Do you want to make money on YouTube? Millions of creators are earning a very good living from the platform by uploading content that drives huge views and engagements. Whether that income is from advertising revenue, merch sales, or brand deals, we keep you updated with best practises and ideas.

How To Make Money on YouTube

Do you know how to do keyword research so you understand what videos people are actually searching for on YouTube? Do you know how to create a custom YouTube thumbnail? Do you know how to create a Playlist on YouTube?

vidIQ has a ton of tips that will help every creator maximise their video content. We publish content every week to keep you up to date with all the best practices.

YouTube Tips & Tricks

YouTube Shorts content is set to explode! 

All the latest tips, tricks, and rock-solid advice you need for this new feature.

YouTube Shorts

Ask any YouTuber and they will tell you that generating significant views and subscribers isn't easy. But with the right strategy and tools, any video creator can build an engaged subscriber base when they understand what those subscribers want to watch.

Appealing to an audience to watch content you are passionate about making is just the first step, you need to know how to reach them and get your videos discovered. Our guides to how to guide more views on YouTube will give you the best tips to succeed on the platform.

How To Get More Views on YouTube

Earning 4,000 hours of Watch Time is the dream for most creators, but it isn’t easy. Gaining 100 hours, sure. But thousands? That’ll test your determination to keep going on YouTube. Essentially, you have to post multiple videos and hope people watch them for long enough.

But once you have 4,000 hours, everything gets easier. You’ll be one step closer to applying to the YouTube Partner Program, which lets you monetize your channel with advertisements. Having those valuable hours allows you to focus on other things, too, like 

. That’s the second milestone required for the YPP.

YouTube Partner Program – How to Monetize Your Channel

When you’re collecting Watch Time hours, it’s easy to overlook certain parts of the process. The biggest, most understated thing, is that 

These 5 Videos Aren’t Eligible for YPP Watch Time

Before you start earning Watch Time, know which videos are in your best interest to create. There are five videos that make it hard – in most cases, impossible – to reach 4,000 hours.

Years ago, private and unlisted videos counted toward YPP Watch Time. 

 when YouTube decided that public videos, not partially viewable content, could accumulate watch hours.

prioritize public videos over private or unlisted ones.

 Unlisted videos can only be watched if certain people have the link. This privacy option benefits creators with specific content plans. They may want to send videos to friends and family or create a webinar for a limited audience.

If you’re trying to monetize your channel, unlisted and private videos aren’t very helpful. Make sure videos that need to be public are, in fact, set to public. That’ll help you reach 4,000 hours and apply to the YPP.

How to set private or unlisted videos to public on YouTube

Log in to YouTube on desktop. Click your profile icon and select 

You’ll see a list of all the videos on your channel. Find the videos you want to make public, then go to the 

 column. Click the eyeball symbol to reveal a menu of options: private, unlisted, members only, and public. Choose 

 from your monetizable total. For example, imagine your channel has 2,000 watch hours. If you delete a video that contributed 500 of those hours, you’ll be left with 1,500. Before you delete anything, check to see how many watch hours your content has earned.

Sometimes deleting a video is inevitable. Maybe you’ve grown as a person since it was first published and want to clean up your image. Or perhaps someone appeared in your video without prior consent, and they want you to take it down. Whatever the reason, make sure it’s worth deleting a video and losing precious watch hours.

Have you created video ads for YouTube? If you were hoping these would help you apply to the YPP, unfortunately, they won’t. Watch hours from advertising campaigns don’t count toward YouTube monetization. Even if you’ve earned 10,000 hours, none of it will go toward the 4,000 hours you need.

This seems fair because ads can get millions of views. If YouTube counts them for YPP acceptance, that’ll create a shortcut to monetization.

Short, vertical videos and how they relate to the YPP is a complicated subject. We know that 

; YouTube made that clear a few months ago. The platform also announced that Watch Time from Shorts doesn’t contribute to a creator’s 4,000-hour goal. But will this change in the future? Is there a monetization program just for Shorts in the works?

Only time will tell. For now, know that Shorts won’t help you monetize your channel – not quickly, at least.

There’s a small caveat to this statement, though. If a Short is viewed on the Shorts shelf, a display area for brief, vertical videos, it won’t earn YPP watch hours. But if the same video is viewed on a regular watch page with YouTube ads and a comment section, you can earn eligible Watch Time.

