Video Research Experience with YT Shorts

[bectries_food]

I understand that Youtube Shorts is still in beta in India, but I'm curious to hear about people's experiences with it (both in the beta and people uploading using the #shorts tag).
I'm seeing anecdotally (Reddit in particular) that some smaller creators are seeing bumps in subscriber counts and views, so could shorts potentially be beneficial?

 

[EnglishwithLiz]

In a word, YES. They are fun to do and reach a much wider audience. My channel is only 9 months old in an ultra competitive niche but shorts have helped with one getting 13k views, which for me is good

 

[Beanie Draws]

I still need to do some more experimentation before I can make any true judgements. I had one video make it into the shorts shelf for an hour or two which gave it a big boost of a few thousand views, but the rest of my shorts seem to be much like my regular content. I think we more people making shorts, the less likely you are to benifit much as more shorts will be competing for the same space, meaning it's like likely you'll end up in the shorts shelf overall.

The only real way to know is to give it a try and see what happens. It may be in beta, but you can still try it by using #Shorts in your title/description.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

They can be beneficial, but you need to be smart about how you go about taking advantage of them. Because the algorithm for shorts is different discovery is far easier. You simply post a vertical format video under 60 seconds and it is eligible for the 'Short Shelf.' When it hits this shelf that is when you see a drastic spike in views.

Important Information Regarding Shorts:

1. The shorts shelf does not use your thumbnail. Instead it uses a screenshot from the video. Be mindful of this, and make your video quality/color etc as good as you can. It also warrants mentioning that your video is still a regular video and can surface on suggest, search etc. For these reasons it is important to plan longterm for them and make a thumbnail, do your keyword research etc.

2. YouTube recommends that you make your videos 15 seconds long. Because these videos are so short you need to aim for outlandish analytics in order to compete against other videos on the shorts shelf. I have seen 15 second videos with 360% retention fail. The most successful videos will garner multiple views. And even though you can do little to affect the CTR it appears that it does come in to play regarding the amount of time your video sits on the shelf.

3. You will not gain watchtime towards your YPP/Monetization goals, and you will not receive ads so these viral videos only add to your view count. They do nothing to help pertinent analytics and are largely for vanity sake, except...

4. Viral shorts will gain you subscribers. For this reason it is important to cater your content for people who are going to specifically enjoy your channel. The last thing you want to do is to post a hilarious short video about your cat doing a backflip on your Minecraft channel. Keep your content on point; this is a good opportunity to get a following.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

They can be beneficial, but you need to be smart about how you go about taking advantage of them. Because the algorithm for shorts is different discovery is far easier. You simply post a vertical format video under 60 seconds and it is eligible for the 'Short Shelf.' When it hits this shelf that is when you see a drastic spike in views.

Important Information Regarding Shorts:

1. The shorts shelf does not use your thumbnail. Instead it uses a screenshot from the video. Be mindful of this, and make your video quality/color etc as good as you can. It also warrants mentioning that your video is still a regular video and can surface on suggest, search etc. For these reasons it is important to plan longterm for them and make a thumbnail, do your keyword research etc.

2. YouTube recommends that you make your videos 15 seconds long. Because these videos are so short you need to aim for outlandish analytics in order to compete against other videos on the shorts shelf. I have seen 15 second videos with 360% retention fail. The most successful videos will garner multiple views. And even though you can do little to affect the CTR it appears that it does come in to play regarding the amount of time your video sits on the shelf.

3. You will not gain watchtime towards your YPP/Monetization goals, and you will not receive ads so these viral videos only add to your view count. They do nothing to help pertinent analytics and are largely for vanity sake, except...

4. Viral shorts will gain you subscribers. For this reason it is important to cater your content for people who are going to specifically enjoy your channel. The last thing you want to do is to post a hilarious short video about your cat doing a backflip on your Minecraft channel. Keep your content on point; this is a good opportunity to get a following.

 

[Brewman06]

They can be beneficial, but you need to be smart about how you go about taking advantage of them. Because the algorithm for shorts is different discovery is far easier. You simply post a vertical format video under 60 seconds and it is eligible for the 'Short Shelf.' When it hits this shelf that is when you see a drastic spike in views.

Important Information Regarding Shorts:

1. The shorts shelf does not use your thumbnail. Instead it uses a screenshot from the video. Be mindful of this, and make your video quality/color etc as good as you can. It also warrants mentioning that your video is still a regular video and can surface on suggest, search etc. For these reasons it is important to plan longterm for them and make a thumbnail, do your keyword research etc.

2. YouTube recommends that you make your videos 15 seconds long. Because these videos are so short you need to aim for outlandish analytics in order to compete against other videos on the shorts shelf. I have seen 15 second videos with 360% retention fail. The most successful videos will garner multiple views. And even though you can do little to affect the CTR it appears that it does come in to play regarding the amount of time your video sits on the shelf.

3. You will not gain watchtime towards your YPP/Monetization goals, and you will not receive ads so these viral videos only add to your view count. They do nothing to help pertinent analytics and are largely for vanity sake, except...

4. Viral shorts will gain you subscribers. For this reason it is important to cater your content for people who are going to specifically enjoy your channel. The last thing you want to do is to post a hilarious short video about your cat doing a backflip on your Minecraft channel. Keep your content on point; this is a good opportunity to get a following.

Thanks Stanley, great info.

