YouTube Tips Are Shorts a Channel Killer?

[Damon]

I found this video while doing a bit of searching today. This is quite informative for those of you wondering if you should do shorts compared to long-form. There is a lot of real-world data and analytics here, a very objective view:

View: https://youtu.be/qmSFxXFLTgQ

 

[jawadsoomro]

In my opinion, I upload shorts and long videos in my one channel. My channel is all about Adobe tutorials, but I do Fashion shorts. I am getting lot of views. I will upload anything I want, but my priority will be Adobe tutorials. Overall, its nice way of getting more Subscribers and newcomers.

 

[MediaMan]

I found this video while doing a bit of searching today.

I saw that video a while back (it's over a year old now). Definitely good information, but a lot has changed the past year in regards to shorts on YouTube so not sure how relevant the information is currently. Like jawadsoomro I also combine shorts and long play on my channels. For better or worse (only time will tell) I treat them as 2 different sub channels each with their own demographic target.

 

[MediaMan]

wow...put any kind of advertising, promotion, etc, in a short and the masses will thumb you down hard. lol..

 

[Damon]

Yeah, my assertion: People who want to be entertained don't want to by anything.

 

[Spice]

Recently started adding shorts on my channel and noticed a decent increase in views and a small jump in subs. Will definitely continue with a mix of shorts and normal videos.

 

[on a dark night]

Shorts is now something I'm considering too.
My horror story vids are shortish in terms of what they're about (they dont exceed 20mins ) but they're simply not something I could do as a short .
On my phone it only allows me to create a short of 15secs so I'm assuming that's the maximum allowance.
I was wondering if I did extracts from the stories to upload as shorts as a teaser of sorts to state if they want to see more of the story then check out the full length video .
Has anybody else utilized it in this way before?

 

[Spice]

Shorts is now something I'm considering too.
My horror story vids are shortish in terms of what they're about (they dont exceed 20mins ) but they're simply not something I could do as a short .
On my phone it only allows me to create a short of 15secs so I'm assuming that's the maximum allowance.
I was wondering if I did extracts from the stories to upload as shorts as a teaser of sorts to state if they want to see more of the story then check out the full length video .
Has anybody else utilized it in this way before?

Yeah that's what I am trying. Posting my main long video and taking a snippet from it to post as a short to advertise it. The shorts generate alot of views.

 

[MediaMan]

Shorts is now something I'm considering too.
My horror story vids are shortish in terms of what they're about (they dont exceed 20mins ) but they're simply not something I could do as a short .
On my phone it only allows me to create a short of 15secs so I'm assuming that's the maximum allowance.
I was wondering if I did extracts from the stories to upload as shorts as a teaser of sorts to state if they want to see more of the story then check out the full length video .
Has anybody else utilized it in this way before?

If you want to create the short fully in the youtube app, the max is 15 sec. But I create the short externally of the app and import it and then you can utilize the full 60 seconds. Shorts (among other things) are good for "channel seeding" so making small clips of longer vids is probably a good idea. Put the link to the full length vid in the desc. You also may want to experiment once in a while with making a 20 minute movie into 20, 1 minute long shorts, with each short being a chapter name and a link to the next chapter in the desc. Could be a good way to get a lot of shorts on the channel. "Movie Title | Chapter 1 #horror #movie #shorts", "Movie Title | Chapter 2 #horror #movie #shorts", etc, etc.

 

[on a dark night]

Cheers that's

When you say it doesn't show, do you mean on the main page or on the channel at all? Because I see a playlist on your channel on both the main page and the playlist tab. I only see one. Is this the one you're speaking of?

View attachment 12866

OK, here's what I see based on the image you showed me and compared to mine. You have 5 playlists on the image. Of the 5, 2 are public. Of the 2 public 1 has one of the videos as a thumbnail while the other has no thumbnail. If you look at mine below you'll notice all of mine are public but only one has no thumbnail because there are no videos in that playlist and that one doesn't show on my channel. It would seem that for some reason your playlist without the thumbnail is not recognizing any of the videos in it thus YouTube thinks the empty. I am not sure why this is happening. It's either a glitch on maybe the videos in that section are private?

There might be a way to fix this but it seems it can only be done on the desktop studio. Got to your studio, then to the playlist section and click the edit button for that top playlist. Each video has the 3 dot options menu. You should be able to select which video to make as the thumbnail for the playlist. See if that works.

View attachment 12871

If you want to create the short fully in the youtube app, the max is 15 sec. But I create the short externally of the app and import it and then you can utilize the full 60 seconds. Shorts (among other things) are good for "channel seeding" so making small clips of longer vids is probably a good idea. Put the link to the full length vid in the desc. You also may want to experiment once in a while with making a 20 minute movie into 20, 1 minute long shorts, with each short being a chapter name and a link to the next chapter in the desc. Could be a good way to get a lot of shorts on the channel. "Movie Title | Chapter 1 #horror #movie #shorts", "Movie Title | Chapter 2 #horror #movie #shorts", etc, etc.

