YouTube Thumbnail Not Showing on Twitter [5 Fixes]

Creating a successful brand requires marketing as an integral piece of your business plan. Social media is at the forefront of any marketing strategy because it allows brand exposure and gets you engaging with your target audience—the more crossover from one platform to the next, the better. YouTube and Twitter are prime examples. Sending out a tweet linking your YouTube channel is an excellent strategy to garner subscribers.

Here are some fixes for your YouTube thumbnail not showing up on your Twitter posts:

Update Web Browser
YouTube Video is Fully Processed
Upload Thumbnail Yourself
Share Directly From YouTube
Share Using YouTube URL

If your YouTube thumbnail isn’t showing on your Twitter post, it can decrease the likelihood that your audience will use the link, see the video and subscribe to your channel. Let’s look into these fixes, learn about their causes, and how to avoid these issues in the future.

» MORE: How Long Does It Take YouTube To Change A Thumbnail?

5 Fixes for YouTube Thumbnail Not Showing on Twitter

You could be new to linking YouTube videos to your Twitter or have linked YouTube videos for years. Either way, issues could arise that cause the thumbnail not to appear. Thumbnails take a lot of time and energy, whether you’re using Photoshop, Illustrator, or an easy template on a website like placeit.net. Seeing a blank space where your thumbnail should be or an outdated thumbnail can be very frustrating. Luckily there are fixes for these issues.

1. Update Web Browser

Twitter allows its site to be used on most web browsers, including Safari, Firefox, Edge, Chrome, etc. However, it may not allow for the specific version of one of these web browsers you use. It will also not allow any browser extensions as they modify the user agent. Most of the time, if your system is updated, you will have the latest version of whatever web browser comes with that system. However, the best practice is to check for any updates.

If you’re on a laptop or PC, you can go into your “Control Panel” and update the system or go to your browser’s website and download the latest version of the browser. If you’re using a phone or tablet, go into your “App Store” and click on your profile. It should bring up a list of apps on your phone, including your browser, and beside it will say “Update” if it is due for one.

2. YouTube Video Has to be Fully Processed

Your video needs to be fully processed for your link to work properly on Twitter and show the proper title, description, and thumbnail. The metadata of the video allows those aspects of the video to appear properly, and the metadata isn’t ready for sharing until the video is fully processed.

Depending on the length, YouTube videos can take quite a long time to upload. It takes a lot of patience and waiting around for it to fully process and be ready for viewing. You may be at the last step or those last few seconds– hold out a bit longer and make sure the video is ready. Once the video is uploaded and processed, refresh the page to ensure it appears and the title, description, and thumbnail are present and correct; then, you can share the video on Twitter.

Checking your video settings might seem like an obvious statement, but sometimes we overlook the simplest mistakes. Ensure that your video is not set to “Private;” otherwise, the thumbnail will not appear on any social media platform.

3. Upload Thumbnail Yourself

Manually uploading your YouTube thumbnail may not sound like a solution, but sometimes the issue is with the website or the app. There have been several forum posts about this issue that had to be resolved by developers at Twitter. Websites and apps have bugs, glitches, errors, and that is why they require updates and troubleshooting.

While you’re waiting on a team to fix the issue, you can take matters into your own hands by uploading your thumbnail from your library to Twitter, then adding the link, title and description. Manually uploading may not be the most ideal approach, but it will save you time waiting around for Twitter to fix the bug.

Sometimes it’s a matter of the approach. While the thumbnail may not appear when you try sharing your video one way, there is another option that may work for you. Instead of sharing your video by copy/paste, try sharing it directly from YouTube.

All you have to do is go to your video, double-check all the information: title, description, thumbnail, and metadata, then below the video, hit the “Share” option. A pop-up will appear and give you a few options; select Twitter, and a tweet will appear with the YouTube video embedded. Once it’s shared, give your post a few minutes to ensure that YouTube and Twitter have had time to communicate and the information is approved and updated.

Perhaps you tried sharing your video using the “Share” link below the video, and it didn’t work correctly. The thumbnail is showing up as a blank box or not at all. Luckily, there is more than one way of sharing YouTube videos on Twitter. Try a different approach; copy and paste the URL.

You can copy the URL directly from the address bar at the top of your page or right-click the YouTube video and select “Copy Video URL from the pop-up menu.” After that, sign in to your Twitter account, draft a tweet, and paste the URL directly into the tweet. Again, once you hit tweet, give the post time before declaring a misfire. Refresh the page if needed.

» MORE: Why is Your Twitter Header Not Changing? [4 Reasons]

Conclusion

After trying all of these options to fix the YouTube thumbnail not showing up in your tweet, your problem persists; the issue may lie in the website or the app. You can try updating whichever one you’re using, or if you’re using the app, you can delete and reinstall it. However, some things can only be fixed on the backend, so be sure to contact Twitter support for more troubleshooting options.