So while Shorts are mostly viewed on the Shorts shelf, they 

 get played in monetizable areas. If you need all the watch hours you can get, take advantage of this loophole. Those seconds, however small, add up.

Live streams are a great way to increase your Watch Time. These videos are usually lengthy, and if people stick around until the end, you can add several hours to your analytics.

According to YouTube, live streams that aren’t converted to video-on-demand content won’t earn YPP watch hours. The information around this is pretty vague, so we'd suggest making sure your live streams are public when they've ended. Don't archive a live stream by setting it to unlisted or private. 

Just to be sure, we asked YouTube if this advice made sense for creators. 

We didn't get a straightforward answer, but creators chimed in with their personal experience. A few of them said they earn Watch Time both during and after a live stream, which includes video-on-demand viewing.

Whether these hours were recorded for YPP Watch Time is another story. That's why, as soon as possible, we'd recommend checking to see if your live stream is public after it ends. If it's unlisted or private, switch it to public.

How to Get 4,000 Hours of YouTube Watch Time

 That means in addition to regular videos, posting lengthy live streams and experimenting with Shorts. The latter isn’t going to bring you quick success. The Watch Time you earn, if you earn any at all, will depend on where people watch the video. Shorts should complement your regular videos and live streams because all the Watch Time accumulates.

be intentional with the videos you upload.

 It’s easier to earn watch hours when you post videos that are relevant all year. Anything about making more money, product reviews, and video games with lasting popularity are good examples. People continue to search for these evergreen topics on YouTube.

 Instead of posting 30 videos in 30 days, aim to create videos that are entertaining, informative, and completely cover a topic. That could be 15 videos that answer every question about a topic, complete with video chapters and detailed instructions. Provide as much value as you can to make people watch longer.

Create a diverse set of content (regular videos, live streams, Shorts).

Post evergreen content that’s always relevant.

Give your video so much value that people can’t click away.

Make Money on YouTube – How to Get 4000 Hours Watch Time

Earning 4,000 hours of YouTube Watch Time is a major undertaking. If you need more clarification on how to do it, watch our explainer video below:

Put these suggestions to action, and you’ll eventually reach 4,000 hours of Watch Time. But don’t stop there. Your next goal should be applying to the YPP, which you can learn how to do 

You need 4,000 hours of Watch Time to monetize your YouTube channel. Unfortunately, the five videos below may slow your progress toward reaching that big, desirable goal.

YouTube Monetization: Which Videos Count Toward 4,000 Hours of Watch Time?

Now what's all this talk about earning lots of money in a very short space of time from a very small number of people on YouTube? Well it all comes down to this. We recently published a video all about 

One of the tools we talked about during that video was 

, which are small financial contributions from viewers to live streams which will highlight their message in the live stream chat. Now Super Chats are not new, it's been a feature that's been on YouTube for a number of years, but what is new is just how profitable they are for video creators. YouTube has confirmed that there are now over 90,000 channels who have received Super Chats - with some streams earning more than $400 per minute!

Now we ourselves occasionally get Super Chats on our live streams and we're very appreciative of it, thank you very much. But to say that it's a number one revenue source for channels and that you can earn over $400 per minute seems fanciful, until I saw this livestream from Travis McPherson (tune into the video above to watch).

Travis is part of the vidIQ family. You may have seen him on our channel, or at live streams and he does lots of work with customer service in the background. But Travis is also a video creator in his own right with the channel 

And he does all sorts of things on technology including live streams. At the time of recording, Travis's tech channel is just shy of 40,000 subscribers and I have no idea what he's doing right here. But this is one such live stream he did recently on the Samsung Galaxy Note which ran for about 48 minutes and got around 1,000 views. Just some of the Super Chats Travis received during that live stream including a single donation of $100 Canadian dollars. So first of all Travis, that's some savage work my friend. But second of all, and most importantly, how on earth did you do this? We decided to ask him.

 Actually the ability for me to get all of these Super Chats really had nothing to do with me chasing different ways to get the money, it was actually more about me chasing ways to make my live streams better. Let me explain.



I would go to other live streams and I would try to figure out why people were so excited to be there and why they were so much fun. I would go to other creators live streams and I would enjoy them myself. And one thing I noticed was in one of my favorite creators live streams he would do sound effects periodically and people loved it! And then I noticed that the more sound effects were being used, the more people would send Super Chats which I thought was interesting.



