- Here's the short answer.
Forgive the pun.
Anybody can make a YouTube Short right now.
You can start a YouTube channel today,
not have any subscribers or views,
as long as the video is made in a vertical format
and is less than 60 seconds long.
And it does not matter what device you use.
It does not matter how you upload it.
It does not matter even if you include,
#Shorts, in the title or the description,
it qualifies as a YouTube Shorts.
Wherever it appears on YouTube as a Shorts video
is an entirely different question.
And now for the long answer.
(upbeat music)
So, I'm making this video
because some of you are still a little confused
about how YouTube Shorts work and that's okay,
I don't blame you.
YouTube still aren't doing a very good job
of communicating Shorts.
So vidIQ is stepping in to help out.
Now the one thing I will stress before we go into this
is that everything is correct as of time of recording
at the end of 2020, because in 2021
YouTube Shorts may look a lot different
and this is why.
That's because most of us are still waiting to get our hands
on this button in the YouTube mobile app.
This will allow creators to make 15 second videos
with a multi-segment camera, music, speed controls and more.
Basically, it's a TikTok camera
for a TikTok video platform on YouTube.
But as of time of recording
this feature is currently only available
in certain countries, such as India.
And here is the irony.
I've been talking about YouTube Shorts for months
and I still don't have access to the tool on my mobile app
which is why I'm creating them everywhere and anywhere
apart from on the app.
But it could all change in the future.
It may be, that at some point in 2021,
everybody has to create YouTube Shorts from the mobile app.
That is to be determined.
And I'll let you know all about that in the future,
if it does change.
So, to clarify, if you currently don't have this button
this is how you can make a YouTube Short.
Put very simply, there are no minimum creator requirements.
You don't need any views or subscribers,
you could create a channel today and make a YouTube Short.
How do we know this?
Well, we created a brand new Shorts channel,
started making Shorts
and they are being viewed on YouTube as Shorts.
What do we mean by a Shorts view?
Well, as promised, we turned the intro to this video
into a short video.
But if we watch the video through the normal YouTube player
you can see that we can swipe down to see the comments
and over suggested videos.
This would be a normal YouTube view.
However, if we watch this same video as a Short video
as seen here in the features section of the channel
the play controls change of it now
when we swipe up,
the next Short video plays,
instead of seeing comments and suggested videos
and so on and so on.
This is class as a Shorts view in traffic sources.
And how significance
when we start to talk about monetization.
Next step, you can create, edit and upload your videos
using any device.
How do we know this?
Well, I made the intro to this video using this camera,
editing it with this program
and uploading it through a desktop computer to YouTube
and it is classified as a YouTube Short.
Yes, you can make videos on a mobile device
and upload them as normal videos to YouTube.
Basically, it doesn't matter how you make the video,
it just needs to meet these two requirements.
The video must be less than 60 seconds in length.
To play it safe, make it no longer than 58 seconds.
Also to play it safe,
make it longer than at least five seconds.
Secondly, the video must be a square to vertical format.
So, this will be a square format video.
Let's say the resolution is 1080 by 1080.
If it is a pixel wider than it is taller
then the video won't be classed as a YouTube Short.
Now this is a vertical video.
Most people will record in vertical video
'cause they're basically using their mobile phone
in portrait mode.
If you go any thinner than this
then it may not be considered a YouTube Short.
And to be honest, it just looks ugly on screen
and it's not worth doing.
How do we know all of this?
Well, we did a massive test
on the aspect ratio of YouTube Shorts.
And you can watch it over here.
And finally, you can include #Shorts
in the video title or description but it is optional.
There is some confusion here
because YouTube customer support seems to imply
that this is mandatory whereas a creator,
who is very close to the internal YouTube teams
has suggested in a Facebook post that #Shorts,
has no bearing on its discoverability on the platform
and is for internal YouTube tracking only.
What I can tell you is that we've uploaded videos
as Shorts but not included #Shorts
and they're still identified as Shorts.
Wow, that's a lot of Shorts in one sentence.
On the other hand, we have seen one channel
that included #Shorts in every single video title
and they've got half a billion views in three months.
For the full story on that one
check out the video over here.
Okay, once you've uploaded your video
how do you know whether it qualifies as a YouTube Shorts?
Well, in the desktop YouTube Studio,
go to the customization screen
and on a layout screen, click, add section.
