YouTube Shorts Explained: 21 NEW Things You Need to Know About

in this video i'm going to be sharing 21 must-know facts tactics and strategies for youtube shorts the newest feature that is disrupting youtube and the social media world and we're really going to be covering the details to discover if youtube shorts is the best way to get views and get discovered especially if you're just starting from scratch but also what are the cons of youtube shorts can they hurt your analytics can they hurt your channel can they annoy your viewers and everything else you

need to know when it comes to youtube shorts you got to just press record building youtube shorts is a new way to watch and create on youtube really youtube shorts is a app feature that rivals tiktok and instagram reels and with the popularity of tick tock and instagram reels and short form content like that you this is youtube's response trying to take that market share back from instagram tick tock and other short form places now it just was announced that the shorts camera is available to ev

eryone in the us and is being rolled out right now we'll talk about that with these 21 different facts but youtube short started in beta and so it's been tested mainly in india and it's been a massive impact in india and then they've been rolling out youtube shorts to different creators at different levels in a recent earnings report youtube confirmed that shorts were getting 6.5 billion views a day so that means this could be a very major way for you to get views on your videos and to start bui

lding so let's cover some facts and smash the like button if you're fired up for this content number one all of us creators have access to the shorts camera that was just released and what that looks like is when you go to the host page you will be able to start creating right from your smartphone pretty cool now number two you actually don't need the shorts camera to use shorts so again the shorts camera if you go to this little plus button make sure you update your youtube app and how you have

the latest version of your app and you'll see this thing that says create a short you know from your phone you can upload a video from your phone you can go live depending on how many subscribers you have but from your phone you will now see in the us and at a lot of places around the world the ability to create a short and it might say the word beta next to it that's what it says on my phone then you'll be able to create a short right from your phone just like a tick tock or an instagram reel

it's got its unique differences but it's sort of the same idea now you didn't actually you don't need the shorts camera to create a short we've posted about five shorts on our think media channel so far omar's been testing this and he's actually done them all just by editing in like adobe premiere or whatever software and shooting vertically on a phone or a camera so this is a youtube short being viewed on a desktop screenshot and so you don't need a certain subscriber number sean i want to be a

ble to do shorts but i don't have a thousand subs yet you don't need that i don't i need more watch time hours it's not like monetization you could start a brand new channel from scratch and start posting shorts so long as they're vertical in less than 60 seconds in this case though using the shorts camera could give you some advantages number three shorts are vertical video might go without saying but shorts are not horizontal the key to a short being a short is that it's a vertical video phone

orientation and it's less than 60 seconds and so throughout the rest of this video i'm going to be sharing another 18 facts you need to know about youtube shorts but i have a question for you have you posted a youtube short yet let me know in the comments are what do you think about youtube shorts are you hesitant to use them have you started watching any yet are you do you even know what we're talking about this is still a brand new feature and even though there's been some buzz on youtube abo

ut this you're super early if you're watching this video this is this is still kind of bleeding edge it's just rolling out this week on all uh phones here in the us in terms of using the shorts camera and so let me know your experience with shorts and hit the like button if you're getting value so far and today's video is brought to you by yt impact.com we actually have an upcoming challenge um it's five days and we're going to be talking about the best strategies for getting views right now get

ting subscribers right now some of the new changes on youtube and ultimately how you can not just grow your influence but also you can make a difference in the lives of people and really make an impact around the world with your content and so it's going to be fun it's free yt impact.com is where all the resources are or link in the description down below if you want to register for that but let's jump into number four shorts can be up to 60 seconds but they don't have to be 60 seconds in fact t

here's something that as you start experimenting with shorts you might want to keep them under 15 seconds quick you know punchy kind of that tick tock kind of that instagram reels you could max it out but try 15 seconds try 35 try you know max 60 and so that is what necessitates a short number five you can use popular music from the youtube library but only up to 15 seconds so this is pretty cool you can use popular music essentially copy written music but just like tick tock or reals youtube is

integrating with the publishing companies and the music companies so you could grab a popular song you know where do you get your peaches out in georgia pull that in do your dance or just put it on your tutorial or your education content or your you know entertainment content key as of right now you can only use 15 seconds of the song so i was testing i uploaded a 30 second video and the song just stopped at 15 seconds and then it was silent unless there was audio on the video the music integra

