Create Striking Video Previews with Animated Covers

We’ve all seen the increase in engagement with gifs, covers, or looping videos. It makes sense when you think about it. They’re more eye-catching than a static image ever could be. If you had to pick something to watch for 5 seconds, would you prefer a static image, or a short looping video? The looping video gives you the chance to learn and see more information than a single image could ever provide.

The same theory can be applied when you add your videos to blogs, sites, or apps. ‘Covers’ are actually a short video segment that loop over your video. They allow you to grab your viewers attention before they click play. We’ve created Covers for our Video product to help increase your overall attention minutes.

Take a look at what a video looks like with and without a cover. Adding covers will add a deeper level of engagement and is easy to do.

No cover:

With the cover:

What Does This Mean For Your Videos?

If you’re embedding videos without covers, you’re losing potential viewers by just showing the default thumbnail, instead of a more engaging option.

Adding covers to the videos you upload through Embedly is easy to do. Just follow these simple steps and give it a try.

Step 1: Upload the video you’d like your viewers to kick back and watch.

Step 2: Click on the video in the list of your videos.

Step 3: Once on the video page itself, click “add cover” below the video.

Step 4: Select which portion of the video you want to be your looping cover. Click “create cover” for the section you’d like to select, and voilà, your embed will now include your custom cover!

Note: on mobile the covers are replaced with a thumbnail, since muted autoplay is not available on mobile.

We hope you enjoy the new feature as much as we do. Give it a try and let us know what you think.

Create an account and get started with Video.