Cheers its definitely something I'm going to look into then .
I did initially dismiss the shorts section (and put on pants instead as it was too cold to wear shorts outside... ok I'll give up on the puns now )
but I did notice there seemed to be a way to integrate them into the channel in a natural way and it's good to see others are trying the same too .
Posting one of the stories in segments may actually be a really cool idea .
I'll take a look at that.

 

[cubeytcl]

I mainly upload shorts as I am still new, I want to gain a certain amount of subscribers first.
If I have no subcsribers, my videos get no view at all (experienced from my failed channel :/)

now I upload shorts few times per week and video once a week.

 

[on a dark night]

I made a short to include on my channel .
Runtime is less than one minute but theres no option I can find to put it in a shorts category on youtube studio yet I see people have a YouTube shorts section on their channels.
Somebody told me if you make a video under one minute it automatically applies it to a shorts section , I doubted this advice and if its true then it hasn't done anything like that to my video .
I probably sound like a numpty!
How do people upload shorts.

 

[MediaMan]

Has to be 1 minute or shorter and 9:16 (vertical) format. And yes, YouTube will automatically categorize it as short.

 

[malluarenagaming]

by my experience you should not post shorts on main channel , I used to manage a channel for my friend and he did gaming live streaming , and got 40K subscribers , and he tried to make shorts on main channel and after a month or so his live watch dramatically decreased. His channel was audience targeted , after uploading shorts his audience becomes unknown language speaking people (analytics say so). and his channel never recovered from that problem , now he stopped shorts videos and starting from zero again ,, last year when he live , he used to get 50-60 constant watching ,, now its 5-10 only,

 

[Xavier De Buck]

by my experience you should not post shorts on main channel , I used to manage a channel for my friend and he did gaming live streaming , and got 40K subscribers , and he tried to make shorts on main channel and after a month or so his live watch dramatically decreased. His channel was audience targeted , after uploading shorts his audience becomes unknown language speaking people (analytics say so). and his channel never recovered from that problem , now he stopped shorts videos and starting from zero again ,, last year when he live , he used to get 50-60 constant watching ,, now its 5-10 only,

I hear you - mixing shorts, long-form content AND live sessions can be confusing to dissect which or what caused for it to decline like that. Then again, if one remains within their niche, YT algo's should pick that up. I have to see major research or studies done to indicate that it's hurtful to have all of the above on one single channel.

Whilst I definitely don't know what happened with your friend's account, I'm cognisant that social media platfoms shift their focus around (ie pushing more traffic towards certain new products or new direction, hereby taking eyeballs away from something else -- ie upping shorts & reducing number of live sessions?)

I haven't done a single YT live session, BUT I can only imagine it'll be similar to Instagram where I have quite some personal experience with live video...given I have 260,000 IG followers, I used to get 2,500-3,500 people on a single live session about a year ago...that's now down to 1,500-ish. Organic reach being squeezed?

Please find below a screenshot of my 28-day YT activity from my shorts alone - mind you, I don't have any shorts that go viral, all except for a couple are lower 1,000's and I'm posting a new shorts video every 2-3 days (I'd like to up to that daily given these recent results - especially new subscribers!)

My 2 cents.

 

[Spray Paint David]

I’m a small channel so most likely don’t have much say in this, but my videos are around 7. Minutes long and I started making shorts from the long videos. And if my video gets around 10 views then short gets me 1.2k minimum so far.
And I have gained more exposure due to them, I can see few subs from them, and also I feel like some of the short viewers were jumping to check out my long videos. But since shorts and long videos are very different I can se that retention has dropped. I would only assume that they expect the same videos but their not as edited as the shorts and leave.

i guess it has its bonuses and minuses, but. I will still continue to create both.

 

[Xavier De Buck]

I feel like some of the short viewers were jumping to check out my long videos. But since shorts and long videos are very different I can see that retention has dropped. I would only assume that they expect the same videos but their not as edited as the shorts and leave. I guess it has its bonuses and minuses, but. I will still continue to create both.

That's one of the big questions A LOT of us long-form YT-peeps have at the moment:

(1) Will those short video viewers convert in channel subscribers?
(2) Will those newly-converted subs watch our long-form content?

If yes to both, we're in play, so we all better do YT shorts then!

Big dilemma is whether we wait around and see the stats in a few months and THEN react, or give whatever is happening the benefit of the doubt, and start creating YT shorts NOW already and draw our conclusions afterward ourselves...

I'm DEFINITELY in the latter camp and have already seen 1,000's of YT shorts convert into channel subscribers in the short time (pardon the pun) that I've been creating those YT shorts -- now let's see whether (2) is happening next...

 

[nosir512a]

I would guess that YouTube would not provide you two different types of content options and make the use of one of them kill the results of the other.

Lots of big channels use both.

 

[Xavier De Buck]

I would guess that YouTube would not provide you two different types of content options and make the use of one of them kill the results of the other.

Lots of big channels use both.

I definitely wouldn't go as far as saying that 'one kills the other' BUT let's keep in mind when shifts happen, one of those choices does get heavily impacted.... look at the 'picture platform concept' of IG...they've been focused on video for quite some time, and by default the attention will be lead towards that, and away from pix...