My client landed a $1M home buyer with just 10 subs. I've been handling his editing, thumbnails, and overall YouTube packaging for the past 9 months. 19 days ago, we launched a hyper-local channel. "LIVING IN LAKE ARROWHEAD CALIFORNIA" Instead of talking to every home buyer... We only talked to people moving to one specific place. 19 days later... A $1M buyer lead come in. You don't need more views. You need the right viewers.

Mrbeast's team tests their thumbnails a lot. on new videos, jimmy's face usually wins. on older videos, the no-face version sometimes wins. here's what that means for your thumbnails 👇

youtube this week: testing $20 payouts (was $100) youtube in february: 4,000 → 8,000 watch hours to get monetized make it make sense 💀

mine is believing clients when they say "this is the final revision"

Instagram is becoming YouTube. But it's own boss says he doesn't want that. Here's what's happening. Instagram is launching "Features": horizontal videos that can be over an hour long. You can watch them on your phone or on your TV. 2 years ago, Adam Mosseri (Head of Instagram) said he wasn't interested in long videos. He felt it would hurt what makes Instagram special: friends and short videos. So what changed? TV. Mosseri said that, as best they can tell, YouTube's growth in the US is coming from TV, not phones. If people are watching on the big screen, Instagram wants to be there too. But he still doesn't want to copy YouTube. He said that if Instagram became YouTube, it would lose the friends part. So Instagram is trying a mix: → Short clips from a long video show up in your feed. → If you like the clip, you tap and watch the full video. → Long videos also show up in Explore as a bigger tile. And one YouTube thing comes with it: thumbnails. Creators can pick or upload a cover image for their long videos. That changes the game a little. On Reels, the video starts playing and grabs you in the first second. For an hour-long video, people first look at one image and decide if it's worth their time. Will it work? Even Mosseri isn't sure. He said they're taking a big risk and could be wrong. Instagram tried long video once before with IGTV in 2018. It didn't last. My take: Instagram isn't trying to beat YouTube at YouTube. It's trying to make long videos feel like Instagram. Would you watch an hour-long video on Instagram?

MrBeast is "actually" benefiting from Roadster lol

thumbnail designers, get ready. instagram needs us now too.

indian freelancers in 2026: please make $1 = ₹100 we’re tired of multiplying by 95.06

Isaac has 9 videos and 230K subs. that’s about 25K subscribers per video.

Mark Tilbury has 9M+ subs, but he almost never says “make $10K a month.” He says “make $300 a day.” Here’s why: $300 a day is about $9,000 a month. Almost the same money. But $10K a month sounds like a big dream. $300 a day sounds like something you can start this week. The money is the same. It just feels closer. If I was doing this for a business channel: (1) Make your big number small. “$2M a year” is about “$5,500 a day.” (2) Only use real numbers. If it’s made up, people can tell. (3) Pick a time people can picture. A day for money. A week for weight. A month for followers.

I present to you, (unarguably) the top 10 beliefs of the new-age YouTube channel: 1. Packaging first, filming second. 2. 10 buyers > 10,000 viewers. 3. Views per video > subscriber count. 4. Steal formats, not thumbnails. 5. Old videos are assets, not archives. 6. One clear idea > five good ones. 7. If it doesn’t work on a phone, it doesn’t work. 8. Test it, don’t argue about it. 9. Your face is a tool, not a rule. 10. The title and thumbnail are one thing, not two. Argue all you want, the algorithm already agrees 🤷‍♂️

The MOST relatable thumbnail I’ve seen this month 🔥

Iman Gadzhi is testing 4 thumbnails for his latest video. Which one do you like?

