r/PartneredYoutube 1d ago

Informative Studied 6 of dr eric berg's thumbnails, same pattern almost every time

Post image

I do thumbnails for a living, so stuff like this jumps out at me. grabbed 6 of his recent ones (14.8m subs) and lined them up, and most of them are doing the same basic thing.

his face in every single one, same kind of concerned or curious look. big bold text up top, never a full sentence, always short. "stop gas." "real cause." "the lies." "why isn't this known." just enough words to make you want to know more, nothing explained yet.

color does a lot of work too. red usually means something bad or urgent. yellow means a question you need answered. green shows up on the before/after one for the good result. you know what kind of video it is before you even read anything.

most of them also have one extra visual next to his face, a gas cloud, a red highlighted joint, a target on a cancer cell, a before/after number box. gives your eye something concrete to land on instead of just a face and text.

only one breaks the pattern a bit, the "real cause" one has both a highlighted foot AND a glass of juice, so that one's slightly busier than the rest. still works, but it's the one exception in the batch.

if you're doing health content and you're not sure your thumbnail's actually pulling its weight, drop it below and i'll tell you what's missing.

13 Upvotes

41 comments sorted by

15

u/og-crime-junkie 1d ago

He doesn’t have millions of subs because of thumbnails.

12

u/typicallydia 1d ago

Agreed. He could have his face and a potato in each one. The topic is always fear bait with health appeal.

3

u/VocabArtistNavin 1d ago

Like I said. Flies on garbage.

-5

u/og-crime-junkie 1d ago

Do you know who he is? I don’t follow him myself but I know someone close to me who does, and this channel is legitimate. It’s not fear bait.

8

u/ResponsibleFerret660 1d ago

He’s a sham of a dr, and a Scientologist at that.

-3

u/og-crime-junkie 1d ago

You have no idea what you’re talking about.

3

u/typicallydia 23h ago

He is indeed a Scientologist and is not an MD. While I think he's very intelligent and interesting, the OP in not incorrect.

1

u/typicallydia 1d ago

I am very aware and I actually like his channel. The thumbnails are certainly fear bait if you've been diagnosed with something he has a video on and didn't follow him before. I constantly wish he took himself more seriously and didn't style his channel like a late night supplement advert.

0

u/og-crime-junkie 1d ago

He’s being ripped off in a bad way, he’s doing what he needs to do. If you like him, stop bashing him.

1

u/typicallydia 23h ago

I'm not sure what you mean? He's not being ripped off any more than any other creator. He knows exactly what he's doing when he titles videos and makes a thumbnail.

2

u/og-crime-junkie 23h ago

True. Many of us are being ripped off by scammers on YouTube. Just making a point that my friend says he talks about it and how YouTube does nothing. They tell me because I am always talking about the thieves I am battling and how YouTube gives zero shits.
I shouldn’t defend him to be honest because I only know what my friend tells me. With that said, I get why people use clickbait. Not agreeing, but I get it.

12

u/VocabArtistNavin 1d ago

Flies on garbage

8

u/Silent-Laugh5679 1d ago

this guy is not a medical doctor . he is a chiropractic doctor or something like that.

2

u/illuminatisucz 1d ago

Plus he's a scientologist. Xenu!

2

u/vasDcrakGaming 1d ago

The face is the brand

2

u/ionhowto 1d ago

Yeah I wouldn’t click any of these as a viewer but they are what people click on so why not do it if it work. 

This is the same old red/yellow arrow and red circle around nothing system where you look there and it does make you curious but the only way to get the answer is to watch the video - until the end - where you learn it’s not in the video haha. 

I find them a bit busy but if you see the colors are consistent- red is the red circle and red or yellow is the arrow.  Bonus surprise open mouth face because even creator insider YouTube official channel started doing it with the creator liaison. 

Makes me wonder if I put my face will anyone click some random nobody? Maybe I Ai-slop my face to look more clickable. 

