Thumbnail Colors
On social media platforms, thumbnails are a crucial media property for any creator. Some start playing content from the get-go; others show you something that makes you look.
Thumbnails have been adopted well by viewers. Gone are the days when captions would be the primary hook of a piece of content.
Viewers are preferring evolved thumbnails over the traditional ones. Traditional ones would be — upload basically anything, it doesn’t matter.
Brighter thumbnails get the most attention; consequently, a dim thumbnail most definitely won’t get much reach. I have observed this on both Instagram and LinkedIn.
If thumbnails are bright, they are easy on the eyes. But too much brightness can backfire.
The content theme is an important lever here. Your serious content cannot have a cheery thumbnail.
Effective yet simple design tools like Canva and Figma take away the finer level of arduous work so that anyone can make good thumbnails.
You can change the colours and hues of your thumbnail art quickly and it would still look good.
Favourite colours that I’d use in my thumbnails:
- Yellow / Mustard Yellow
- Teal (hue on the brighter end)
- Purple
Colours I would avoid adding into my thumbnails
- Dull blue
- Red
- Grey
Mysterious colours (as in, you will struggle to decide if they should be added or avoided):
- Black
- Green
- Light Sky Blue
Colour combinations should be good in contrast so they stand out on any screen size.
In conclusion: If you publish content on social media regularly, and some of them are not getting enough reach despite being good; chances are that your thumbnails are not working in your favour.
Try brighter thumbnails with good contrast and colour balance (yellow background and black text) and you just might see better reach and traction for your content.
Here’s a helpful post on thumbnail design ideas and tips: https://www.fotor.com/blog/11-youtube-thumbnail-design-ideas/
