we have that kind of space, right? And all of a sudden, I have an idea for it. Or maybe, since it's talking about YouTube videos, I point to my camera,
[15:29] or I point to my phone, and that gives you a different idea of how you can do these kind of thumbnails yourself. You can use this as inspiration. If I were to make this thumbnail, you know, talking about color contrast,
[15:43] I would maybe choose a different background. Maybe it would be YouTube since it's about, you know, making normal videos in YouTube Shorts. Or maybe it would be a video editor in light mode
[15:55] so there's more contrast with my dark keyboard. You could even add a background kind of glow or blur So these are all things you could be doing and trying.
[16:07] Good to see you, Susan, a.k.a. Homekeeping Channel. So, again, even if you're just using it for ideation, because Opus studies other thumbnails that are successful, it is here to be helpful.
[16:20] This gives you a starting point to try and test things. A lot of times people don't have guidance, and to have something that could guide you, whether it's unlisted, whether it's a public video, is so important, and it's just a great way for you to test out getting better at YouTube thumbnails.
[16:39] And that's something I really appreciate with Opus Clip here. Now, another thing I will say is that, you know, it's one of those things that you can always look to get inspired by and get better at,
[16:56] But it's also important to understand as you're testing what you like personally. Like I said, I mentioned a little bit earlier when I'm looking for YouTube thumbnails, I try to think as a viewer first.
[17:08] I try to look for contrast between the images and see if that works to get a better result. And so as we're going through here, I'm going to generate another thumbnail, right? because I want to go ahead and take a look, you know, at how we can use this together.
[17:27] I've talked about in the video I'm going to use now about how you can use OpenClip to improve captions. So I'm going to go ahead and load this in the background. As we've seen, it's very quick. We've loaded multiple during the stream.
[17:40] It's in three minutes. It's actually a little bit quicker than that, thankfully. But it's one of those things that I'm using it to ideate. and if you have an unlisted link you know having as much information with that
[17:52] unlisted link as possible is good having images of yourself with no background that you can use with it can give you even more information now I will call out that even though I uploaded an image with me without a background I used another image I could then in another video
[18:07] editing or photo editing app you know change it out but the good thing about Opus is it's pretty decent already to use and we're already A-B testing with it. One of the one I showed earlier was just one of the ways that you can
[18:20] run an A-B test with this. You know, you could use this to use with Opus Clip Scheduler so that you could schedule out your video with the thumbnail that Opus Clips generates right within Opus Clips so that you're getting that extra level of help. And so I think this is a great opportunity
[18:37] for you if you're uploading using Opus Clips or you're just getting used to it or maybe you're live stream all the time and you live stream to another platform you don't really have time for thumbnails in the way you want you could use this to empower your editor with overfoot they can edit
[18:53] your clips in the xml they could use it to come up with ideas for thumbnails with the ai thumbnail generator and then they can take that time to customize it all of this is designed to empower
[19:07] us as creators to create more, to do more. And ideally, if we do it right, we can use it as inspiration. And I view some of this as inspiration. I do like to come up, you know, with things on top
[19:21] of my head. But like, it's important to note if you do or don't like a thumbnail. I may not like this one in particularly, like I said, I would not necessarily show my back to the camera. But
[19:33] standout Opus Clip captions. This is about, you know, generating captions with Opus Clip. And so this is from captions of standout. So I'm going to create a new thumbnail. I'm going to try again. Maybe I include my face again. Again, we keep
[19:48] going back and forth between a couple of files. So, you know, I'll use this one like I said. We'll try getting a free thumbnail. And it is normal to have to,
[20:01] you know keep working on it but again the time was spent here we've been live we've gone through multiple thumbnails it's giving me ideas we've already showed you how I could post a thumbnail earlier based on one which is just me
[20:15] holding the keyboard maybe if I'm talking about Opus clip keyboard shortcuts it's as simple as this and then we go deeper into it right like that's just ways that it's gotten my creativity flowing because a lot of
[20:29] people don know about Opus Clips has amazing keyboard shortcuts for the app And if you editing in it a lot of the ones you familiar with are in OpenOS right So even though that one was an idea I got from thumbnails how to make YouTube thumbnails from
[20:46] long videos to shorts, I could use that idea again. And we can continue to iterate on it. And that's why I like using tools like this. And again, it's always up to us as a creator to
[20:58] know what we like, to know our audience, and to be that person that steps in. Now, I would say that if you're watching, let me know about some of the thumbnails that Opus Clip has generated. What would you like to see in this generator? I know that I've shared
[21:14] some things back. I would love to be able to regenerate and save existing ones within Opus Clip. I know that other people have given us a lot of great feedback that Opus Clip has taken into account. So, these are all things that you should be thinking about when it comes to Opus Clip,
[21:30] when you're making these thumbnails, when you're doing these things, is that you want to make sure that you are also aware that Opus takes your feedback very seriously. Now, interesting on this one is that it gave the person, like, it kind of used my face, but it swapped it out.