tion is gonna be more for 15 second really short form content what's cool again is you can create that right from the shorts camera but assuming you have the shorts camera you can also upload a pre-made video and still integrate that with the popular music from the youtube library captions are this is kind of a new thing they announced are auto-generated or you can also self-supply the captions there's a way to flip that on and you can upload manual captions this is not unlike a typical youtube

video and the viewer can toggle between those two things number seven how to get views so a couple different ways to get views why shorts sean how am i gonna get views on shorts so what you can see here is there is a traffic source on the right side of the screen of on desktop analytics saying that this short it was 58 seconds and omar made a video on five simple youtube video ideas for beginners so suggested videos was the largest traffic source in the last two days but shorts brought in 18.5 o

f traffic and so the first way you can get views on your shorts is what's called the shorts shelf so if you've updated your youtube app you could log into your youtube app and go to either the home page or the subscriptions tab and you'll see stories that's like a story shelf it's not youtube stories youtube shorts is different and you could scroll and eventually you should see some youtube shorts now from my testing as i'm seeing right here i'm actually not seeing the short self so what i'll do

is i'll maybe go to explore subscriptions maybe i'll crash the app and i'll reopen the app and eventually that short shelf will show up basically the way you know if you're going to see if you see it or not there you go so it says shorts beta and i know this would be like weird depth of field but i can you know you can scroll between and this is the shorts shelf on the home page of um my smartphone and once i click in one of those i can go down a rabbit trail of shorts being recommended to me t

he first couple are maybe from channels i've subscribed to then it'll lead me to channels i have not subscribed to so this is the dream of shorts right that you could start getting discovered and getting traffic from the shorts shelf and so that's just one way of getting views here's another short it was 44 seconds how to shoot better video on your phone 26.3 of the traffic on this video meaning the last two days almost 600 views so that means 50 views of this video in the last two days came fro

m the shorts shelf or shorts players or shorts traffic right now they may already know think media but again that is the chance to meet 50 new people you've never met before super powerful number eight how to get views the shorts tab now this was just announced they have said that shorts will actually replace the explore tab on the home screen it sounds like and seems like youtube's going to be leaning super heavy into the explore tab i've also seen up top i don't know if you've noticed these li

ttle bubbles there's little bubbles at the top that allows me to filter my content i can filter right now i can click confidence grant cardone sales podcasts motivation so it's studying my viewing behavior and it's letting me like select categorically what's being shown to me on the home page i've seen shorts show up there and down at the bottom of the screen they'll be home possibly shorts then the ability to create content and then uh the subscriptions and then your library etc so it'll be act

ually the shorts tab somehow integrated into the bottom there maybe replacing explorer we'll have to see or maybe it'll be inside of explorer i don't see it right there again update your youtube app and start playing around to discover some youtube shorts now number nine you can get views on youtube shorts from all the traditional traffic sources so you can get views on the home page somebody could search and find a short that you can get in the subscription feed so notice this particular video

that we posted on think media 44 second long short it has 26 percent traffic from shorts but 23 traffic's from channel page pages 19 traffic from browse features so that's like the home page right 14 from suggested videos because a short is uploaded at this time to your main channel or whatever youtube channel it can still be viewed on desktop it could still be recommended on the homepage even as a short of course shorts lend themselves more towards mobile but we're getting a lot of traffic from

desktop and all of the traditional youtube traffic sources number 10 you can watch shorts on desktop and smart tvs a lot of people the majority because think media is established and has subscribers are actually watching shorts just on desktop you know black on the side of it you can also watch shorts on smart tvs but every night pretty much every night i watch youtube on my smart tv with my wife and my son sean bradley we are flipping around we almost we really never see shorts recommended lik

e they don't really show up on the smart tv however if you're subscribed to a channel you can find it watch it and then sure enough it'll be vertical on your tv tony ariola and i on the thick media team were debating about this he was like man you know i hate vertical on a smart tv or whatever you know it doesn't feel like the right experience and i said i actually don't even really notice i mean obviously you notice but i think about a channel like daily dose of the internet and they mix togeth

er full screen content they mix together viral content from like a tick tock and to me it kind of all works together and i've noticed we haven't seen a lot of negative comments from people watching shorts on desktop on our think media channel or any if the content's good and if it serves the viewer then you can almost watch it anywhere but of course shorts are intended for mobile consumption number 11 the only shorts views that will be monetized are desktop views at this time now youtube's been

