Like many of you, I have been resistant to YT Shorts because I see YT Shorts = TikTok. I hate all the goofy, gimmicky, prankster, loud music, stunt-oriented, shallow, juvenile content that seemed to cater to the Z-generation, teens, and pre-teens. However, I recently encountered a TikTok channel from a 50+ year old businesswoman that had a bunch of short recorded sessions of her talks/conversations. Her directness, personality, wit, attitude all came through. She had no animation, special effects, etc. She was just being herself but in a very small snippet. I found myself enjoying one Tiktok snippet, then going to another snippet, etc. I learned a few things from her just listening. She has 750K followers and 1 million likes. She is not Mr. Beast but I think most of us can agree 750K followers is pretty good no matter what platform you are on.
LegalEagle (lawyer) has been rolling out Shorts for sometime now and I believe he is being intentional of mixing up long-form and Shorts videos. At 2.4 million subscribers, he isn't Mr. Beast but I am willing to learn by example and get some insights from LegalEagle.
My "ah ha" moment is that there are a lot of people interested in content that is not so reliant on gimmicky, goofs, stunts, and outlandish stuff etc. I believe there is a hunger for it but few are fulfilling that niche.
Filmora 11 has had a string of buggy versions the past few months I been upset about (but recently much improved). Out of frustration 3 weeks ago, I stopped editing long-form videos to look for an alternative video editor. But I wanted to keep my channel going even if I had to produce short videos. I dabbled in a couple Shorts last year as an experiment. I did what I could and it was unspectacular but at least I could say I tried a couple Shorts.
I had a different idea. I decided to make YT shorts which incorporated some of what the woman did (talking head) but make my shorts more upbeat by adding music, animation, & effects. I created a 1-second "cover/thumbnail" and placed it at the front of the video because I wanted my cover/thumbnail a few frames in the video in the hopes it would get picked up.
So I released the Short and it got modest view results. It was certainly nowhere viral but in proportion to my channel size , "this isn't horrible". I did not feel it was a waste of my time. But because I went through the work of creating this Short, I thought I might as well upload it to TikTok account via the desktop app. On TT, they picked up the 1-second frame which I embedded my thumbnail! And it looked great because TT has no thumbnails but I was able to create the illusion of a thumbnail with my face, title, colors, etc! The views on TT were "not bad". Remember, the only work I did was upload it, give it a similar title with some hashtags.
Then I decided to give IG Reels a try. I'd heard that Reels gets some high views vs. regular IG posts. But the problem with IG Reels is that I could find no way to upload directly from desktop. (You can upload photos & square videos, not Reel verticals) After some thinking, I decided to transfer my Shorts video to my phone via a file copy using an USB connection. Then when I went into IG app, I was able to access that Shorts video on my phone and upload it straight to Reels with appropriate title and hashtags.
Again, Reels responded the same way. That first second of my video was used as my "thumbnail" and it looks great as part of larger library of Reels videos with thumbnails. The views were crazy high 3,000+ views each! However, Reels counts a view as 3-seconds. Pretty low bar. With one exception, I have consistently gotten very high views for my small IG account.
Essentially because of YT shorts, I simultaneously built out secondary outposts on TT and IG. I decided I am not attempting to bring those viewers over to YT. Too much of a leap IMO. Just let the individual videos exist on its own in the platforms as it was intended.
But wait, there's more! (I whip out a cooking utensil.... just kidding) I've been monitoring my analytics. My YT Shorts shows up in "YT Searches"! I was so surprised! I had to confirm this for myself. I went into incognito mode on two browsers and did a phrase search on my video topics. Guess what? Two of shorts came up in YT searches! That was a huge surprise to me.
Essentially, based on my own small library of Shorts, there are stats in YT search, browse features, playlists, etc. (I created or added my Shorts to whatever topic was appropriate). I have confirmed for myself that we are not reliant on the Shorts feed to get traffic. There appears to be some residual benefits. Some of my subscribers are getting notified when I release a YT Short also.
With the last 2 days news from Mr. Beast's talk at VidCon, Daniel Batal's TB livestream, and my own data/results, I am embracing YT shorts. Yes, I know the time viewed does not count towards the 4,000 hours but for people who crossed over, time viewed is not as important. Yes, there are still other several important shortcomings that need to be worked out. (Looks ugly on desktop, no thumbnail select, algorithm issues, etc.)
But I have faith in YT that they will work through all the issues within the next couple years. I believe that people who have a library of YT videos with search-friendly titles and good hashtags are ahead of the game. Mr. Beast said short-form is here to stay and Daniel Batal seems to be onboard to get ahead of the curve. SEO is at play even with Shorts. I have proven this to my own satisfaction. My analytics says so and my YT search confirmed this.
So, for people who want "higher-quality" content on YT Shorts, TT, and IG reels, I feel as creators we can own a piece of this and be part of this. I believe there are a lot of viewers who want less gimmicky videos. I think there is a place for Shorts that cater to to 30+ audience. Not all content has to be from under 30 creators. In fact, I believe there is a hunger for it. Not everyone wants to see content that is so popular with the Z-generation, teens, and pre-teens. The younger generation will age and mature over time but we have to have the content ready for them. And there are plenty of people who want less gimmicky content now!
