- [Rob] If there are three things you need to know
about YouTube Shorts, it's these.
Currently there are 6 1/2 billion
daily YouTube Shorts views,
and that's, over the course of the year,
is over 2.3 trillion views.
Whether you love them or hate them,
YouTube Shorts are here to stay.
And that is a fact.
And you as a creator
should at least understand the power and potential
of this new video platform.
All right, that's three things you needed to know,
time for the next 47. (claps)
(upbeat music)
Currently, YouTube Shorts are mostly accessed
through what is known as the Shorts shelf
on the YouTube mobile app.
This Short shelf can appear in a number of places
such as the home feed
and even on regular YouTube video watch pages.
But YouTube are adding more navigation options all the time.
This Shorts button is being trialed next to video topics
on the home feed.
And although not all of us can see this yet,
the Explore button on the menu navigation dock
at the bottom of the screen
is being replaced by a Shorts button.
Although they are called Shorts,
they are also normal YouTube videos.
Take this as an example.
I am watching this Shorts about YouTube updates
through the Shorts Shelf.
However, if I search for the same piece of content
through the channel's Video tab, I can find it,
and it now plays like a regular YouTube video.
I know that's a little confusing
and I haven't got a good answer for you.
That's YouTube logic for you.
And to further complicate this,
what YouTube Shorts are not are YouTube Stories.
These have their own Stories shelf
and are only accessible to creators
with over 10,000 subscribers.
These do look very similar to Shorts
but do have unique features too,
such as recording video responses to comments.
Who knows what the future is of Stories,
now Shorts are available.
But let's go from Stories back to Shorts
because I have some good news here
when it comes to requirements at a channel level.
For YouTube Shorts, there are absolutely not,
you don't need any subscribers.
You don't need any views.
You could start a YouTube channel today
and make a YouTube Short.
Having said that there are minimum requirements
a YouTube Short needs to meet a video level.
So let's go through them right now.
The video must be less than 60 seconds long
and it's probably a good idea to play it safe
and make it no longer than 59 seconds.
YouTube haven't stayed a minimum video length for Shorts.
So again, to play it safe
make it at least five seconds long.
Secondly, the video must be in a vertical video format.
The widest it can be is in a square format
but bear in mind, the wider the video is,
the more black dead space you will have
at the top and the bottom of a screen.
This will give your videos a letter boxing effect.
As long as your video meets those two requirements
it qualifies to appear on the Shorts shelf
whether it does or not is an entirely different question.
It all depends on YouTube recommendation system
which for YouTube Shorts is still learning.
And of course the competition on YouTube Shorts
you can add hashtag Shorts
to either video title or video description.
And to be honest, these days it's probably recommended.
At the same time, this will also give you an insight
into the competition fighting for those
at six and a half billion daily Shorts views.
If you do a YouTube search for hashtag Shorts,
the first result is what is known
as a landing or pivot page
that shows you how many videos and channels
are using this hashtag.
As you can see, it's already a lot
and that number grows every single day.
It should be noted that this doesn't exclusively
show you YouTube Shorts videos.
It's simply any video that uses that hashtag.
If you did want to filter by just YouTube Shorts,
first start watching the Shorts
and then tap on these Shorts hashtag in the title.
And this will now list only Shorts videos
using that hashtag.
18 million is still a lot of videos though, right?
And since we're on the topic of Shorts discovery,
YouTube is now starting to display the Short shelf
when you search.
At first, it was mostly at channel name searches
that would display a shelf
but now super popular search terms
such as Minecraft have their own Shorts shelf.
Going forward, this is really encouraging news
for search based education channels.
And if you do want to create a massive channel
in a very short amount of time, just make Minecraft Shorts.
Oh what, you don't believe me?
Check out Block Facts, 1 million subscribers
over 300 million views, six months.
Jake Fellman, 5 million subscribers, 4 billion views,
eight months.
And if you need some examples of non gaming channels
who are crushing it with YouTube Shorts
check out Dan Rhodes, Daniel LaBelle, Dental Digest
and Jeannie Weenie.
As for YouTube Shorts reviving a dead channel,
we'll take a look at Action Lab Shorts as an example.
They didn't publish anything for two years.
And then bam, one Short, half a million views,
very quickly followed by many more Shorts
with many millions more views.
Yes, folks.
That's the power and potential of YouTube Shorts.
Now then, long form YouTube content versus Shorts.
Many creators have talked about the challenges
of blending the two together on a single channel.
But it is possible.
(upbeat music)
One creator who has used the Shorts very effectively
within their existing content
is the law channel Legal Eagle.
It's pretty easy to see which videos are Shorts
as the thumbnails are more basic,
more about that later.
The stats back up with new content strategy
as the increase in video output is pretty much inline
with the increase in total channel views.
There is no clear evidence
to suggest that making YouTube Shorts
on your main channel has any negative impacts.
And let's think about it.
Why would YouTube allow you to introduce a Trojan horse
into your channel to destroy it?
But if you are nervous about introducing YouTube Shorts
to your main channel, which is understandable,
simply set up a second channel to test and experiment
but without expectation.
And of course, don't forget
that you can turn off notifications
being sent out to your subscribers
for any video by unticking this box
before you publish the video.
You can swipe these Short shelf to see 15 videos in total.
