YouTube Tips To do shorts or not to do shorts, thatΓÇÖs the question

[Xavier De Buck]

To do shorts or not to do shorts, thatΓÇÖs the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous subscriber fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of YouTube shorts troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleepΓÇ¿
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks of growing one's YouTube account

William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1 - YouTube Shorts Edition

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Hi TB'ers,

In the past few months, many of us have been going back & forth in the comment sections on whether one ought to get involved in YouTube Shorts. Some believe it's a waste of time, others are principally against it without even trying it, and others are willing to give it a sho(r)t and see what it does.

I'm in the last category - and yes, I'm a 200% fan of long-form YT videos and can't really see how all those 5-10-15-30 second videos will overtake the huge value LF videos bring - BUT I wanted to do some testing by posting these YT Shorts videos. If anything, to conclusively know for myself that I gave it a chance, and it brought some success to my account. Or did nothing at all!

Well, we know that YT Shorts pretty much levels the playing field - so, regardless whether you have an account with a small subscriber basis, or larger one - your Shorts videos were going to be judged on their own merit.

After posting 160 YouTube Shorts videos over the past year - the below numbers speak for themselves - my account grew by almost 8,000 subscribers thanks to these YT Shorts!

Now, is a new subscriber the (vanity metric) goal? Or, another loyal & engaging follower of my account? OR OR OR, a new viewer of my long-form content?

That important element remains to be seen and will require more data testing in the future, HOWEVER, what's been established is that my account has seen a steadily increase in subscribers, in monthly views, in YT adsense revenue, in engagement, in spin-off brand deal business etc (sure thing, I kept posting my LT videos on a regular basis as well which undoubtedly helped matters).

My point is that ANY CONTENT CREATOR on YouTube has to set some time aside and put out YT Shorts videos. There's clearly an upside to your overall performance!

Curious to hear your feedback - I'm sure I've rattled some 'truths' or opinions outthere. Watch the comment section below for drama

Cheers,

Xavier

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Man I find this refreshing in so many ways, thank you! But I will say this makes me question the value of Shorts even more. Here's my take; Shorts have value as a means of getting in front of new viewers. They are an excellent way of getting in front of fresh audiences that would have otherwise not seen your work.

But it took 160 videos to get an 18% increase in subscribers for the year. I advise putting that into perspective; if you can reasonably add 160 Shorts videos to your content posting go right ahead, more power to you. Especially if you can do so and be happy about an 18% gain (which is not shabby at all... it just requires some perspective). I believe that Shorts videos should be well-produced and even optimized. But I can not physically manage posting that many Shorts videos without losing some quality in my longform content my mind. That having been said I see this and think "ok, I can put out 160 Shorts videos if I simply do not have to put as much time/effort into them." This may be a compromise worth considering.

 

[Xavier De Buck]

Man I find this refreshing in so many ways, thank you! But I will say this makes me question the value of Shorts even more. Here's my take; Shorts have value as a means of getting in front of new viewers. They are an excellent way of getting in front of fresh audiences that would have otherwise not seen your work.

But it took 160 videos to get an 18% increase in subscribers for the year. I advise putting that into perspective; if you can reasonably add 160 Shorts videos to your content posting go right ahead, more power to you. Especially if you can do so and be happy about an 18% gain (which is not shabby at all... it just requires some perspective). I believe that Shorts videos should be well-produced and even optimized. But I can not physically manage posting that many Shorts videos without losing some quality in my longform content my mind. That having been said I see this and think "ok, I can put out 160 Shorts videos if I simply do not have to put as much time/effort into them." This may be a compromise worth considering.

Thanks for taking the time to comment - much appreciated!

Whereas I had my initial doubts - we all did/do - whether these silly 10-20-30 second YT shorts add ANY value to our channel, but I'm a believer now that these shorts need to become a part of anyone's overall YT channel growth strategy - keep on regularly posting your long-form videos AND throw a couple of shorts videos in the mix.

As of late, I'm seeing quite the pickup in activity/views on my channel, so I'm actually upping my game on YT shorts and see if there's some momentum happening because of them? Either way, I'm aware that I need to take advantage of this momentum as it might be gone in who-knows-how-many-days!

I've seen the lulls and a couple of highs, and I made the mistake of not 'throwing more oil on the fire' while it was roaring!
(Well, besides the HUGE mistakes of taking entire July+August off, as well as entire December without any content posting - talk about being stupid - but my mind was in a different space!)

BTW -- I believe the 18% you're referring to is not the gain/growth of my account, but rather the shorts portion or percentage of subs that started to follow me thanks to YT Shorts relative to my total sub count (ie 2.5% of overall subs came from my community posts).

Here's what my subscriber growth looks like over the past 365 days - it's almost 3x now vs where it was one year ago.

 

[Xavier De Buck]

Thanks for taking the time to comment - much appreciated!

Whereas I had my initial doubts - we all did/do - whether these silly 10-20-30 second YT shorts add ANY value to our channel, but I'm a believer now that these shorts need to become a part of anyone's overall YT channel growth strategy - keep on regularly posting your long-form videos AND throw a couple of shorts videos in the mix.

As of late, I'm seeing quite the pickup in activity/views on my channel, so I'm actually upping my game on YT shorts and see if there's some momentum happening because of them? Either way, I'm aware that I need to take advantage of this momentum as it might be gone in who-knows-how-many-days!

I've seen the lulls and a couple of highs, and I made the mistake of not 'throwing more oil on the fire' while it was roaring!
(Well, besides the HUGE mistakes of taking entire July+August off, as well as entire December without any content posting - talk about being stupid - but my mind was in a different space!)

View attachment 13649

BTW -- I believe the 18% you're referring to is not the gain/growth of my account, but rather the shorts portion or percentage of subs that started to follow me thanks to YT Shorts relative to my total sub count (ie 2.5% of overall subs came from my community posts).

Here's what my subscriber growth looks like over the past 365 days - it's almost 3x now vs where it was one year ago.


View attachment 13647

FYI - update from a couple of weeks ago - definitely part due to the YOUTUBE SHORTS implementation strategy mentioned above, my stats are once again breaking records every month.

My channel crossed the 1M monthly views mark, now +50,000 subs, and showing record ad revenue figures.

Please tell me again how adding SHORTS to your video mix isn't / can't / won't affect your overall channel's performance