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It’s a short-form-video era and YouTube knows it!
Well, all of the social media platforms do, but let’s focus on one thing for now, eh?
A while ago, news about YouTube surpassing TikTok in monthly users broke, and they can thank YouTube Shorts for that. Obviously, everyone wants to board the engagement train, so YouTube is doing its best to attract even more users and make creators create more.
Because of that, YouTube’s product manager Pierce Vollucci decided to answer some of the most asked questions about shorts. Keep reading!
What Are YouTube Shorts?
Let’s cover the basics first for the newbies. shall we? YouTube Shorts is a short-form video-sharing platform where videos can last a maximum of 60 seconds.
The main difference from regular YouTube videos is the perspective (YouTube Videos are horizontal, Shorts are vertical) and length. You can use Shorts in various ways and they can especially come in handy if you already have a long-form channel on the platform.
By using Shorts you can expand your audience and grow your presence on the platform while raising awareness about your brand. You might also qualify for YouTube Shorts Fund and earn extra money as a creator.
Question 1. If I start uploading Shorts if I usually make longer-form content, could it hurt my channel?
No – creating both forms of content might improve your channel’s growth. At least that’s what YouTube’s analysis says. Shocking, I know!
They compared the growth of channels that make only long-form videos with the ones that make both and found out that the channels making both experienced faster growth.
YouTube also added a new option to create Shorts from your long-form videos, so it’s even easier for you to create extra content and use it as a type of ad or trailer for your channel for example.
Of course, YouTube’s goal is for Shorts to be used as much as possible – after all, they do get some greens out of that – let’s be real here.
Question 2: How should long-form content creators to approach Shorts?
It’s about experimentation, according to Volluci. YouTube has a few options to choose from, but it might be best for you to find your vibe and style. That’s why you should try out different forms and lengths, see what your audience likes and how to appeal to a new one.
“Viewers love entertaining content, and that’s what’s going to get recommended. But, different viewers have different preferences, and different creators are more or less skilled at different formats. Try a bunch of different things, and make more of what works.” – Volluci says and adds an example of gaming videos.
Gaming videos work great in live streams, but you can use highlights or funny moments from the long video and turn them into Shorts. That might help attract a new audience.
Question 3: If viewers watch my Shorts, will they be recommended my long-form content?
Not really. Shorts recommendations and long-form recommendations on YouTube are now separate, so they don’t affect each other. Apparently, YouTube used to save all of the watch history in one place and people would get recommended a bunch of Shorts on their homepages. That led to complaints and they decided to separate the two.
However, the more you publish, the more you’ll understand the whole thing and the more results you’ll get.
Question 4: How to decide when or if to start a new channel for Shorts?
Should you separate then? Well, that depends. As mentioned above – it’s not the same people that watch your long-form videos and your Shorts.
So, you should group your channels around similar audiences and separate the channels if your viewers have totally different interests.
Question 5: Does the algorithm need a certain number of videos uploaded before the channel starts seeing success?
Volluci says no. Allegedly, every Short is given the same chance to succeed, regardless of the channel or the number of videos on that channel.
“Performance of a Short is dictated by whether or not people are choosing to watch and not skip a video in the Shorts feed. That audience engagement is often built over time, as opposed to happening instantaneously.” – said Volluci in the video.
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