Attract attention: A strong thumbnail that diverts from the usual TikTok style makes your video stand out in feeds, increasing the chances of someone clicking on it.
Establish context: Titles and captions help users know what your video is about, which aids in discovery especially via search.
Build brand consistency: Custom thumbnails give a polished, cohesive look to your profile, making it easier for followers to recognize your content.
If you’re scrolling through an Explore page or many popular brands’ profile pages, however, you’ll notice that most do not use custom uploads for their thumbnails. Instead, they likely select a strong frame or even start their video on a strong frame for seamless auto-playing.
Custom TikTok thumbnails example on a TikTok profile page Duolingo matches their thumbnails to their chaotic brand energy with random thumbnails chosen from video frames. La La Land Kind Cafe uses custom thumbnails with titles to help users navigate through episodes of their viral "Drive By Kindness" series.
A good rule of thumb(nails) for TikTok is to match it to your SEO strategy. If you have a video that could perform well in search — i.e. it offers educational content that people might search for — then an intetional thumbnail could help. If you’re already keywording your caption and on-screen captions, then consider creating a thumbnail that matches those keywords as well.
3 TikTok thumbnail tactics to get more views
The right TikTok thumbnails can help you get more user attention and engagement, so they do matter. Let’s look at three strong tactics (and examples!) to help you get more results.
If you’re going to use custom thumbnails, there’s one strategy you should test right away, and that’s using the thumbnail to tell users what your video is about.
Loomly uses custom thumbnails to add short titles on each video:.
Here’s the thumbnail for one video, where we discuss remote marketing jobs, with the “Remote marketing jobs now hiring” tag front and center:
And here’s what the video looks like when it’s actually played:
This strategy helps capture user interest and helps them find relevant content quickly when they’re browsing the feed.
2. Choose a strong starting frame
You don’t need a custom thumbnail to attract attention, but you do want to consider how your video looks as a static image.
In the example below from Peloton’s profile, the video all the way to the left is blurry. This makes sense, because the subject is actively running, but you can see that it isn’t quite as attention-grabbing as the other three videos.
You can either choose a strong in-video thumbnail, or choose to start your video on a strong frame that will more effectively capture user attention.