saying this is a new feature this is a huge emphasis i believe it could be the next greatest revolution on youtube right and really a new thing to lean into or maybe it just kind of levels out and it's just a segment of youtube kind of like snapchat didn't die and there's like a segment of people who knows we'll see where it goes so they're going to be exploring monetizing shorts potentially directly but at this point it's only if the desktop views that are monetized for example this short 58 se

conds long has gotten 19 000 views now here's what's cool it grew the channel 31 subscribers so that's that's growth and they can watch other videos not just shorts now that they're a subscriber right and it's made eight dollars and 63 cents so that is not super impressive because the only views that are a monetized are going to be the you know desktop views and b the video show so short it maybe is not going to make a ton of money now here's one 44 seconds the uh playback cpm and think media he

re 13 bucks pretty good the rpm oh my gosh is three dollars meaning we keep about four bucks youtube's keeping 10 in this case ouch youtube uh and but you know it brought in what point is this our most profitable videos on think media are actually our longest videos mainly probably because there's multiple ad spots so we can go to revenue and look at our top videos our top three videos are like 45 minutes or longer that earn money and then one of our other videos probably because of high volume

and that would be because of multiple ad spots again so this video has earned obviously a lot of views 20 000 when you go to monetization and you go to manage mid rolls you know one two three ads played during this ads can play before and after so it's potentially more ads being seen but i've noticed that sometimes revenue goes up when content is longer so the punch line is really just thinking about the fact that from a direct youtube adsense monetization standpoint shorts is is really not the

way to go but it doesn't mean you shouldn't use them number 12 adding uh hashtag shorts in the title or the description might increase your views now this is also kind of maybe outdated information because youtube has been rolling out in beta youtube shorts has been testing and like does the algorithm does the platform see it hey make sure to add shorts to the title hey make sure to add shorts in the description and this is maybe subjective information here's what i've learned youtube will know

that your video is a short if you do not add the hashtag and the way you know that is on mobile if you look at the lower right hand corner of the video it actually doesn't show you the time it shows you the shorts logo all you have to do is upload a video that's vertical in less than 60 seconds and it seems to me at this point youtube knows it's a short however many different experts or whoever have said that if you add hashtag shorts to the title or description it might help it reach the shorts

shelf or being recommended in shorts sooner we have not been adding it to the title just to keep the title cleaner we add hashtags to the description in this case we said hashtag thinkmedia hashtag omareltokori and hashtag shorts so shorts is shows up as those three hashtags above the title and whether it's there or not we've seen traffic from the short shelf so that's up to you to test you know best practice could be putting in the title if you want putting in it in the description so it shows

up as a hashtag if you want or not using it at all you can see how we're doing it there by just putting it in the description as a clickable hashtag that is the shorts logo on screen if you're listening to this on audio it's this little kind of s version of the red youtube background with the play button and you'll see this little icon in the lower right hand corner of your mobile phone on a shorts video and if you scroll through your subscription feed and some of the people you're following ar

e uploading shorts you should see that little logo number 13 you can post shorts on your current youtube channel or a new channel huge question we get all the time sean should i post shorts on my main channel should i start a second channel a couple rapid fire answers number one managing two channels is very difficult so starting a second channel might be something you want to avoid if time is scarce number two if short form content would really violate your viewer and the promise you've made to

your viewer which may just be an assumption you're making but if that is the case yes you could potentially shift your content to a shorts only channel another thing you can consider is that if you have a big library of instagram reels or tick tocks you know you can download your tick tocks without the tick tock logo by going in and it allows you to access your data and i think you can download them all at once that's best practice by the way rios hates when they see the tick tock logo there an

d they'll reduce your search your your reach so if you maybe have some other less than 60 second content now maybe if music is embedded you know you could run into all kinds of issues and you may want to resync the song from the youtube library you can figure all that out punchline is you could experiment with posting shorts on your current channel where you're posting horizontal video typical youtube video or you could start a new channel and people are doing both for us at think media we've po

sted five or six shorts now on our main channel we are never posting two shorts uh in a row and our goals eventually we post five videos a week on think media right now our goals eventually be at seven days a week and do two shorts a week we've had times to put some ease on our schedule as we're shifting things around done like three normal videos and two shorts and from our standpoint and our our share some personal insights and tips towards the end of this uh video is uh it's been great like i

t really has a lot more to do with the content and if it adds value to the viewer than it does with how long it is or necessarily whether it's vertical or not eventually we want to start a clips channel where it wouldn't just be shorts but it may be just like clips from other videos or clips from our podcast the think media podcast eventually we want to do that but hear me we're a team of creators at think media and we don't even at this point feel like we have the bandwidth to start a second ch