So what I wanted to do first was put sound effects in my videos. There's multiple ways of doing this including free ways where you can do a soundboard on your computer. But I bought the 

 and it's already paid for itself.



Basically it has a bunch of different buttons that I can completely modify and put different sound effects and different, cool little visual effects in my live streams. It makes it more fun.



Secondly, I made sure that I'm full of energy every single live stream. People want that, people love that. They come to my live stream because they enjoy themselves. And of course the most important thing, the thing you're wondering about how do I get them to spend money, well I don't. I just enjoy myself. I play sound effects when cool things are happening and when someone sends a Super Chat it's a big celebration.



I have a specific song I play, I do a little dance, and you know what, it works. People love it when you can take a minute to just appreciate that someone has sent you money just for being live, they really appreciate it as well. And because I go to other streamers live streams I go to other creators live streams, they actually come to mine as well and a lot of those Super Chats were from other creators. I really believe that going to people's live streams, being apart of the community and then making your live stream as fun as absolutely possible, is all you need to do. Focus on the people in your live stream make it awesome for them, and the rest just kinda works its way out.

Making Live Streams Work for Your YouTube Subscribers

YouTube subscribers are a fickle bunch. You only need to look at your analytics to see how many views you get from actual subscribers and it's usually less than 50% on most channels.

Beyond your standard subscribers are actual fans of your channel, the ones who post comments in all of your videos, who turn into every single live stream, they volunteer to moderate, and in the most generous way they start to offer you Super Chats and become members of your channel.

Those are your super fans, and if you continue to give those super fans enough value and make them part of the fabric of your channel you will never need to ask for anything from them they will give it to you because they are so invested in your success.

Oh and one final thing, I said that Travis earned these $200 from about 150 viewers although the live stream said it got a 1,000 views this is because you have concurrent viewers watching the live stream there and then, they drop in and out, and in reality Travis probably earned that money from maybe 10 at max 15 Super Chat contributors. So in theory you can make far more money than you would ever make on AdSense with just a handful of diehard fans.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

How do you earn more than $100 in less than an hour from just 150 people watching your content on YouTube? We tell you how!

How to Make More Than $100 on YouTube in Less Than an Hour!

There’s a big myth around YouTube - That it’s saturated, and everybody's doing the same thing, so there’s no room for new creators. Wrong!

On this episode of TubeTalk, I’m speaking to someone who runs a very unique channel which is doing exceptionally well. We discuss how whenever you put yourself out there, and share your passion with the world, even YouTube will reward you for it. 

 is a professional juggler, with over 500K subscribers on YouTube and in this podcast you will learn:

How he turned his passion into a YouTube goldmine

How he learned to understand his audience to give them the content they want

The different YouTube content he creates around a single topic

Subscribe to TubeTalk: The Video Marketing Podcast!

TubeTalk has been informing video creators and marketers since 2014, and is one of the most respected and listened to podcasts in the online video industry. Subscribe today so you never miss an episode! You can find vidIQ's TubeTalk at:

How to Turn Your Passion into a Killer YouTube Career: Full Transcript

Liron Segev: Josh, thanks for making the time to be here.

Josh Horton:	Of course, thanks for having me.

Liron Segev:	Josh, you have quite an interesting story. For those who don't know, how would you do Josh in a tweet?

Josh Horton:	In a tweet, oh boy. After I graduated college my plan was to be a professional juggler. I was doing that but then I also started working for a social media agency part-time. That turned into full-time and then my juggling career kind of fell by the wayside and before I knew it, I was a manager at a social media agency. Then when I turned 25 I quit that job to focus 100% on juggling but I'd learned so much about social media I also started to grow a social media channel for fun, mainly on Instagram at that point.

Fast forward a couple years and now I am not done performing but juggling as a performance, as an income is a side thing and now social media is my full-time thing.

Liron Segev:	It's a good thing that Twitter has 280 characters.

Liron Segev:	Okay, but there's a whole bunch of interesting points here where you were going in a certain direction, you decided to stop that, focus on that career.

Liron Segev:	Then you went back to the original thing and all this juggling became a side hustle thing.

Josh Horton:	Yeah, sort of. If you want to be successful you have to follow what's making you money but you also have to follow what you're enjoying, and so I've done both of them where right now I'm loving what I'm doing and I'm making money, which is great so it's a win.