Some Tweet Style Thumbnails I've created a very long time ago :)

Recent @kanekallaway thumbnail looks way too cluttered. Personally I don't like it

Proof: Consistency is the 🔑

Alex Hormozi told 2.2M people not to buy stocks. In a video about how to invest. The thumbnail says “DON’T BUY STOCKS.” The title says “How I Would Invest $1000 If I Were In My 20s.” That’s not a mistake. That’s the whole trick. You open YouTube expecting “here’s how to invest.” Then a thumbnail tells you the opposite. Your brain stops for a second because it doesn’t add up. That second is the click. It’s all over business YouTube right now: “Don’t start a business” → 4.5M views “Don’t Sell AI” → 129K views in 12 days “NEW CUSTOMERS” crossed out → 144K views If you want to use this on your channel, here’s what I’d watch: (1) Say no to the exact thing your viewer came for. Stock buyers get “don’t buy stocks.” Founders get “don’t start a business.” (2) Let the title fix it. The thumbnail says no, the title says “here’s what to do instead.” Without that, it’s just confusing. (3) The video has to back it up. If you say “don’t” and then tell them to do it anyway, they won’t click on your next one. The fastest way to get someone’s attention is to tell them they’re wrong about something they care about.

This self-help channel has a cast at free that cost Hollywood billions to build. Walter White. Thomas Shelby. Loki. Neo. John Wick. It pays them nothing. But that’s not even the smart part. Most self-help channels fight over the same viewer: someone searching for motivation. This channel doesn’t. Every thumbnail opens a different fandom. - Breaking Bad fans click Walter White. - Peaky Blinders fans click Thomas Shelby. - Marvel fans click Loki. People who would never search “self-help” end up watching a self-help video because their favorite character is on it. I call it fandom hijacking. Not saying go put Loki on your thumbnails. But think about who else would click if they saw the right face.

Your face can win your thumbnail the first week, then cost you views after. This channel took the creator’s face off a thumbnail 2.5M views in. The week before: +44K views. The week after: +126K views. Here’s why. When a video comes out, YouTube usually shows it to people who already watch you. They know your face. Your face makes them click. But when the video gets bigger, it goes to strangers. To them, your face is just a random guy. It takes space and says nothing. So once the video is already working, you change the thumbnail for the new crowd. Take the face out. Let the idea do the talking. 3 things I’d check before you do this: (1) Only do it after the video takes off. On day one, your face is your best asset. (2) Don’t do it if your face IS the brand. If people click because it’s you, keep it. (3) Don’t trust one week of views. Look at CTR before and after, on the same traffic. A thumbnail isn’t done when you upload it. It’s done when the video stops growing.

A channel with 993 subs averages around 2M views a video. That’s not a typo. Here are 3 more like it: 1.7K subs → 1.2M views 5.9K subs → 915K views 8.9K subs → 547K views How is this possible? YouTube doesn’t really ask “how big is this channel?” It asks “will this person click this video and keep watching?” So every new video gets judged on its own. Your subscriber count doesn’t carry it. Your idea and your packaging do. That’s good news if you’re small. It’s bad news if you’re big and lazy. What I’d take from these 4 videos: (1) The idea is bigger than the channel. Old Hollywood giants, ranked levels, a $2 card worth $954K. You get it in one second. (2) The thumbnail tells a story without the title. A jar on a boat. A price going up. 7 colored levels. (3) None of them need you to know who made it. You don’t need more subscribers. You need a video a stranger can’t scroll past.

A LinkedIn Top Voice with 70,000 followers reached out to me. But, I lost the deal the moment I told him my price. So this was a few months ago. I get a message. "Hello sir, I need help with my thumbnails." I open his profile and, I mean, 70,000 followers. Posts every single day. Top Voice badge. I'm sitting there thinking okay, this is it, this is a big one. We talk a bit. He tells me he puts out one video a week. I check his channel, come back, and give him my usual price. And he goes: that's way, way above my budget. Have a nice day. Just like that. So I ask him, okay, no problem, what budget did you have in mind? $25 a thumbnail. And look, I'm not mad at him. He had a number, he told me the number, that's fair. I was more annoyed at myself. Because I never asked him anything. I saw 70,000 and filled in the rest on my own. Big audience, so big budget, right? Nope. Turns out followers just tell you how many people are listening to someone. They don't tell you what that person will pay for anything. And the funny thing is, I've had people with tiny accounts say yes to my price without blinking. Because their channel actually makes them money. Anyway. I don't look at follower counts before I quote anymore. I just ask what the channel is supposed to do for the business. That one answer tells me pretty much everything. Has this happened to you too? Big name, small budget?