annel now mind you posting a ton of videos on our main channel but you get you get my energy here i would recommend that you experiment with posting shorts on your main channel and test it see the vibe before leaning in like i'm just starting a new channel i'm starting a whole new thing you know what i mean like that potentially could take your distraction from the main thing but of course up to you number 14 shorts will affect your analytics but should not hurt your channel the other objection

is oh my gosh my views are going or my average view duration's going down across my channel uh one of the good channels to check out that does shortswell is legaleagle not only does he have long form videos but he's posting about five shorts a week and he said his average view duration on his whole channel has gone down massively because he posts so many shorts they're short and so the avd the average view iteration on the whole channel has been pulled down but then he said but it didn't hurt th

e channel it just changed the numbers around youtube's judging yes your whole channel on really two things the individual performance of a video like a video will succeed or fail on its own merits and also the total watch time minutes so the average view duration has gone down because he still posts the same number of long form videos but also he posts you know short it's like three to five shorts a week but the total watch time minutes on his channel has skyrocket rocketed so from youtube's sta

ndpoint net youtube is getting more time on platform from the viewership of course you always have to be analyzing and testing things but that's something to be aware of people are afraid that it'll affect their macro channel analytics which it certainly would if you posted a ton of shorts but that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll hurt your channel number 15 you can add end cards to your shorts and so here's an example of one of the shorts on the thick media channel and at the end it actually

this was about the best way to potentially invest if you wanted to build a battle station or invested some gear to use uh the stimulus check to you know start a business start creating something that will make you money you know start a youtube channel or like you know upgrade your current studio and the short was short so the call to action was like if you want more details on this or a full breakdown of some of the best gear we recommend click or tap the screen to check out that full video so

you can use shorts to potentially point to your other videos next 16 you can ask viewers to like and subscribe and share and so if you're thinking about creating a short realize what is happening on the shorts player people can hit the like button they can hit the dislike button they can leave a comment they can click the share button they can see what song is playing in the lower right hand corner they can click the subscribe button they can click on your channel and go to your channel if you

understand how the navigation of youtube shorts works it can influence your content and potentially your call to action for example lately we've been letting our shorts just survive on their own merits hopefully recommend one of our videos next or another short next think about the viewer mindset the viewer mindset might be that they are wanting to continue to watch a bunch of short form content so they may not want to leave and they're just kind of going through these quick hits dopamine hits o

f like cool dancing oh cool tip oh wow that's a cool way to use the camera what a cool camera hack oh my gosh look at that cute puppy wow those ducks are riding on that turtle all kinds of different things and going in that mode but if you want to potentially direct attention or get something going you know hit like if you got value and you know and seeing the next one you don't have enough time to tell people to do all the things and you should never really just go down the list like hey so if

you're new here hit like leave a comment hit the share button hits i mean that can be really annoying there's too much stuff so think about maybe like one call to action when it comes to your short and how and think about the viewer journey you know and where they're to go next and how this integrates with your content number 17 and if you would hit the like button if you're getting value out of this video grabbing attention quickly is critical for shorts maybe goes without saying if you haven't

listened to our episode on the think media podcast with brendan kane the author of hook point hooks are everything in social media grabbing attention up front the first few seconds and on youtube we like to say a hook is the first 15 to over a minute like you might spend the beginning of the video painting a picture of what's coming up letting people know it's coming up grabbing attention but on shorts it's even shorter you know have you ever seen uh when there's youtube ads of a movie trailer

and the movie trailer is like a minute but there's a five second trailer for the movie trailer have you noticed that like it's like boom because especially it's like you can skip it on youtube and it's like and you're like what the heck and then they're trying to hook you for a hook like it's like you know real meta in terms of how much attention we're trying to grab and how quickly just something to think about shorts boom the short from the short shelf is in front of them what do they see what

do they hear it might be less about what they hear i mean you're assuming on the youtube app they're more prone to have audio on but just grabbing attention is gonna be super critical for shorts thinking about that opening scene definitely don't start with like some logo or some boring intro or some five seconds uh you know seconds matter like the first second of the short the short might only be seven seconds you know consider vine strategy like the telling stories in very short amounts of tim

