Change a video thumbnail - scheduling social posts

[LaurenFPA]

Hi All, 

How do I change a video thumbnail when scheduling social posts? i.e. when uploading a video to YouTube, you are able to select a thumbnail or upload a new screen grab - can't seem to choose on Hubspot, and the thumbnail the system is selecting is not ideal - and rather random. 

Any help appreciated. 

Thanks,

Lauren

[roisinkirby]

Hey @LaurenFPA I do not believe this functionality is currently possible.

[CarlEngh]

 Thumbnails and subtitle support is needed. Most people won't open a video without a nice thumbnail and videos are often watched without sound.  

[Mike_Eastwood · Accepted solution]

Hi @LaurenFPA  and anyone else interested.

Unfortunately the Social Media publishing ignores the Custom Thumbnail image... the image shows up right through the process until it's published - the video resorts to the first frame (because of the autoplay). 

However, with the new video functionality (in HubSpot Marketing Pro or Enterprise) you can change the thumbnail if you're embedding videos into HubSpot pages.

Assuming you have uploaded and embedded your video:

1. click on the video to show the "Edit | Remove" pop-up

2. click on the video to show the "Video Options" pop-up

3. click "Edit video details" which slides in a panel from the right of the screen

4. click "Change thumbnail image" below the video preview

5. upload your Thumbnail image

Also, this is a good opportunity to optimes your video for SEO.

Hope this helps anyone else looking for Custom Thumbnails

Mike

[ellierdz]

Hi do we know if they are planning to solve this? Some of the videos we get start with a fade black image and it doesn't look very appealing and we really want to schedule our posts through Hubspot. Thanks

[scubes13]

Doesn't this lessen the impact of video in Social Media as platforms prefer and give greater weight to videos that are uploaded into their systems rather than links to other sites with embedded videos?

[pger]

Great solution. Works fine:)

[MDrake]

This is so not the answer to the above question. 😣

[PamCotton]

Hello @MDrake, just wanted to confirm that the solution provided by @Mike_Eastwood is to be able to change a thumbnail. Were you not able to follow these steps? If not, the more information, screenshots, and details you can provide, the better I can advise on the next steps. 

Thank you!

Pam

[Keith07]

I've run into this issue when scheduling social posts - what I do is upload a video directly into the social post, and it automatically shows the first frame of the video when it goes live.

The problem is that I have autoplay turned off (as do many users, I imagine) and so I only see the first frame of the video both in Hubspot when scheduling and in the actual social channel when it goes live. The first frame of the video is literally a blank screen, so the thumbnail – which automatically shows the first frame – doesn't look good. I want to change that, but I don't have the option to change the thumbnail.

Is this something we can fix or update? Thanks all!

[jennysowyrda]

Hi @Keith07,

As most videos begin by fading in from black or white, and that will be the first frame that the social tool picks up, one workaround would be to make custom thumbnail and set that image as the first frame of the video. This will ensure that is the thumbnail the tool picks up.

Thank you,
Jenny

[loreeatzeeco]

This feature is available natively in tools like Buffer for advanced scheduling. This feature should be easy to add based on the current social media APIs. 

[nr_studiotools]

I also think it is quite important to change the start picture of videos that are posted via Hubspot directly - like you can do it also in the respective applications. It would be great if the options one have when scheduling via Hubspot would be extended... Otherwise it is still nicer to post via the actual applications... And the only advantage of Hubspot is  the scheduling...

[RM-HS]

Annoying this. Now have to publish via LI, Tw directly instead 😞

[scottsidea]

Seems like there's a plugin of some sort you've enabled to help with the selection of a video thumbnail now? Looks like it worked OK in LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, though it seems to autoplay, so I can't confirm 100%.  Not bad for those three, but Instagram is a horrible black box. When Instagram is a all about the images, having a black box in the stream is ridiculous. Is there a workaround?

[KNellebjerg]

@scottsidea Where did you find this? I agree there really needs to be a option to choose the thumbnail, like there is natively in the different platforms.

[LGrundhoefer]

Having thumbnail and caption capabilities is absolutely vital for Social Media Managers... this will affect our social engagement by a longshot. Is there a timeline on when this will be added?

[TiphaineCuisset]

Hi @LGrundhoefer 

Thank you for reaching out. This is not possible at this stage within HubSpot, I'd recommend upvoting this Idea and this Idea in our Ideas Forum regarding this. You can also subscribe to the idea (Options > Subscribe) to get notified if the status changes. 

Thank you

Best

Tiphaine