A friend of mine posted a video on Facebook saying that he was the kid in the video.
I immediately shared it on Facebook, but looking at the thumbnail below, you may be thinking: What kid? This looks really boring. I’m not clicking on that.
Please note: This video was posted by a company with a huge marketing budget and they should know better!
They created an extremely fun and heart-warming video that must have cost a fortune to produce – and yet they didn’t give it the support it needed, including compelling copy introducing the video and a visually appealing thumbnail with the adorable kid playing air guitar on a broom.
Who wouldn’t click on an adorable kid in pajamas playing a broom?
Even for this blog, I try to use a thumbnail that tells people what Carol and I are talking about. You can see that we’re having a Zoom video chat, and you can see our names and Twitter handles.
If you’re feeling inspired, you can do branded thumbnails to look polished and professional.
Or maybe something more colorful like this?
With everyone so distracted and with so much noise out there, it’s important to show and tell people why they should look at your video.
Potential viewers will make a decision to engage or move on in the blink of an eye. And you may not get their attention again.
Here’s the whole video with the kid growing up to be a famous musician. It’s fantastic.
Clearly whoever posted the video on YouTube did a better job with the thumbnail, although I still would have picked an image of the cute kid.
