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By now, you may have noticed that the Shorts player in the YouTube app doesn't show custom thumbnails. Instead, YouTube chooses a random frame from your video, which becomes the image preview for your Short.
Notice how all the videos below have random thumbnails:
However, two areas of the app will display a YouTube Shorts thumbnail:
So while the Shorts player doesn't support thumbnails, you can upload one that shows up in other areas.
Uploading a YouTube Shorts thumbnail is the same process as adding one to a regular video. Kind of. There's just a tiny step you may be overlooking.
Keep in mind that you need to verify your YouTube account before you can upload custom thumbnails.
Read More: How to Enable Custom Thumbnails On YouTube
Creating a YouTube Short on your phone and then grabbing a laptop to add a thumbnail is a hassle. Are all those extra steps even worth it?
It depends on the content you're creating, but we'd say yes. Viewers can watch a Short in multiple areas of YouTube, so it makes sense to optimize the video for different viewing scenarios.
The most common place to watch a YouTube Short is the Shorts player itself. This featured display area lets viewers cycle through videos of 60 seconds or less in a TikTok-style fashion. When a video is randomly featured there, you can expect it to get hundreds or even thousands of views. Or, as we mentioned before, viewers can watch a YouTube Short on channel pages or watch pages as a regular video.
You'll know when this has happened because the video's analytics will show the following traffic sources, in addition to "YouTube Shorts."
If you see viewing percentages from the traffic sources above, your Short has reached the "regular" side of YouTube. And as we mentioned before, regular videos can display custom thumbnails.
To understand how vital these thumbnails are, take a look at "How to Make a Map in Minecraft 1.16.3." It's a popular YouTube Short from Dan, our gaming expert.
Dan optimized the video for two viewing experiences by creating the thumbnail below. It only shows up when people are watching outside of the YouTube Shorts player.
“How to Make a Map in Minecraft 1.16.3” has already surpassed 1 million views. But before it was that successful, most of the views came from users watching it as a YouTube Short (around 80%). Viewers watching it as a regular video accounted for less than 150,000 views.
Nevertheless, that’s a significant number. Imagine hundreds of thousands of viewers deciding whether to watch a YouTube Short, and the deciding factor is whether they see a nice, custom thumbnail or a random freeze-frame. It's possible that without a custom thumbnail, those viewers wouldn’t have clicked so enthusiastically.
Let’s say you want to increase views for videos watched as a YouTube Short. What should you do?
Remember, a great thumbnail should be your priority when it comes to regular videos.
For YouTube Shorts, the title and entertainment value are most important. At the same time, the extra views from adding a thumbnail are significant, so you may have to think deeply before deciding against one.
Lydia Sweatt is a writer, bookworm, and bass guitar enthusiast. When she goes outside, a bicycle goes with her.
