YouTube Opinion My Thoughts on YT Shorts

[Xavier De Buck]

I think there will be people who would disagree with this. It "can" and "may" lead to views of long-form content. That is the hope and assumption. But the jury is still out on whether that is actually true. It is probably true for some channels and NOT true on others.

Exactly, Matt!

As we're pretty much the end of February, looking at the view stats on my channel, I've DOUBLED in traffic by posting 10 shorts videos on top of my 5 long-form videos...shorts are now contributing about 66% of my overall monthly views.

I'm giving these shorts videos the benefit of the doubt - and indirectly YT management for pushing them so hard - and I'll play along in March by posting 20+ shorts besides my 5-10 long-form videos.....I'm hitting it VERY HARD, so I'm hoping / expecting / anticipating that my March revenue will be adjusted upward as well then.

And by how much? Or not much at all? Imagine views going through the roof in March, yet revenue is unchanged vs February...talk about a heated discussion in the making LOL

Proof is in the pudding! More on that in the coming weeks!

 

[Randomlifestylevlog]

I feel like Youtube Shorts are being favoured over long form in a way. Over xmas we had our first massive drop in 3 years, nothing had changed with regards to content. Then we tried YT shorts and we gained a load of subscribers. Maybe because its a different audience i dont know..

 

[Xavier De Buck]

I feel like Youtube Shorts are being favoured over long form in a way. Over xmas we had our first massive drop in 3 years, nothing had changed with regards to content. Then we tried YT shorts and we gained a load of subscribers. Maybe because its a different audience i dont know..

Looks like we're all experiencing similar situations...

Now that you've been trying YT shorts and getting new subs, how's that affected your long-form videos? Views? Revenue?

 

[MattCommand1]

10 million shorts views in the last 90 days in order to monetize from shorts. Anyone here think they have a realistic chance?

Not me. It is an insane number. To me, 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers is the easier road.

 

[Xavier De Buck]

Not me. It is an insane number. To me, 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers is the easier road.

Let's do some quick 'napkin maths' here -- say you post TWICE a day for a HUNDRED days straight (that's a big ask already).

That's 10,000,000 views divided by 200 pieces of content which then need to produce a MINIMUM of 50,000 views PER PIECE of content.

I don't know about you but in my eyes, those are ENORMOUS (unattainable?) goals -- unless you're rewarding those lucky few with viral content. Check out Gary V with his 4M subs and how he's doing with YT shorts videos - especially his last post trying to get attention with his new style of posting? LOL https://youtube.com/shorts/CzQQhcBFp5g?feature=share

(FYI - to give you some perspective, with my 36K subscribers, I'm getting on average about 3-4K per YT shorts video - and someone will do 50K for 200 vids with zero subs? Realistic? Not quite!)

 

[Xavier De Buck]

Personally, I hate Shorts. Not because YouTube is pushing them. I just have no use for gobbledygook. This whole Twitterfication of the world, where humans can't think in terms of sentences longer than 200 characters or videos longer than 30 seconds; I believe is psychologically and Socialogicly damaging to the human race. And there are plenty of peer-reviewed medical and scientific studies to suggest that these things are harming people in, not only in psychological, but also physiological ways.

When you were a kid and wanted candy, did your parents just give you all you want? Not if they were responsible parents. Everyone knows that a little candy is okay once in a while, but candy all day long all the time, is bad for you. Twitter and TikTok style content is bad for the human race. It is getting to where you cannot even hold a normal discussion with people anymore because their brain is so damaged by their addiction to digital Mind-Crack, they cannot focus on what you are saying for more than a few seconds. Several educational studies that have been performed recently have found that the reading comprehension level of the average American is 3rd grade. They can read the words, but they cannot focus on the context of the sentence long enough to grasp what it is trying to say. They read a few words and assume the rest.

Shorts style content is harmful. It is harming the future generation. It is not what the human race needs. It is sad that so many platforms are turning into digital drug dealers to keep feeding digital addicts their mind-crack highs, and are also encouraging and pushing the digital vegetable gardeners that produce wholesome healthy content to grow digital crack as well.

That being said. Shorts will never make you any money on YT, but if you can find a way to make them work for you, go with the trend. It might be leading to a drop off a digital cliff, but hey, we will all have plenty of company.

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I saw this earlier on ΓÇÿanother platformΓÇÖ (the name we do not say LOL) noting the enormous drops in views on it and whatΓÇÖs happening between TT & YT.

