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—The Spotter Creator Team

How Kinigra Deon Builds Better Videos With Thumbnail Ideation

Creators are laser-focused on creating their thumbnails before they begin filming.

Ever wondered how some top creators kick off their filming process? It goes beyond just having an idea and a script. Effective storytelling, eye-catching titles, and compelling thumbnails are essential components of producing high-quality videos. In Kinigra Deon’s case, she crafts her thumbnail concepts before even hitting record. 

This is true of other successful creators as well. MrBeast’s thumbnail designer, Chucky, talked to YouTube about the importance of having a thumbnail concept before filming. In his case, they brainstorm about 50 thumbnail concepts for a video before shooting it. 

We dug into Kinigra’s thumbnail ideation process to uncover why this works.

After identifying her video idea, Kinigra uses Spotter’s Thumbnail Explorer to generate thumbnail concepts for some of her videos. Not only does it assist in crafting compelling thumbnails beforehand, but it also helps her establish the content's storyline and the emotions she wants to convey as well as provide direction for what she needs to capture during filming. As Kinigra says, “It’s helping create a better product.” 

Let’s take a look at her process and an example of a video she posted with ideation help from the tool: 

Process:

Because Kinigra starts her content creation process with the thumbnail, Thumbnail Explorer is an essential part of her pre-filming ideation process. By using Thumbnail Explorer, she’s able to experiment with specific compositions to produce compelling designs that are customized to her channel. For Kinigra, this helps guide her overall content development process and packaging strategy. 

Once logged into Thumbnail Explorer, Kinigra describes a video concept or thumbnail. Then, with a click of a button, the tool produces an array of different thumbnail compositions for her to choose from.

The “IT GIRLS” 💅🏽| Luau Party 👙🏝️Ep.3 | A Kinigra Deon Series is an example of a video where Kinigra utilized Thumbnail Explorer and posted a thumbnail using the concept that was generated by the product. 

In Kinigra’s experience, Thumbnail Explorer isn’t just about packaging – it can help create a stronger vision for content and, ultimately, a better end product. 

Results: 

• Improved video performance with Thumbnail Explorer: Compared to her other videos of similar length uploaded to the channel this year, this video saw the following results in its first 7 days: 

• Revenue: +22% increase

• Views: +34% increase 

• Impressions: +38% increase

• Subscriber Growth: +69% increase 

• Optimized video concept development: Focusing on the thumbnail up front has served as a key visual aid in developing and producing a video concept, rather than having to spend time developing it after filming the video.

Join us in Idea Lab, Spotter’s new Discord community for ideation. If you’re interested in trying Thumbnail Explorer, reach out to your CSM.

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• The Royalty Family reaches 25 Million YouTube subscribers.

• The “MrBeast Lab” toy line will arrive on shelves in the U.S. this July.

Jobs

• MrBeast is hiring a Field Recording Mixer and for a role on the Special Projects team (Full-Time, North Carolina)

• Aphmau is hiring a Video Production Assistant, Jr. YouTube Strategist (CTR), Jr. YouTube Strategist (AVP), and a Marketplace Manager (Full-Time, Austin)

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YouTube

• YouTube is testing an experimental feature to allow people to add notes to provide context to videos.

• YouTube is expanding its privacy request process to allow users to request the removal of AI-generated or other altered content that simulates their face or voice.

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• YouTube is testing server-side ad injection to combat ad blockers.

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

– Joseph Chilton Pearce