Setting Up Your YouTube Channel: Custom YouTube Thumbnails

A great thumbnail is an important first step to help set your videos apart from the crowd in search and in TrueView video ad formats.

These custom thumbnails are available to YouTube channels that are verified and in good standing.

To verify your account, start by following the instructions on YouTube’s Account Verification page.

Once you’ve verified your account, you’ll notice the “Custom Thumbnail” button below the three preselected thumbnails from the video edit screen.

YouTube has published the following visual guidelines for thumbnail optimization:

• Clear, in-focus, hi-resolution (640px x 360px min., 16:9 aspect ratio)

• Bright, high-contrast

• Close ups of faces

• Visually compelling imagery

• Well-framed, good composition

• Accurately represents the content.

Remember that your thumbnails will appear in various sizes around YouTube, so it’s important that the image looks good at both big—like when it’s embedded in a blog—and small sizes—like related videos and search.

Nicko’s Kitchen is a cooking channel that uses high quality close-ups of the food being cooked in each video.

The iJustine channel uses thumbnails for additional branding

Ultimately, what you use in your Thumbnails is up to you, but uploading the image you want is an important first step into making sure your video is discoverable.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/youtube/setting-youtube-channel-custom-youtube-thumbnails-0629520?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=setting-youtube-channel-custom-youtube-thumbnails