My video is about modding your Spotify client, looking for good constructive criticism!
Title: Get Spotify Premium for FREE in 2025 (No Ads + Custom Themes!)
title may change
#Is my thumbnail clickable? Is it to boring? What would you change?
leaden rain
rough kraken
Pretty darn solid to me. Simple, easy to recognize at a glance, give you the kind of information that you might want to see as the target audience right away, professional first impression.
The morality of the topic might be a different story, but that’s not what I’m here for.
keen halo
Pretty darn solid to me. Simple, easy to recognize at a glance, give you the kin...
I think Frank has the right of it in terms of the current thumbnail's** simplicity** and recognizability. It's a good start!
But where this thumbnail falls flat (for me) is that it doesn't really get me curious to learn more. Consider this thumbnail that performed well for its creator on this topic:
This thumbnail does a couple things that the OP's doesn't:
- It clearly communicates the video concept: getting Spotify for free.
- It shows off a UI that we expect to have a price, but the word "free" is there. (surprise)
- Likewise, the title of the video includes "How To" making it clear it's a tutorial.
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As always, the goal of doing this kind of research **isn't **to copy / rip elements from successful thumbnails, but to try and understand what worked for them so we can apply those principles to our own packaging.
(What can we do to make our thumbnail pique the audience's interest?)
*(What kinds of visual elements would create a surprise / communciate the concept?) *
etc.
Anyway, this stuff is super subjective so take what I've said with a pinch of salt. Fingers crossed this was helpful / insightful! 👏
rough kraken
You make some good points I’m inclined to learn from for myself, but if you wouldn’t mind sharing more of your thoughts about the red circle + arrow combo in particular. To me anyways it comes off as unprofessional and click-baity. Maybe that’s exactly why it works, but I feel like OP’s original thumbnail has the advantage that even returning subscribers would be interested in topic.
I’m basing this completely off of vibes here btw, but I also want to highlight the comparison to another YouTuber’s thumbnails I thought OP’s looked similar to. I think Lemino’s thumbnails do well in setting an intense mood straight away.
@keen halo
keen halo
Yarr, that's a great question / point @rough kraken - I'll explain a little more how I do my research! 👋
When I'm looking at examples of success for a video topic (or packaging), I look to find videos that were uploaded recently (preferably within the last year or two) that significantly outperformed their subscriber count. This is to say, if we see multiple videos from smaller creators that did really well on a given topic (or with a particular style of thumbnail) recently, then it's likely that there's viewer interest there.
As far as using Lemmino (or another large creator) as an example of success, I don't put as much stock there because they already have 5+ million subscribers tuning in. Likewise, some of those videos are hella old, and may not be indicative of current viewer interest in those topics.
That said, I'm also not the biggest fan of covering thumbnails with red circles or arrows, and I totally agree: it can come across as super click bait-ey. It's a matter of creators asking themselves what they like, what audiences'll connect with, and what we can do to get them interested in our message.
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One of my favorite YouTubers (Aprilynne Alter) has a great video on this topic which goes through research / balancing / standing out / curiosity gaps, etc.; if you have half an hour to kill, the information she shares is wonderful:
rough kraken
@keen halo Very much appreciate the insight. Granted I think both our opinions are subject to change once we see the actual content of the video, but there’s a lot to learn regardless.
I think I might have a bias towards some boomer takes for example, so that video recommend is huge. 🤙