You can add a Short video section to your channel
which only appears on the YouTube app version
of your channel page and looks like this.
Essentially, these are all of your YouTube Shorts.
Seven, if you follow all of the requirements
as laid out in this video, then your video has a chance,
and let me stress this,
has a chance of being viewed as a YouTube Short.
So, logically, the next thing you want to find out
is whether or not your videos
are being viewed as YouTube Shorts.
And that's where we need to dip into the analytics.
It's all well and good knowing that your video
qualifies as a Short.
But not that many people go to channel pages
on the YouTube mobile app.
For your videos to explode as YouTube Shorts
they need to start appearing in the home feed,
the subscription feed and as suggested Shorts
on video watch pages, as you can see here
to accrue millions of views.
So, on the analytics page of the YouTube Studio,
click the see mode button, to bring up advanced analytics
and then click on, traffic source.
This will show you at a channel level,
how many views you are getting as YouTube Shorts.
(gentle playful music)
Next step, if you want to review the performance
of an individual video
from the video list on the content screen,
mouse over a video and click the analytics icon.
You can do the same advanced analytics here if you want to
but on the right hand side, you get a real time view count
including your traffic sources.
So in this example, the video is doing exactly as intended.
It's being watched as a Short video.
You'll also start to get an understanding
of how YouTube Shorts draw in viewers.
Nothing for days after publishing
and then all of a sudden a surge of views.
And now, courtesy of vidIQ,
here's another little bonus shot analytic, free of charge.
If you use vidIQ,
you're probably already familiar with our channel,
Real time Stats Bar showing you views per hour,
subscribers and so on.
Well, mouse over it now
and you'll see a new analytic,
YouTube Shorts views over the last 48 hours.
So if you add that to the stats bar,
we can now see that over the last 48 hours,
half of the views on our YouTube Shorts channel
come from YouTube Shorts views.
We're currently at trialing this tool.
So feedback is welcome in the comments below.
Now then, YouTube Shorts and monetization.
Let's quickly talk about this.
First of all, if you're working towards monetization,
any subscribers gained from YouTube Shorts
do count towards 1000 subscribers.
However, not all watch time from YouTube Shorts videos
count towards 4,000 hours of watch time
for a monetization requirement.
To explain this in more detail
we need to go back to this demonstration.
If a viewer watches your YouTube video
through the regular YouTube watch page
even if it is a Short video, this counts as a regular view,
so you do earn monetization watch time.
However, if the same video is watched
through the YouTube Shorts watch page,
the watch time does not count towards monetization.
(buzz)
I'm not surprised if you're a little confused right now
as I said, YouTube have not done the best job
in communicating all of this stuff to the creators.
We know all of this because when we look
at the traffic sources on our Shorts channel
we can see the total watch time hours
don't match up to the watch time hours
accrued towards monetization.
The difference between these two figures
is roughly speaking, the watch time from YouTube Shorts,
which aren't counted.
And if you think that's complicated,
wait until you get monetized.
That's because, get ready for this,
yes, you can upload videos to YouTube
and turn on monetization.
But if it's a Short video
and it's viewed as a YouTube Shorts,
adverts do not play in the Shorts player
so they will not earn any ad revenue from that source.
Again to put that into a practical example
my vidIQ colleague, Dan, has a gaming channel
and he's experimenting with YouTube Shorts.
This is a very popular Short on his channel
which has three quarters of a million views.
But notice we didn't see an advert
because we watched it as a YouTube Short.
However, when we play the same video
through the regular YouTube watch page
we see an advert to kick things off,
which does earn Dan a little bit of revenue
for this Short video.
So, depending on how a viewer watches the same video
determines whether the creator
earns any ad revenue from it.
To put that into context,
the channel I mentioned earlier
that we have done a case study on
has earned over half a billion views
from making Short videos.
But almost 400 million of those views
come from YouTube Shorts that can't be monetized.
And as another colleague of mine might say,
"That's savage."
As it stands, this is the complete beginner's guide
to making, uploading and checking your YouTube Shorts
if you do not yet have the YouTube Shorts button
in the YouTube mobile app.
This YouTube tool is in a constant state of flux.
So if you want to keep up to date
with all of the latest YouTube Shorts news,
make sure to subscribe and check out the playlist over here.
Thank you very much for watching
and enjoy the rest of your video making day.