It is often quoted sagely advice: think about your video thumbnail.
Make it appealing, employ sexually suggestive imagery (though that can be misleading and sometimes run risk of breaking YouTube Terms Of Service). Be your own eye candy, or find yourself some kind of ‘eye candy’ stunt double.
But I was looking at the promoted videos on the Australian incarnation of YouTube this morning, thinking, maybe there’s another approach you could use. Maybe you could intrigue would-be viewers in other ways.
I like to call it the “Dude, what’s wrong with your face?” approach to video thumbnails.
Whether it’s the cheesy 70′s persona exuded by JuanMann (the ‘free hugs’ guy), the inexplicable fisheye of Frederick, the Killertoothbrush “Just how happy can a person be?!” grin, or Frezned’s facial contortions… one thing is for sure, they all warrant a second look.
I’m sure (or rather, I hope) that many of us have been victims of unintentionally unflattering thumbnails. This is my particular favourite example of this phenomena:
But just think, the same thing that has you cringing for years might be the final impetus people need to click on the thumbnail and find out what you’re all about. Chris Pirillo recently suggested that perhaps your true audience is really all those other people who use the internet but who don’t know you yet. Perhaps silly facial expressions are just one more tool for the arsenal in making yourself known.
If you try this out for yourself, let me know in the comments how you go. And link to the video so I can check it out for myself.