How do you actually upload a short video on YouTube, I can't find where to do it?

I would like to use video footage that I already have.

It also needs to be portrait doesn't it?

Mark

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Thanks Stanley, great info.

How do you actually upload a short video on YouTube, I can't find where to do it?

I would like to use video footage that I already have.

It also needs to be portrait doesn't it?

Mark

To publish a Shorts video to YouTube you simply need to make a video that is of any vertical format and is under sixty seconds long. Also is a good practice to go ahead and put #Shorts in the title and/or description. YouTube automatically recognizes any video with these parameters as a Shorts video.

You can totally use pre-existing footage, even if it was filmed horizontal. You need to crop it to be vertical. This obviously isn't ideal... but I've done it for every Shorts video I have done and it worked fine.

It is also worth noting that these aren't just Shorts videos; they will surface as regular videos as well. So while a video on the shorts shelf does not get a thumbnail or metadata it is important to go ahead and optimize the video for regular consumption as well.

 

[Brewman06]

To publish a Shorts video to YouTube you simply need to make a video that is of any vertical format and is under sixty seconds long. Also is a good practice to go ahead and put #Shorts in the title and/or description. YouTube automatically recognizes any video with these parameters as a Shorts video.

You can totally use pre-existing footage, even if it was filmed horizontal. You need to crop it to be vertical. This obviously isn't ideal... but I've done it for every Shorts video I have done and it worked fine.

It is also worth noting that these aren't just Shorts videos; they will surface as regular videos as well. So while a video on the shorts shelf does not get a thumbnail or metadata it is important to go ahead and optimize the video for regular consumption as well.

Thank you, so they they are just uploaded the same as a usual YouTube video?

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Thank you, so they they are just uploaded the same as a usual YouTube video?

Yes sir!

 

[Brewman06]

Yes sir!

Do you work for TubeBuddy?

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Do you work for TubeBuddy?

Yes sir I do

 

[NanoniumTheDude]

Personally, I would say that shorts are helpful - but as many have mentioned you have to go about it the right way for them to be effective. For me, some have gone mini-viral (couple hundred views) which is attracting an audience, but you also have to remember that the shorts audience may not be into longer-form content so it can be a bit of a hit or miss.

 

[Brewman06]

Yes sir I do

Please can you tell me if my subscribe button is working at the bottom of my posts?

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Please can you tell me if my subscribe button is working at the bottom of my posts?

It is not working

 

[Brewman06]

OK thank you.

I published a short earlier. Don't suppose you could check to see if it's going into that section ok please?

It's called 'Me vs TIE Fighter'

 

[Jamie@PumpkinFreak]

They can be beneficial, but you need to be smart about how you go about taking advantage of them. Because the algorithm for shorts is different discovery is far easier. You simply post a vertical format video under 60 seconds and it is eligible for the 'Short Shelf.' When it hits this shelf that is when you see a drastic spike in views.

Important Information Regarding Shorts:

1. The shorts shelf does not use your thumbnail. Instead it uses a screenshot from the video. Be mindful of this, and make your video quality/color etc as good as you can. It also warrants mentioning that your video is still a regular video and can surface on suggest, search etc. For these reasons it is important to plan longterm for them and make a thumbnail, do your keyword research etc.

2. YouTube recommends that you make your videos 15 seconds long. Because these videos are so short you need to aim for outlandish analytics in order to compete against other videos on the shorts shelf. I have seen 15 second videos with 360% retention fail. The most successful videos will garner multiple views. And even though you can do little to affect the CTR it appears that it does come in to play regarding the amount of time your video sits on the shelf.

3. You will not gain watchtime towards your YPP/Monetization goals, and you will not receive ads so these viral videos only add to your view count. They do nothing to help pertinent analytics and are largely for vanity sake, except...

4. Viral shorts will gain you subscribers. For this reason it is important to cater your content for people who are going to specifically enjoy your channel. The last thing you want to do is to post a hilarious short video about your cat doing a backflip on your Minecraft channel. Keep your content on point; this is a good opportunity to get a following.

hi, ive just uploaded my first short and am rather intrigued by this format. you mentioned the high retention %... do you have any idea what would classify as a good retention % for this type of content?

 

[Brewman06]

hi, ive just uploaded my first short and am rather intrigued by this format. you mentioned the high retention %... do you have any idea what would classify as a good retention % for this type of content?

Hi Jamie.

Fancy checking out each other's Short video?

 

[Jamie@PumpkinFreak]

Hi Jamie.

Fancy checking out each other's Short video?

hi, I'm not really into the whole like-for-like / watch-for-watch thing, however, I did check out your short - id be interested to discuss some of the analytics behind yours, or anyone else's shorts?

My first one was a 14s clip and got a 282% percentage viewed over a couple of hours, I got a few likes and 1 subscriber, but now it seems to have dropped off and has had 0 views over the last several hrs - getting the subscriber is whats really caught my interest with this

 

[Brewman06]

I did it to test the water. The quality isn't great as I just cropped it from an older video of mine. It's had a few views but not gained any new subscribers. Your art is great by the way!

 

[Jamie@PumpkinFreak]

I did it to test the water. The quality isn't great as I just cropped it from an older video of mine. It's had a few views but not gained any new subscribers. Your art is great by the way!

thanks. yes same here, just testing it out... I love the idea of being able to re-hash content into shorts, particularly if it generates subs!