Summary: If you want to start a Gaming channel on YouTube, make sure that your custom thumbnails are working for you, not against you.
In the latest in our series on how to start a gaming channel on YouTube, we’re going to take a look at custom thumbnails. If you look at any of the top gaming channels on YouTube, you will see that their thumbnails are a work of art, really bright, oversaturated, with lots of punch that really draws you into the visuals when you're deciding what to watch next. Two quick golden rules for gaming thumbnails are:
- Make sure they are customized
- Make sure they look amazing
A very common mistake gaming channels make is to take a screenshot from the game and use it as their thumbnail without any further editing or context. And what some channels do is use the same screenshot over and over again with multiple videos. And that just really isn't appealing at all to the casual viewer.
I understand, as a video creator myself, that there is a huge temptation to just push a video out of the door once it's finished. But you should be spending at least 30 to 60 minutes on your thumbnail, making sure that it's not too cluttered, and that the one or two objects in that thumbnail really tell a compelling story.
Look at the top YouTubers in your video game sphere and see how they craft their thumbnails. We're even seeing smaller channels on YouTube producing amazing thumbnails. It's a really competitive area, and video creators are understanding more and more that custom thumbnails are vitally important whatever channel size you are. So, make sure you work really hard on them.
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