Thought it would be interesting to add it to our discussion here: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMY5eTsAL/

 

[MattCommand1]

I saw this earlier on ΓÇÿanother platformΓÇÖ (the name we do not say LOL) noting the enormous drops in views on it and whatΓÇÖs happening between TT & YT.

Thought it would be interesting to add it to our discussion here: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMY5eTsAL/

Xavier, that TT video is an awesome share. This should be encouraging to LF creators. There is a realization that attention span matters. Not just a 3-second view to artificially spike the view numbers that FB has been guilty of in the past.

Your guy also mentioned "barrier of entry" many times. That made me laugh because it does require work and effort to create longer videos which advantages some people and disadvantages others.

In some ways, TT's change is encouraging me to participate more if they are steering people to longer videos.

 

[LeylaMango]

10 million shorts views in the last 90 days in order to monetize from shorts. Anyone here think they have a realistic chance?

I'm only about 9,998,000 views away!

 

[Bdominique]

I saw this earlier on ΓÇÿanother platformΓÇÖ (the name we do not say LOL) noting the enormous drops in views on it and whatΓÇÖs happening between TT & YT.

Thought it would be interesting to add it to our discussion here: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMY5eTsAL/

Interesting video! Just shows how things can change on any platform in the blink of an eye.

My content doesn't tend to do too well on TT. Because I do art, my stuff tends to be a little longer on there, speed paints. And I figured that's why it didn't do as well. Not short enough

but my last two uploads I noticed a Spike and I wonder if these changes have anything to do with it It'll be interesting to see what happens.

 

[MediaMan]

Check out Gary V with his 4M subs

wow...for a channel with over 4m subs his views LF or short, seem a bit low?

I saw this earlier on ΓÇÿanother platformΓÇÖ (the name we do not say LOL) noting the enormous drops in views on it and whatΓÇÖs happening between TT & YT.

It's obvious those short attention span viewers are not paying the bills. So TikTok wants to become YouTube. This should be great news for us.... well the ones how haven't jumped the YT ship for another platform. Based on absorbing so much information the past few months, it just makes sense to keep grinding and have long term goals. Those short term goals, trying to maximize views, subs, etc, etc, are draining. lol..

 

[Xavier De Buck]

Xavier, that TT video is an awesome share. This should be encouraging to LF creators. There is a realization that attention span matters. Not just a 3-second view to artificially spike the view numbers that FB has been guilty of in the past.

Your guy also mentioned "barrier of entry" many times. That made me laugh because it does require work and effort to create longer videos which advantages some people and disadvantages others.

In some ways, TT's change is encouraging me to participate more if they are steering people to longer videos.

Exactly my thinking, Matt!

With all the YT negativity of "the end is nigh" talk as of late, it was quite refreshing to see "the other side" worrying about what's going on! Keep grinding away on those LF videos, peeps! Watch the pendulum swing back once they all realize it actually takes effort in making LF content! Who woulda guessed...

 

[Xavier De Buck]

wow...for a channel with over 4m subs his views LF or short, seem a bit low?

I was honestly blown away by the level of his shorts video views....WHERE ARE THEY for someone with 4M subs...?!

It's obvious those short attention span viewers are not paying the bills. So TikTok wants to become YouTube. This should be great news for us.... well the ones how haven't jumped the YT ship for another platform. Based on absorbing so much information the past few months, it just makes sense to keep grinding and have long term goals. Those short term goals, trying to maximize views, subs, etc, etc, are draining. lol..

100%, my friend, 100%!!

 

[MediaMan]

I was honestly blown away by the level of his shorts video views....

hmm.... I typically only look at the most recent row or 2 of a channel's shorts for evaluation, none of those videos have over 10k views. Am I missing something in your evaluation? Again for a channel with 4m subs... seems low? ? ?

 

[Xavier De Buck]

hmm.... I typically only look at the most recent row or 2 of a channel's shorts for evaluation, none of those videos have over 10k views. Am I missing something in your evaluation? Again for a channel with 4m subs... seems low? ? ?

Sorry for the miscommunication - I'll edit my original response to reflect it.

Despite him having 4M subscribers, the best he can do - and isn't he king of marketing - the level of YT shorts are abysmal for someone his size... how/why?!

 

[MediaMan]

Despite him having 4M subscribers, the best he can do - and isn't he king of marketing - the level of YT shorts are abysmal for someone his size... how/why?!

Yah, it seems a bit off... but I did find out (through looking at the data in the descriptions) that he's uploading several a day, so his total daily views are fairly good but for sure his single video performance on each short is surprisingly low for the number of subs he has. Definitely an interesting stat....