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How to Make a YouTube Thumbnail with Instagram Stories
2K views
Jun 2, 2024
In this video, you'll learn how to create eye-catching YouTube thumbnails using Instagram Stories. We'll guide you through the process of leveraging Instagram Stories' creative tools to design thumbnails that stand out and attract viewers. From adding text and stickers to utilizing filters and effects, this tutorial will show you how to craft professional-looking thumbnails quickly and easily. Perfect for creators looking for a fun and efficient way to enhance their video presentation, this guide will help you make thumbnails that boost your video's click-through rate and overall appeal.
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0:00
Today I'm going to show you how to make a YouTube thumbnail on your phone. And you don't need any
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extra software, no new apps. It's probably an app that you already have installed on your phone
0:08
which is Instagram. So yes, you can make YouTube thumbnails with Instagram Stories. So this is
0:13
going to be a really easy tutorial. I'm going to walk you through step-by-step how to create an amazing thumbnail using Instagram. So we have two other tutorials on how to create thumbnails
0:21
using Canva, one on your phone, one on your computer. I'll link to those up above if you're
0:25
interested in checking them out. So the important thing is here is you spend enough time creating
0:28
thumbnails. This is the most important thing for your videos besides the actual video content
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This is what people use to decide, do I want to watch this video or not? So if you have an image
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that gets someone's attention and they say, yes, I want to watch this video right now
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YouTube is going to promote your videos more. So it's important to find a software you're
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comfortable using and you can quickly and easily create amazing thumbnails. So Instagram, I think
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is something that's super easy to use. And so I'm going to walk you through step-by-step how to do it. So the very first thing we need to create a thumbnail is the image. So when you're taking an
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image for your thumbnail, especially if you want to add text to the image, you want a fairly solid
1:03
background or something you can put text over and be able to read. Otherwise you have to put kind of
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a background over the text to be able to read it. So I obviously have this gray wall here that'll
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work perfectly. Now I just need a picture. So I'm here recording by myself all the time. I find it
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difficult to take 50 pictures, find the best one, and then use that for the thumbnail. So what I
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found as a workaround is actually recording a video of myself, kind of making all the different
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gestures that I want, taking a screenshot of that, and then using that for the thumbnail image
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So let's see how that works. So let's get out my trusty SwitchPod. I can set that down here
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get my cell phone ready to record a video. The wide angle, because I'm shooting this really
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close. Obviously you could take the time to do this a little bit better than what I am
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but we're going to go through this pretty quickly. So we have the video ready to go
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And then I need to just stabilize, something like that. I can luckily see myself in the screen for
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my camera, so I can see I'm off to one side. And then I have this area over here where I
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could write text. So I could be making faces like this. Something like that, really quick and easy
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So, okay, let's stop the video. And then I don't need the SwitchPod anymore. Okay
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so let me start recording this screen so you can see what I'm going to do now
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All right, so you should be able to see what I'm doing. So here is the video that I just took
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I can just scroll through the different points in the video. Let's see, maybe something like that
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And then what I want to do is I want to obviously full screen like this and then take a screenshot
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So to do that, you hit the button on the right hand side and the up volume. And now we have an
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image for our thumbnail. So the next thing I want to do now is open up Instagram. So now I want to
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go to the images, this image. So what I need to do now is obviously zoom in much more
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Something like that. And then obviously I can just click on the screen and start adding text
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So if you saw the other ones we did, it had to do with getting subscribers on YouTube. So I could
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write get here. Let's do it in cap lock. So hit this twice, get exclamation point. And then I can
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change the size of the font. Another thing is if I did what I was saying before is if you have a
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busy background and you want to be able to read the text, you could obviously put a background
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behind the text like that. So you so no matter what's behind you, you're going to be able to read this with a solid colored wall. It's pretty easy. Maybe you want to change up the color to make sure
3:37
that it contrasts enough with your background. But I think that pretty much works. So then you can
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see here, I changed it 90 degrees, I think would work. And then the other thing that I wanted to do
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is so obviously to be recognizable, you want to use as few words as possible. And then any other
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kind of like icons, graphics or something that people immediately recognize and understand what
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the video is about. If I were to use the YouTube logo or the YouTube red button. And so I downloaded
4:05
that on my phone not that long ago. So if I go back to my camera roll, here's the YouTube button
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If I hit the share in the bottom left hand corner and go to copy photo and then basically go back
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to Instagram and it's going to ask me add sticker. So here's the YouTube button. There it is at
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rotated 90 degrees. And then if you saw the other ones that we did, being that we're trying to get
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oops, I just flipped it subscribers fast, some type of thing that shows motion growth
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things like that. And so, you know, there's not a way that I know of to add kind of straight lines
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but you can draw. And so essentially what I what we could do is just something like
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here, let's let's try that one more time. Let's undo. And let's try this a little smoother
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at least one, two, three. So I mean, it could be just something like that. So get YouTube subs fast
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That is essentially what the thumbnail would look like. And so let's not do a bunch of random dots
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all over the place. Also within Instagram, you have a bunch of filters. So I could go through
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here to say, hey, do I like, you know, the the tones of, you know, some of these more. I think
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the normal is probably for me the what I would say would be my favorite. So I don't think there's
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anything left to do. And so I'm not going to publish this. I just need to hit the little down
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arrow, which means it's going to download to my camera roll. OK, so the image is saved. OK
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so now let's open up the photos. And here you can see here's the thumbnail that we just created
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So you're not going to be able to rotate the image within YouTube. So you need to do it on
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your phone. So to do that, you can click on edit and then from edit, click on the crop and rotate
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button like so. And then at the top left, you'll see the rotate button. And really, that's it
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If you want to learn how to do something similar, but with the Canva app, I'm going to link to the
5:58
video right here. If you want to see how to upload your YouTube video and your thumbnail
6:03
using your phone to YouTube, check out the video down below. Hope to see you in another video
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Bye bye
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