My degree was in Entrepreneurial Studies, how to be an entrepreneur, how to own your own business, how to follow those dollar signs while being your own business and I think I've done a good job of tracking what's going to be best. My plan has changed multiple times in my young adult life but I'm trying to always be adaptable and follow those signs.

Liron Segev:	And following your passion as well because that seems to be the driving force underneath all of this.

Josh Horton:	Yeah, I've loved everything ... I quit my job. My job was okay working in social media, on the brand side, but anything that involves what I'm doing I love it.

Liron Segev:	Did you find that having that brand experience and having that background, did that help you with growing your own social media and doing those brand deals?

Josh Horton:	It definitely helped me growing my own social media, especially off the bat. I started just on Instagram because I had no plans of being a YouTuber, no plans on being even an influencer. I was just like, "Hey, I like Instagram and it would be fun if I had some followers, just to have followers, to show off to my friends or whatever.

Around that time was right when video had just come out. For our brands we were almost doing exclusively super branded content, which obviously I wasn't a big fan of for an Instagram account but it taught me how to take your content a little bit next level. When videos were first coming out everyone was just filming in the app and so the fact that it had music or I was editing together montages or something was not groundbreaking but most people weren't doing it.

In the early days of Instagram video I was able to grow a following pretty quickly just with my juggling and trick shot videos.

Liron Segev:	It made you stand out because you weren't yet another me too doing something that everybody else was doing.

Liron Segev:	You found your own voice, you found your own way of doing it, and that obviously really struck with your community.

Josh Horton:	Right. Then, where I was also able to find some success was I knew that people didn't want to watch a juggler. Juggling is what I've done my entire life but I've been able to branch out into world records, nine juggling world records and then trick shots too. I've been throwing things accurately my whole life and then when I was trying to create more engaging, more relatable videos to other people, I knew trick shots would be an easy way to do that and turns out I'm very good at them.

Liron Segev:	Once again, tapping into something that you're good at, finding your passion, and just sharing it with the world.

Liron Segev:	There seems to be a community that really, really responds to that.

Liron Segev:	Take me through the time when you said, "Okay, there's this thing called YouTube, I know it, maybe I should transition towards that." What was that mindset like, why did you make that change?

Josh Horton:	Right. That goes back to what we were talking about before of me wanting to enjoy this life and be able to make a living doing it. This was when I was still very much a performer, so I was doing a lot of NBA college halftime shows, corporate events during my juggling show and then I had probably 150,000 followers on Instagram. I'd obviously come into a couple brand deals and I was like, "Oh wow, you can make a living on social media!.

I knew that from working in the industry but that was never a goal of mine. I'd fallen into a couple of these brand deals, made a few bucks. I was like, "Man, it'd be really cool if I could make a living just doing these internet videos." Took a look at the industry and brand deals are great but they come and go, and they can go for a very long time where you have nothing and so you can't depend on them. I knew once you have a good YouTube following you can have that Ad revenue, which is much more steady, much more reliable, quote unquote reliable as we've all learned.

I knew YouTube was what I needed to do and I knew it was going to be a big undertaking. That was about two and a half years ago and I had probably, I think it was probably 10,000 subscribers just from being a juggler and posting videos when I was younger in the juggling community. I, again, was wanting to branch out not being just a juggler so when I started taking YouTube seriously I was doing world record Wednesdays, and I'm still doing that. Every Wednesday I've broken a world record for the last two and half years and I haven't missed an upload.

Liron Segev:	Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, just stop there. Every Wednesday you break a world record?

Liron Segev:	Wow, that's a lot of records.

Josh Horton:	It's been a lot. It's a thing where I'm like I never know when I'm going to run out or if I'm going to regret this one day. Some days I do regret it but it's such a good series that the fans love. To get the response that you just gave it's a one sentence, better than my long tweet at the beginning when people say, "What do you do on your channel?" "I break a world record every Wednesday," that's a very easy elevator pitch.

Liron Segev:	That's a taggage right there.

Josh Horton:	I started just doing once a week so world record Wednesdays was the entire channel for nine months or so and then I started posting a little bit more so now I'm at three times a week. The last two years I've been doing three times a week.

Liron Segev:	How do you find what this week's record is going to be? Is there a book that you're ticking off going from A to Z?

