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Hi, I'm Gina Schreck with SocialKNX. And here is our tip of the day. Many people ask me
this question about doing YouTube videos when you're creating a video and you load it to
YouTube gives you a choice of thumbnails, the small little image of your video to choose
from and that kind of becomes the branding for that particular video. And the problem
is, YouTube obviously has no clue of what true beauty looks like because they pick the
most random image of you. Obviously, they're not looking for that. But I'm not sure where
they pull these images from but it's usually of you doing a face like this or speaking
or your eyes are closed. And that's the image that it gives you to look at or to choose
from.
So a lot of times when you load your videos, they end up looking like this. So here is
the tip. When you are creating your video, now you can either create your video however
you're recording it, when you are editing your video, you can edit that directly on
YouTube. You can just load it to YouTube with no editing. There is nothing to say that you
have to edit that video or you can use a software. We use Camtasia. We also use Final Cut Pro.
And so if you're using a tool, a program like that to edit, you're probably adding tags
or words, words like this across the screen. Those are just tags. And those tags will help
you to reinforce the message that you're trying to say. Obviously, I need more tags right
now just to be able to speak. But in the beginning of your video, you can add the title tag across
the screen of your video.
So the tip is, you want to -- after you've added your title tags and this is the way
to do it if you're using an editing program, add the title tags then when you load it to
YouTube, you will see the image of yourself or whoever it is on video with the tag, the
title tag across the screen. Pause the video. Now, you get to choose, kind of slide it around
so that you're not making the weird faces and find one where you're just still. And
my suggestion is before you start filming, sit still for a few seconds so that you have
that image to work with.
And then take a screenshot of that image. Now, you can use a program like Skitch, which
is a product by Evernote. It's a free tool and it allows you to just select the piece
that you want on the screen and it saves it as a JPEG or you can do a screen capture on
a Mac, real easy. On a Mac, it's easy because you can just do Shift Control or I'm sorry,
Shift Command and then 4, Shift Command 4 and you can select a specific piece of your
screen. Shift Command 3 takes the whole screen.
Anyway, I digressed. But you're going to take that screenshot. Again, it saves it as a JPEG.
So here's the tip. When you upload your video which is already uploaded now, you'll notice
when it has the three random thumbnails to choose from, there's always a fourth selection
now that says, "Custom thumbnail". Select "Custom thumbnail" and you can upload your
JPEG as your thumbnail so then it has your title tag across it and you're looking fabulous.
So there is the tip of the day. I'd love to hear from you either questions that you'd
love us to cover on here if you have those or comments about some of these tips that
you're hearing. Don't be one of the nasty, troll people just saying, "Your hair was in
your face the whole time." Give us some fun feedback on our video tips for you. And you
can always find more information on our fabulous website, SocialKNX.com, lots of resources
there or you can contact me. Find me on Twitter, @GinaSchreck or @GinaSchreck, you can find
me on my shirt. In case I'm lost, they'll know how to get a hold of someone.
But love to connect with you and love to share more tips with you. Until next time, we'd
love to see those videos.