And have you noticed that none of these
are custom thumbnails.
You are at the mercy of whatever frame YouTube decides
to pick which can be frustrating.
Having said that, custom thumbnails
are still displayed outside of the Shorts shelf,
such as on desktop.
So if you are getting traffic from outside of Shorts,
more on that later, then do consider making thumbnails
like the Legal Eagle has done here.
All of this means that the title is incredibly important
because it's the one thing you control,
but you don't have that many characters to play with.
35 at most, really.
So if you are going to add hashtag Shorts to your title
make sure to put it at the end.
In the Shorts Player,
you have to swipe up to watch the next video.
If you don't, the current video
will automatically loop back around to the beginning.
Looping videos can be a very powerful tool
to increase watch time.
For example, did you even realize
that this video has already looped around twice?
This can lead to incredible audience retention figures
that well exceed 100%.
For more information on how to use this strategy.
Check out the video link on screen now.
When watching a Short,
you can double tap on the screen to like the video.
At the bottom of a player,
this scrolling line represents the length of a video.
Although I think it's only displayed
for Shorts that are longer than 15 seconds.
There are no player control such as fast forward or rewind
but you can tap the description or comments
to pause the video.
The only call to action you really have on YouTube Shorts
is the subscribe button at the bottom.
You can, of course, still add cards and end screens
because they are clusters normal YouTube videos
but they simply don't appear in the Shorts player.
So with that in mind,
if you want to engage with your viewers,
use the pin comment feature.
So you are the first comment viewer see
if they go to the comment section of the YouTube Short.
And also take note of the placement of the video details
and engagement tools,
try to avoid putting anything important
in your videos in this bottom right-hand section.
If you tap via channel icon on the Shorts player
you will see the channels YouTube Shorts.
But if you want to view their full channel
you have to tap on the channel icon a second time.
In the bottom right-hand corner of a screen,
you may see this audio sample button.
This allows you to view the audio source
and potentially use it for your own videos.
Especially if it's popular music.
This audio sampling feature allows essentially
any creator to use audio from any other creator.
This is in part thanks to new permissions
that YouTube added to your content.
For long form videos, you can turn this permission off
to not allow creators to sample your audio
but for YouTube Shorts, you have no choice.
You are automatically opted in
and any creator could use your audio.
Oof!
We've covered a fair amount of a YouTube Shorts stuff there,
haven't we?
And here's the crazy thing.
I haven't even showed you how to make one.
Let's address that now.
(upbeat music)
To create a Short in the YouTube mobile app
tap the plus button at the bottom of a screen
and then create a Short.
This tool is still rolling out to all creators
so you might not yet have it.
Now, just to be clear,
you don't need this Shorts camera tool
to make YouTube Shorts.
As long as your video is in a vertical video format
and less than 60 seconds long, it qualifies.
For example,
many creators are uploading their YouTube shorts
via a desktop computer.
Currently in the Shorts camera
you can record multiple segments,
speed up or slow down the video,
set a timer,
add music to the Short,
add text and edit the timeline of a text.
For a complete tutorial
on how to use the Shorts camera tool,
check out the video on screen now.
And it goes without saying
that YouTube will be adding more features
to put this on par with Tiktok.
So stay tuned for updates.
When a viewer watches a video through the Shorts player,
that view is recorded as a Shorts view
in your traffic sources for YouTube analytics.
This is a good example of a video
that's getting views from multiple traffic sources
which is why we created a custom thumbnail for it.
Now this Shorts data is at a video level,
but if you wanted to see
how many Shorts views your entire channel has received
over the last 48 hours
then you can use vidIQ's real-time stats bar.
This tool is incredibly helpful
if you are mixing long form content
with Shorts on your channel
and the best news is this tool is 100% free
when you download vidIQ.
Over on the YouTube Studio app,
you can now see the performance of your latest Shorts.
Something interesting to note here
is how the key metrics differ
from them shown for normal YouTube videos.
These seem to be clues as
to what you should focus on as a Shorts creator,
views, average percentage viewed and likes.
All right, then let's talk about monetization.
You may have noticed that YouTube shorts
is an advert free experience.
At least so far.
YouTube have said that they will start to trial ads
within the Shorts player
but that doesn't mean there is going
to be an ad revenue partner program scheme.
Like there is for long form content,
at least not yet anyway.
So instead of the ad revenue system we all know and love,
YouTube have announced a Shorts fund
that will hand out $100 million
to creators over 2021 and 2022.
Now, as I said, this creator fund is not connected
to the existing YouTube partner program.
So you don't need to be in it,
but at the same time you can't apply for this fund,
you will be invited by YouTube.
And as of time of recording,
this fund is only available to US and Indian creators.
Hopefully more countries will be announced soon.
And just to clarify,
it's only the views from the Shorts traffic source
but aren't the monetizable
because no ads are run against them.
If you are in the YouTube partner program
you can still earn revenue from all
of the other YouTube traffic sources where ads are run
just don't expect to earn much from such Short videos.
Now I appreciate that monetization
is a huge topic for a lot of youth creators
and I've kind of glossed over it in this video.
So if you want to learn a lot more about monetization
when it comes to YouTube Shorts,
check out this full explainer video over here
and the code word you may be looking for
to put in the comments to confuse all those viewers
that didn't get this far into the video,
Rob can't count, can he?