Josh Horton:	No. There's a couple of places, the Guinness World Records Database online which has tons of stuff. They have stuff that has been set and there's an existing record but then they also have all these things that they have in their database that no one's attempted. They've laid out the rules and the minimum for it so we're able to say, "Hey, this is in the Guinness World Records Database, there has not been a record set yet. Their minimum for this record is so-and-so," yeah. I'm all about entertainment. I do have 16 official Guinness World Records titles.

Liron Segev:	Oh, for the record, just to be clear.

Josh Horton:	Just for the record. Sorry ladies, I'm married. Yeah, for the most part it's just entertainment for YouTube at this point. Having the world record Wednesday every Wednesday, it puts it in a category form where it makes brainstorming easier but also harder. I know what my realm of, it has to be a world record so that narrows it down but also, two and a half years in, a little bit more difficult. My goal for it as we do feature people a lot, other people, other talented people.

Liron Segev:	Oh, I see, you bring in other talent?

Josh Horton:	Yeah, pretty often, especially for world record Wednesdays. We'll feature someone who is the world's best. We did a girl who has whips so she can remove Jenga blocks with whips. She's super accurate with whips.

Josh Horton:	We've done basketball people, we've done a guy who has a trained dog, all sorts of stuff. My goal for the channel is to get big enough to where people people are hitting me up all the time asking to be on the channel for the new world record, demonstrate their skill. We're not quite there yet but we're hitting up people all the time to try to get them as guests and the fans love that too because they're tired of seeing me, basically.

Liron Segev:	There's 52 Wednesdays a year. It's not a big number, not in terms of massive, but you still have to find enough talent who can actually do it.

Liron Segev:	Do you film the whole process if they succeed or fail or do you just give the highlight reels of, "Hey, here's the final shot."

Josh Horton:	No, we always show the process, that's kind of been another thing for the channel. The other thing, if I was to categorize my channel it would be a trick shot or sports channel unlike Dude Perfect. Dude Perfect puts together the most epic, perfect video of trick shots and that's not our style. We show the misses, we show the process, we show all of that.

Josh Horton:	Yeah. We love to show everything that happens, everything that goes into it and bring our fans along for that journey.

Liron Segev:	You've done Instagram, you've now moved across to YouTube, you're building a community. What kind of tips would you have for us if somebody is thinking, "Hey, I've got the skill," maybe something that's not your typical YouTube thing. How would I start getting myself into that mindset that, actually, the skill that I have people would want to see it?

Josh Horton:	There's a couple parts to that. I think part of it is showing the process, it's showing the personality. People only care about the skill to a certain degree once you get past that immediate community. If you like yo-yos, if you can be a great yo-yo player you can gain all of the yo-yo followers in the world but that number is going to stop at one point and then you're not going to be able to make a living doing it.

I know there's a lot of skateboarding channels that have tons of fans that are not skateboarders, they just love the process. They love seeing it, they love the personalities. I've done that with juggling but I also, I acknowledge that people weren't going to watch a juggling channel. I knew that juggling wasn't going to be something that applied to the masses and I've always loved sports. I love trick shots and so I don't feel like I'm betraying myself by not making a juggling channel because I still love what we're doing.

I think I did take, from the beginning, taking YouTube seriously with World Record Wednesdays I was like, "People are not going to watch a juggling channel. I need to branch out, I need to do something beyond what I'm just doing." I think the other thing would be to find something that is on brand with what you do on brand with your skill and then, yeah, just try to branch out a little bit, that would be more for the masses.

Liron Segev:	I love Mike Boyd's channel, it's all about who he is, learn quick, and so his are all just learning skills. He's not skilled in one specific thing but his channel is about learning skills, which I love. Do you ever do teaching videos, how to's?

Josh Horton:	I have a three ball tutorial online, it has 750,000 views, which is good for my channel but it's one of the things people are searching for it so they find it but people ask for tutorials all the time and it's just doesn't make sense for the channel anymore.

I've even thought about doing a separate channel for just tutorials or having a library of tutorials with a paywall, yeah. I'm still processing that, yeah.

Liron Segev: What about merch and things of that nature?

Josh Horton:	We're working on Merch, yeah, we've been doing Teespring but we want to take it a little bit next level, I think, soon so we'll see. I do have a juggling store which does pretty well so I do sell juggling props and all sorts of other stuff as well; boomerangs, yo-yo's, unicycles, all sorts of stuff at jugglingwarehouse.com.

