So while uploading my previous video, which you can check out in my last post or on my youtube channel, I quickly tried to add my head to the thumbnail in order to add some personality.
I chose an image that was easily available, already in Canva, and cut it up to show just my head, ending up like this:
Bing bam boom, I was done and started uploading. But here comes @ecoinstante - "Why would you use that photo?"
According to her, I look quite untrustworthy in this picture, the dark glasses not helping here. She preferred another picture - so I headed straight to the archives. And I found it - the most innocent face I have ever made. I could be amish here, with that big ol' beard and artisanal hat.
You can maybe even see in my eyes, the genuine honesty and emotion. Surely, my wife said, this beautiful trusting face would attract more clicks. I was not convinced, but convinced enough to conduct a thumbnail test.
For those of you wondering, this is my last picture with Umi (cut out) and her son Valentin, our first and last horses forever. They taught me a lot, and the most important lesson was that having a horse was dumb, maybe the dumbest thing I had ever done. I may have learned something too about all the people who recommended the horse to me as essential, but that's a topic for another article.
Well the results are in, albeit with low confidence.
Now, I don't want to put too much importance into this, I will have to do another test later with a much wider video, which might have some luck involved too. But I was suspicious from the beginning, people don't pick youtube videos like they pick their husbands.
I kind of thought that if I looked a little less trustworthy, I'd probably get more clicks. Few, I suspect, want to see a nice (young) amish farmer doing nice old things in nice old ways - its sounds boring, and poor, whether that is true or not.
Well, 60/40 a blowout is not, especially on the video that got the least impressions of my last 5. But I would be interested in what you all think. Not as a person - as a thumbnail.
Which is more clickable?
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