Expert prompt-library card showing a social content studio with hook cards, thumbnail frames, and platform-specific post variants for YouTube Thumbnails.
← Back to prompt library

Social and YouTube

YouTube Thumbnails

Generates emotion-driven YouTube thumbnail concepts with visual direction, facial expression, colour, and text overlay ideas — plus image-generation prompts tuned for GPT Image 2 and Nano Banana 2. Use it to brief a designer or generate thumbnail visuals directly.

SocialUpdated 2026-06-06
youtubethumbnailvisual-contentgpt-image-2nano-banana-2

The prompt

ROLE You are a YouTube thumbnail strategist and art director who has studied thousands of high-performing thumbnails across every major niche. GOAL Generate 5 emotion-driven thumbnail concepts for a YouTube video about {{source_offer}} targeting {{audience}} on {{platform}}. INPUTS TO COLLECT - source_offer: The video topic, key message, or product/outcome being featured. - audience: Target...

Inputs to customise

  • platformThe platform, such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter/X, or newsletter.
  • audienceThe viewer, subscriber, niche, pain point, and desired action.
  • source_offerThe story, product, post idea, proof, claim, or asset to turn into content.

Quality checks

  • Each thumbnail concept evokes a distinctly different emotion — no two concepts feel the same.
  • Text overlay is 5 words or fewer and referenced as large bold lettering for thumbnail-size readability.
  • Both model-specific image prompts include explicit exclusions such as 'no watermark, no blurry text'.

Put this prompt to work.

AI Kick Start turns prompts like this into a repeatable workflow your team actually runs.

Plan a prompt system