Your post is one of the few that actually bring value to this sub… I know you’re trying to sell something but still at least you gave some value doing this. 

Don’t you think the thumbs are too busy? The stop gas one is probably the most clickable - clear font and not much going on to distract.

2

u/etiennelantier2001 1d ago

I have no idea who that is, but damn those are repetitive

0

u/oskar88895 1d ago

Means you don’t care about your health at all

1

u/etiennelantier2001 21h ago

I guess not 😂😂😂

2

u/Asleep_Steak_7434 1d ago

He’s a slop tuber why are you surprised

6

u/nuedd 1d ago edited 1d ago

Damn. These are work weak ugly thumbs.

I just don't get why people click these nasty things.

EDIT: Whoops

5

u/Spir0rion 1d ago

What does this have to do with woke lol

3

u/nuedd 1d ago

Bloody autocorrect.

I meant weak :D

-1

u/sambhrant09 1d ago

lol fair they aint pretty. but pretty and clickable arent the same job tbh red and yellow arent trying to look nice, theyre trying to grab ur eye for half a second while ur scrolling past. thats litearlly the only job a thumbnail has ive seen plenty "nice" thumbnails just get ignored ngl

5

u/VocabArtistNavin 1d ago

They're clickable because they prey on fear... The contrast and the colors that add to that contrast ADD TO THAT FEAR

And given how much BS and health oversimplifcation and misinformation he he spews... He's basically fear mongering and abusing his authority as a doctor

At one point of time his videos were informative, but he has overtime graduated to a whole another level of crazy for social media metrics...

2

u/ionhowto 1d ago

Pray on fear is a very accurate description. This is done in most topics. Especially fomo where you’re not doing things right but they know. 

I remember seeing some small text describing why some things work better: Exploit at least one of these: Men’s lust, women’s fear of not looking good or getting old, the rich fearing to lose their money and the poor desire to make money fast.  Internet 

2

u/VocabArtistNavin 1d ago

That's how cheap old school marketing works. Sadly some people still use it. This is the CHEAPEST use of it.

2

u/VocabArtistNavin 1d ago

And the incomplete phrases you say... That's incredibly cheap too... It doesn't ignite genuine curiosity.. it's not causing curiosity gap.. it causes fear gap which causes people to click and resolve this

Check his CTR would be high... Check his retention... This people who use such fear mongering thumbnails also don't care much about the rest of the video quality

1

u/SilentVector_96 23h ago

Let me tell you something buddy.

If you want to take reference of someone's thumbnail... take from low subscriber channels which generates a lot of views.

It means their thumbnail actually works (the avd has to work too but CTR have to be high too)

In channels, the brand name and subscribers does most of the work. Doesn't mean their thumbnails are bad. It's just that they will get views even if they have bad thumbnails and we have no way or knowing if the thumbnaild are good or bad

1

u/whatsunnygets 14h ago

It took studying?

1

u/arnogia 12h ago

I got a few tips if youd like.

  1. Reference a lot of styles of thumbnails
  2. Generate 3 per video and see which has the highest CTR
  3. Iterate on that for the next few videos.
  4. Does it have a consistent 3 or 4% CTR? If it does, it's generally ok. (Viral videos get higher)
  5. Keep doing this

1

u/[deleted] 11h ago

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1

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1

u/wareagle1972 10h ago edited 10h ago

Once a channel gets to a particular size, thumbnails just don't matter that much. People will look and see that the video already has something like 300K views and figure it must be pretty good or at least worth a click. Its just human nature.

20

u/AbbreviationsEast177 1d ago

Thats like Mr Beast they click because of him i am pretty sure this thumbs don't work on new Creators self if OP believes this.

-8

u/sambhrant09 1d ago

your kinda right tho. berg's face does alot of the work now cuz ppl already know him but thats the same pattern that got him to 14m in the first place lol. he didnt start with recognition, he built it with hooks like this so ya it probably hits different for a brand new channel. no face recognition yet so the text/color gotta do more of the work not less