[21:49] Then it gave me glasses, which I don't actually wear. So how to improve your captions to get more views, that's not the Opus Club logo. However, this does give me a baseline. So one thing I would say is as we're working on this and we're getting better is that, you know, it is going to take some time, a couple of tries.
[22:11] But notice, this is still free. All I've done is drop links. It has been very easy to use. I really do appreciate that fact. And again, it's not going to be perfect. Even when I make thumbnails, my first attempt rarely doesn't end up being what it will be used in the final.
[22:27] so it's about understanding that this is still a process you're still in control as the creator and that's why I love the most about YouTube thumbnails so I have a question if you're watching this live or in the replay maybe we can answer
[22:41] some of the comments in YouTube shorts what questions do you have about YouTube thumbnails what do you think about the designer what do you think about when it comes to strategy let us know anything I actually have a fun challenge if you're
[22:54] watching this, you should use the generator, post your best thumbnails on our Discord server at Opus Clip or on Twitter, wherever you're active, and you should tag, you know, Opus Clip, and you can even tag me. I'd love to see the thumbnails it's generating. And, you know, as we're thinking
[23:12] about, you know, the thumbnail generator, would you guys be down for rating thumbnails live streams based on data you can submit and we can use, we can make informed decisions. So, sometimes my
[23:24] opinion on a thumbnail versus how it performs they're not one-to-one but if you'd be down for that let us know either in the comments or if you're watching this live live I'd love to get your opinions on it because rating
[23:37] thumbnails and then like you know using opus clips to kind of go deeper and we can again keep in mind we're using this as inspiration we've already set up a live stream you know before based on ideas so rating thumbnails could be fun
[23:53] and then we could talk about, you know, how to make thumbnails in Opus Clips Thumbnail Generator. So, always curious. Ooh, this one I would say I would maybe not use.
[24:05] It's funny. How others lack contrast, this is too contrast-y. So, something to keep in mind. I'm going to create a new thumbnail on this one. And keep in mind, because it's about captions, I might want to include faces a little bit more
[24:19] so that it kind of focuses a little less on alt text. Now, if you want to join the Discord, on the app here, you can see there's the Join Discord link. I'd really love to see what other people are thinking of
[24:32] when it comes to thumbnails. So that's kind of why we've given that challenge. We're already thinking about our next live stream. We're helping it. And I really do think that as this gets better,
[24:45] this might be you know the base version now there's only to improve and I want to just remind you that like your thumbnail isn't just extra polish I
[24:57] think some people consider thumbnails like ash it's another thing I have to do it's the pitch to users it's what gets your content that you've worked so hard on scene and you know when you're using the generator when you're doing this
[25:12] That's the mindset you should have. So you really should give the generator a try. Again, link in the description. And test a few thumbnails. See what happens. Even increasing your thumbnail CCR by 1%, 2% can totally help your viewership be higher.
[25:30] And that's that thing when it comes to trying these features is you won't know until you try it. Now, we've generated a lot of thumbnails here. We've had zero problems. problems. It's been a really good stream.
[25:44] And I wanted to thank you, whether you're watching live or in the replay, for that. Now, I'm excited because you never know. I also have a little, you know, you guys get to see my true reactions. I never know how this is going to look. So, hopefully, you know, you guys have
[25:57] been enjoying that factor as well. And here's a cool thing. If you have a friend or someone just starting, the price is free. Now, this, I like. You know, again, I keep getting
[26:09] inspired. Make your captions pop. I don't know why I put a woman there instead of myself. This is feedback we've given. I know they're working on it. But make your captions pop. Maybe instead of me holding a laptop, it's just me smiling at a camera, like a YouTube caption down here,
[26:26] open script logo, make your captions pop. It's quick. It's easy. It's understandable. And from here, I can use this, and I can create my own thumbnail. Or maybe I test what it's like to not have myself in the thumbnail.
[26:41] The only thing I might change is this video because she looks great, but I'm not too sure how good the fake video editor here looks.
[26:57] I would like your opinion in the comments. And while you're in the comments, you can also check out Opus' thumbnail generator in that big comment down below. I wanted to thank everyone for watching live or in the replay.
[27:09] I'm Andrew Kim and thank you Opusclip for having me. Thank you for watching. Opusclip is really changing the game when it comes to features like this and you can use them to better inform your own content, to get better decisions,
[27:22] to come up with ideas, to use it to help empower you and that's why I like it. Thank you all so much for watching. I hope you have a great day.