Liron Segev:	I think that's what people want, is they want to be part of the community and being part of the community is actually owning a piece of that community. If it's a matter of supporting the creator by being able to do that, then why not?

Josh Horton:	I love that ... It's not a juggling channel but I'm inspiring tons of people that juggle. I get messages almost daily saying they learned to juggle because of me and they bought their first set of balls. My most sold item is my beginner set of juggling balls and we sell multiple a day. It's a cool thing to be able to, to be giving back to the community where I started, all of this started because of juggling so I do like that.

I have had internal struggles like, "Am I giving up on juggling, am I betraying my talent and my passion that I started with?" I don't think I am because I'm just being smart about all of it and I'm still loving what I'm doing.

Liron Segev:	As we wrap up, what's got you really, really excited at the moment?

Josh Horton:	Well, YouTube has finally been taking off. I say that with an asterisk, we'll have a crazy week. Overall, YouTube has finally been doing well. I think in the last six months we've gone from 200,000 to 400,000 which has been great.

Josh Horton:	Thank you. First 100k took a long time and even the second 100k took a while but the last 200 have come pretty quickly, which has been exciting.

Liron Segev:	Have you found that you're finally in your groove, you found your niche, you know what works.

Josh Horton:	You know what works, for the most part. It's still frustrating sometimes. We had my most viewed day of the channel ever and then six days later I had the lowest viewed day of the channel in nine months, which just doesn't make sense to me. Overall, the lows are much higher than they used to be so that's good, we're moving in the right direction and still gaining subs everyday so that's good.

Liron Segev:	That's the whole thing of YouTube, just when you think you've got it figured out, you just don't. Or they go ahead and they change yet another thing.

Liron Segev:	If people want to find you, they want to get ahold of you, what's the best way so we can have these in the show notes so nobody has to miss anything

Liron Segev:	Fantastic. Josh, thanks very much for your time.

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

There’s a big myth around YouTube - that it’s saturated, and there’s no room for new creators. Find out why that's wrong and how you can build a career out of your passion right now on this week's TubeTalk.

How to Turn Your Passion into a Killer YouTube Career: TubeTalk 183 with Josh Horton

Custom thumbnails on YouTube - they're one of the biggest topics we talk about here at vidIQ and during our weekly channel audit live streams, that's one of the things we scrutinize the most. This post is part of a new series all about improving thumbnails on your YouTube channel, because just as readers judge books by their covers, viewers judge videos by their thumbnails. You have a very small graphic and a very small amount of time to convince somebody to click on your video, so you have to use it as wisely as possible.

How to Create Custom Thumbnails on YouTube

I’ve spent the last year improving the custom thumbnails I use on our vidIQ videos on YouTube, and that’s proving to be a hit with viewers as our click through rate on our channel has increased 100% over that time. My thumbnail creations always start with two things: a plain cream wall to use as a temporary background and a ring light.

For me, personally, purchasing a ring light was the game changer. You find these in cosmetic shops and a lot of beauty channels use these to blast a lot of concentrated light over a confined amount of space. I use the newer RL 18 ring light and it has two dials which allow you to control the exact amount of light you want to use and whether it has that warm, soft orange look, or a more cool, clinical white appearance. The ring light kicks out a lot of light, so you only need to have it on a low setting for it to have dramatic effects. One thing you do need to keep an eye on, however, are android eyes. The closer the ring light is to your face, the more chance the viewer has of seeing white circles in your eyes, which might be distracting or intentional. To get rid of this android circle eye effect, what you can do is place the ring light further away from you and turn up the brightness. And you should get the same effect with less white eyes.

Now it's time to put on your best YouTuber face, if you intend to be in the thumbnail. Think of it like this: whatever expression you intend to use, crank it all the way up to 11. It will never look quite as stupid as you imagine when you're holding the pose, and it will look perfect for the thumbnail. Trust me, every YouTuber practices this around three hours!

When you're ready, set your camera to burst mode so you have a collection of pictures to choose from. I take three pictures at one-second intervals and I leave the camera on automatic mode. The camera I use is a Panasonic G7 with the kit lens. Now we need to get rid of the background because it's, well, to be honest, quite boring and it's too similar to my skin tone. So let's jump onto a computer and turn this into something that starts to resemble a thumbnail.

