Thumbnail Feedback Channel Art & Profile Pic Advice

[Damoforce]

Hey team, I've got a question for you all. I think this in the right area.

Can your profile picture on YouTube and Channel art have a negative effect of sub grow and click through?

At the moment I have a logo and some other general stuff as the header, should I look to improve these and add something more personalized / show my face or body somewhere?

Thanks

 

[SILTHW]

I don't know that it would necessarily be "negative" unless it is unironically bad. Let me give you a way to think about it.

On YouTube, you are always in competition with other creators. Your goal is to get them to watch your videos instead of someone else's. In this section you will often see me comment that someone should search their keyword and see how their thumbnails look compared to other thumbnails in their search. That could mean a couple of things:
- Your thumbnails aren't differentiated. They look like every other thumbnail in that space and getting your thumbnail clicked on is just going to be luck of the draw
- Your thumbnails are so different they don't match at all what the other thumbnails look like so someone might assume it was erroneously returned in the search and not click on it
- Your thumbnails are out of tone with the others. Theirs are light-hearted and yours are very serious looking so they won't click on it
- Yours are wordy compared to others and may be hard to read. They click on the ones that are easier to read

All of this applies to channel art as well. The hard part if being differentiated enough to stand out without being so far outside of the conventions of your niche that people won't click on your channel or videos. That takes some experimentation.