Hover preview

On the home feed and in search, a video's still image gives way to a silent autoplay preview of the opening moments. On mobile this happens fast, within roughly the first second of the thumbnail appearing as the viewer scrolls. That makes your first frames part of the packaging. Because viewers watch a silent preview before deciding, fulfilling the promise visually in the opening seconds matters more than saying it out loud, and a cold open of you sitting still and talking gives the preview almost nothing to show. Check what your first three seconds look like with the sound off.