YouTube Custom Thumbnails: Creating the Image

When you create a contrast between a foreground and a background, each element of your picture really starts to pop. So what we want to do is get my YouTube pose stuck onto this blue background, just to demonstrate how powerful this can be. To do this, we need to cut me out of this image as if cutting a picture out of a newspaper. The best way to do this through Photoshop, which is what I used here at vidIQ, using the Magnetic Lasso Tool. All you need to do is click on a starting point and then draw your mouse around the shape, and you will see anchor points automatically create themselves with lines attached to each one. Photoshop does a pretty good job of working out these cut points automatically, but, occasionally, you will need to click a point manually, especially if there are two edges or lines with distinct colors that are close to each other.

Once you've joined the dots, so to speak, click on your starting point to complete the trace, and then use the Cut command. Next, go to the background image and paste that bad boy in. Boom. Now you can maneuver your image into place and clean up any bits, and the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop will help with that. You can, of course, use the Magic Wand to clear the whole background, but it's not as accurate or reliable as the Magnetic Lasso Tool.

Now let's add a bit of magic sauce to my image. Go to Filter at the top, then select Sharpen, followed by Unsharpen Mask. This will draw out all the detail. The lines, the contour of the face. And, to be honest, at full size, it may look a little too sharp. But remember, 99.9% of your audience will see this image at postage stamp size. And this Unsharpen Mask really brings out the detail.

Alright then, the thumbnail is taking shape, but we need to make it a vidIQ thumbnail. And that's done through branding and elements that we use in every single thumbnail. What we need for that is a template. While this background is okay, it doesn't quite match the company blue. So we're going to move my image over to our template thumbnail. What we have here is a background that we use on every single custom thumbnail. The vidIQ logo in the bottom left-hand corner, that we also use in every single thumbnail. And this font type and color that we always use whenever we include text in a thumbnail. This establishes branding and consistency throughout our artwork, so you know instantly when you see one of our thumbnails, you know it's a vidIQ video.

I haven't quite decided whether to use text in this one yet, so I'm going to leave it in there for now, drag my image into a template, resize it, and rotate it a little bit, to make sure my surprised pose is looking at whatever objects I'm going to insert on the left-hand side of the thumbnail. Next is a little personal touch I like to add which can divide opinion. If you bring up Layer Styles, you can add an outline to images, such as a shadow, outer glow, or stroke effect. I like to do this because it hides some of the rough imperfections in the process of cutting the original image out, and, personally, I just think it makes me stand out even more. In this example, I'm going to add a white stroke effect, adjusting the line thickness to get it the way I like it. Alright, now we have the hero or the persona in the image with a strong, evocative pose. But we need them to be drawn to something.

Custom Thumbnails on YouTube: How to Get the Text Right

I'm conscious that the video title is going to be something along the lines of ‘How to Make a Thumbnail’, so I don't want to repeat that text in the thumbnail. So I've decided to go for a construction theme, and this is how I'm going to build it.

I've got a construction sign image here that I'm going to pull in, remove the white background, and then make nice and big to fill the right side of the thumbnail. Now to add some YouTube flavor to the mix. I'm going to bring in the logo and I have two choices, here. Either I can cover up the tools, or hang the logo above the text. I think covering the tools looks best. Now I'm adding a small black stroke effect to give the YouTube logo an outline and, because I already have some text in the sign, I'm going to delete the default font and its banner. Yes, this is a rare occasion when I'm not using our default font.

Now I have more space to play with, I'm going to make the sign stand out some more with a drop shadow, increase the size, and rotate the whole thing around a little bit. And this is the finished product. Three dominant colors, blue, yellow, and red, that I think contrast well with each other, and a very simple design. And that is the key because, remember, nobody sees your thumbnail at full size - they see it at a much smaller size.

Stay tuned throughout April 2019 for the best tips, tricks and best practices around creating custom thumbnails on YouTube.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Creating awesome custom thumbnails for YouTube can send your clickthrough rate through the roof! We show you how to create the perfect YouTube thumbnail for your content.

How To Make Custom Thumbnails on YouTube

Listeners of TubeTalk know we love to dive into creator stories, to find out how they started their journey, and the steps they took to success on YouTube.

