It’s a seemingly not very visible change but it will change a lot of things for people who post videos on YouTube: this week, the online video platform announced that it was going to make it possible to no longer create a, but several thumbnails, the thumbnails that are displayed on the site to make you want to click on a video.
This means that for the same video, you may not have the same thumbnail as your neighbor. This function is a form of A/B testing, a very widespread technique in marketing and among social media professionals. It consists of trying, at the time of publication, two different variants of the same content for a given time. At the end of this time we evaluate which of the two options generated the most engagement, that is to say, clicks on the video, and we definitely keep the best of the two for everyone.
Tutorials on YouTube
And this shows how important video thumbnails are: according to YouTube, 90% of videos with the most views have a personalized thumbnail. For some, thumbnails are even the crux of the matter… there are dozens of accounts and videos that are supposed to teach you how to make good thumbnails. The channel “Le disassembler” has published several videos on this theme.
To view this Youtube content, you must accept cookies Advertisement.
These cookies allow our partners to offer you personalized advertising and content based on your browsing, your profile and your interests.
Manage my choices I authorize
Algorithmic thumbnails on Netflix
All this means that when you browse YouTube, most of the video thumbnails you see are not left to chance. But this technique is not limited to YouTube: it has also been found on Netflix for several years. You may not know it but depending on the type of films and series you like to watch, the posters and thumbnails of the films are not the same on the platform… an algorithm defines your viewer profile and chooses the most suitable poster from a certain number of posters created in advance.
For example, if you want to watch the shark film Under the Seine, depending on your appetite for disaster films… the shark will be more or less suggested on the thumbnail: the idea, once again, is up to you make you want more and more to click and start the film or video.