I predict that YT will make even more announcements and feature updates later this year and into 2023. But I do think part of riding the wave is having some experience and a starting library with Shorts.
I have an additive view. Long-form is still the bread and butter but I will not disregard or dismiss Shorts anymore. It is here to stay.
No one has to get onboard but I believe that people who don't will deprive themselves of a potential wave of opportunity in the next couple of years.
LegalEagle (lawyer) has been rolling out Shorts for sometime now and I believe he is being intentional of mixing up long-form and Shorts videos. At 2.4 million subscribers, he isn't Mr. Beast but I am willing to learn by example and get some insights from LegalEagle.
My "ah ha" moment is that there are a lot of people interested in content that is not so reliant on gimmicky, goofs, stunts, and outlandish stuff etc. I believe there is a hunger for it but few are fulfilling that niche.
Filmora 11 has had a string of buggy versions the past few months I been upset about (but recently much improved). Out of frustration 3 weeks ago, I stopped editing long-form videos to look for an alternative video editor. But I wanted to keep my channel going even if I had to produce short videos. I dabbled in a couple Shorts last year as an experiment. I did what I could and it was unspectacular but at least I could say I tried a couple Shorts.
I had a different idea. I decided to make YT shorts which incorporated some of what the woman did (talking head) but make my shorts more upbeat by adding music, animation, & effects. I created a 1-second "cover/thumbnail" and placed it at the front of the video because I wanted my cover/thumbnail a few frames in the video in the hopes it would get picked up.
So I released the Short and it got modest view results. It was certainly nowhere viral but in proportion to my channel size , "this isn't horrible". I did not feel it was a waste of my time. But because I went through the work of creating this Short, I thought I might as well upload it to TikTok account via the desktop app. On TT, they picked up the 1-second frame which I embedded my thumbnail! And it looked great because TT has no thumbnails but I was able to create the illusion of a thumbnail with my face, title, colors, etc! The views on TT were "not bad". Remember, the only work I did was upload it, give it a similar title with some hashtags.
Then I decided to give IG Reels a try. I'd heard that Reels gets some high views vs. regular IG posts. But the problem with IG Reels is that I could find no way to upload directly from desktop. (You can upload photos & square videos, not Reel verticals) After some thinking, I decided to transfer my Shorts video to my phone via a file copy using an USB connection. Then when I went into IG app, I was able to access that Shorts video on my phone and upload it straight to Reels with appropriate title and hashtags.
Again, Reels responded the same way. That first second of my video was used as my "thumbnail" and it looks great as part of larger library of Reels videos with thumbnails. The views were crazy high 3,000+ views each! However, Reels counts a view as 3-seconds. Pretty low bar. With one exception, I have consistently gotten very high views for my small IG account.
Essentially because of YT shorts, I simultaneously built out secondary outposts on TT and IG. I decided I am not attempting to bring those viewers over to YT. Too much of a leap IMO. Just let the individual videos exist on its own in the platforms as it was intended.
But wait, there's more! (I whip out a cooking utensil.... just kidding) I've been monitoring my analytics. My YT Shorts shows up in "YT Searches"! I was so surprised! I had to confirm this for myself. I went into incognito mode on two browsers and did a phrase search on my video topics. Guess what? Two of shorts came up in YT searches! That was a huge surprise to me.
Essentially, based on my own small library of Shorts, there are stats in YT search, browse features, playlists, etc. (I created or added my Shorts to whatever topic was appropriate). I have confirmed for myself that we are not reliant on the Shorts feed to get traffic. There appears to be some residual benefits. Some of my subscribers are getting notified when I release a YT Short also.
With the last 2 days news from Mr. Beast's talk at VidCon, Daniel Batal's TB livestream, and my own data/results, I am embracing YT shorts. Yes, I know the time viewed does not count towards the 4,000 hours but for people who crossed over, time viewed is not as important. Yes, there are still other several important shortcomings that need to be worked out. (Looks ugly on desktop, no thumbnail select, algorithm issues, etc.)
But I have faith in YT that they will work through all the issues within the next couple years. I believe that people who have a library of YT videos with search-friendly titles and good hashtags are ahead of the game. Mr. Beast said short-form is here to stay and Daniel Batal seems to be onboard to get ahead of the curve. SEO is at play even with Shorts. I have proven this to my own satisfaction. My analytics says so and my YT search confirmed this.
So, for people who want "higher-quality" content on YT Shorts, TT, and IG reels, I feel as creators we can own a piece of this and be part of this. I believe there are a lot of viewers who want less gimmicky videos. I think there is a place for Shorts that cater to to 30+ audience. Not all content has to be from under 30 creators. In fact, I believe there is a hunger for it. Not everyone wants to see content that is so popular with the Z-generation, teens, and pre-teens. The younger generation will age and mature over time but we have to have the content ready for them. And there are plenty of people who want less gimmicky content now!
I predict that YT will make even more announcements and feature updates later this year and into 2023. But I do think part of riding the wave is having some experience and a starting library with Shorts.
I have an additive view. Long-form is still the bread and butter but I will not disregard or dismiss Shorts anymore. It is here to stay.
No one has to get onboard but I believe that people who don't will deprive themselves of a potential wave of opportunity in the next couple of years.