In this week’s episode, we're joined by Chris Turner, who is a British comedian and a freestyle rapper. He has over 17M views on 

, and his comedy gigs regularly sell out. He has created a successful YouTube presence around a niche topic and has a lot of very valuable advice for fellow creators. In this podcast you will learn:

How to use YouTube as a showcase for your work

Why the platform is one of the best marketing tools for entertainers

Why livestreaming is a great way to build your offline audience

How to use YouTube's Community Tools to crowdsource content ideas

How adding closed captions in different languages can help your international reach

How any content creator can learn the art of storytelling from an entertainer

How to be Successful as an Entertainer on YouTube: Podcast Snapshot

 On my YouTube channel, I post videos of my live performances because they are almost entirely improvised. I make them up on the spot, and I am blown away by how people actually enjoy it. There's that initial shock from an audience who doesn't know what I do and think "Oh, wow, although he's a posh white British guy, he can actually rap."

Also, one of my favorite things is my YouTube commenters say, "I love that I learn something every time I watch your video." And that's quite cool because I was very lucky to have a very privileged education and so I feel I get to share things I've learned with people.

Liron Segev: Do you use your channel purely as an advertising platform to say, hey, look what I can do?

Chris Turner: It definitely started out like that. I used to just put videos up every now and again, like stand up videos that went viral and did well. I would just put them up and send them to promoters because you need a platform for someone to see a video and it was free so of course, I used it.

And then when I started gigging regularly at clubs that had video recording equipment I started thinking, oh, these raps are ephemeral, they last for that show. But I can put them online and people who like me can see them and maybe there's a chance that one of them will take off and I'll make more fans.

Liron Segev: So has that evolved over time, are you kind of finding that you're using the platform slightly differently now?

 So now it's a marketing tool in the sense that I have been lucky enough to amass quite a loyal fan base. People who will watch every video and critique videos and pick their favorite parts and say, oh, for me, this is your best one.

And then within the videos, I'm able to say, "Hey, you should come and see me live." Or I can say, "I'm coming on tour." With the community features that YouTube has, I can crowdsource ideas for my freestyle raps then release content around that based on the most popular suggestions."

The reason I got into comedy is because I performed on stage at a gig and I thought, wow, this is amazing. Being on stage is my happiest place. So the fact that I can use YouTube to bring people to those live shows is really cool.

Liron Segev: What I love about YouTube is the fact that you can perform in LA, upload a video about that performance and reach a global audience. People can connect with you, wherever they are.

 I also add closed captions to my YouTube videos because people were asking, "Hey, I don't speak English as a first language, it would be great if we have subtitles." And I see that 5 to 10% of viewers turn on the subtitles, so that's useful for them.

Liron Segev: One of the biggest skills a content creator can have is to tell a good story. And the thing that you do really well is telling a good story. Do you think that this is a skill that any content creator can learn?

 I think by virtue of being a stand-up comedian you learn storytelling skills. 

 that we need to harness because if there's a beginning and an end, viewers will stick around for that end.

Liron Segev: For those who have never watched your videos, where can somebody find you?

Chris Turner: Check out a video first, go to the YouTube channel, and if you like what you see then please subscribe and then follow. If you like it to the point you want to see it live, great. I have shows on sale, I have a mailing list on my website, 

. Sign up for the mailing list and I'll essentially just direct email you when I'm in your city.

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

 and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

YouTube is an amazing platform for any entertainer to show off their skills. Learn how to use it effectively as a marketing and outreach tool in this week's episode of TubeTalk.

How to be Successful as an Entertainer on YouTube: TubeTalk 204 with Chris Turner

I didn’t think I’d be writing this post 7 days ago. But here we are, being thrown headfirst into a world we don't really understand, with millions of people currently self-isolating, under quarantine, under a potential shelter-in-place mandate, or being asked to work from home by their company because of the current health crisis. It’s an extraordinary and challenging time.

, there has been a significant and understandable uptick in people in the US searching for content around ‘working from home’ or ‘remote working’ over the past week.

vidIQ is a fully remote global company. We don’t have a central office and every member of the company works from home. I asked some of the team for tips about what works for them when it comes to staying motivated and productive. I hope you find them useful.

25 Working From Home Tips from the vidIQ Team

If you’re sharing a house with a partner, come up with your own boundaries. For instance: "If I’m in my office, I’m working," or "between 9am and 3 pm I’m working". Also, I make sure to communicate that if I can't chat, it's not personal, it just takes a long time to shift gears from work to personal.

vidIQ has always been a fully remote company so we asked the team for their top tips for anyone new to working from home.

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