e so number 17 is grabbing attention quickly for shorts number 18 shorts could be a great way for you to get discovered on youtube i mentioned that youtube last numbers were that shorts is getting 6.5 billion views daily people are watching shorts 6.5 billion views a day globally that's over 200 billion views a month so if you're struggling to get views if you've been struggling to get traction if you're trying to find your thing and trying to find a way to break through on youtube and get disco

vered by people that don't know you shorts could be a really great tool or resource to try that if it aligns with your content always something to experiment with and then at the same time you don't want it to be just a gimmick for you and what i mean is you know on think media we're trying to be very sensitive to what's the perfect short that still honors the promise we've made on the channel and honors the viewer honors the community and we've noticed that if the video is valuable and short an

d vertical people love it and if it doesn't if it's not a gimmick gimmicky or off brand so this isn't necessarily just a way to hack views for views sake but if you can find a way to align it with your current content or just experiment it could be a really good way to get views and remember at the end of the day people are more important than algorithms algorithms is not even what it's about so yes shorts can hack the algorithm right now but there's always people on the other side what is that

people thinking if you also reach a ton of people and get millions of views but from the wrong audience that could lead to maybe a new thing for you but it might what good is it to get three million people seeing your content that has nothing to do with your vision your business model your values the purpose of your youtube channel if you want to pivot your plan cool but sometimes it's not just about again numbers if you will vanity metrics it's more about impact it's more about the people you s

erve so something to consider in your shorts strategy number 19 you can repurpose your youtube shorts to tick tock and ig reels so we're trying to continue to expand here at think media again or a team of content creators um over the years i think to really be effective on social media and to live your life you're in one of two seasons you're either in the sacrifice season where you're really just hustling and i know that's where a lot of our community is maybe full-time job and kids and you're

trying to work 10 or 20 hours a week to build your youtube channel when that's the case by the way it'd be very difficult to be great at tick tock great at ig reels great at youtube great at youtube shorts going live on linkedin like if you try to do everything especially when time is limited you'll probably spread yourself too thin i think it's important to be really focused on the most effective thing the best use of your time your time the essential ingredients necessary to you getting to the

next stage which in my opinion would be making enough money so you can work less hours at work or go full time or maybe hiring someone to help so for us in terms of trying to dominate all the social platforms for me that's been having a team support and help me and we're not even on tick tock i mean i'm on tick tock but i post like two and and we're not really on we haven't done a ton of ig reels our macro goal just so you can get an insider look at what we're doing at think media is actually t

o think shorts first and then to use shorts and have a trickle down from shorts to tic toc and ig reels and not just in a robot robotic fashion but sometimes think would this piece of content work good on all three platforms especially if we integrate music we could potentially integrate it on all three platforms natively selecting the song because that'd be the only way to really get the music right on each platform and therefore creating the short uploading it from the shorts camera on my smar

tphone first to youtube you know selecting i got my peaches out in georgia you know and then going over to reels and maybe doing the same thing and then tick tock and kind of having like just a strategic planning of where does each piece of content go again you could think tick tock tick tock first or ig reels first but we're kind of a youtube first company anyways youtube is the only platform where your content lasts forever it's a search engine all these other things so that's the way we're go

ing to do it i'd love to hear how you're going to do it in the comments and what your vision would be of trying to dominate these short form platforms or or kind of be multiple places but being efficient with your time number 20 a short could be a good way to introduce a full video you know we mentioned that for example we're going to do like a video coming up soon called um best lenses for the canon m50 and there's actually or like all the lenses like top ten lenses because there's not a ton of

lenses for the canon m50 but we'll go through like all of them so okay if that's the full length video then the short could be the top three lenses for the canon m5 it could add value in and of itself but then it also could link to and like and if you want to see all 10 of the of the best lenses for the canon m50 click or tap the screen and use an end card now from our testing sometimes the end cards don't show up and there could be bugs in the system bugs in the matrix they're probably always

working those out on youtube but it is a new feature and it is evolving so how things flow and end cards that you know all could change but it could be a way to introduce a full video which also gives you the opportunity if i'm sitting down to make 10 best lenses for the canon m50 after i'm done with that or while i'm doing it i could also make a short of three of you know the three best lenses for the canon m50 and kind of have a one-two punch of a long form in a short form video think about ho

w that could work for you and i've seen some people that actually do previews of a video they do a short that's like a preview it's kind of like a commercial i'm not the biggest fan of that because i always want an individual upload to add value to the viewer in and of itself and not just be a commercial for something else as much as possible but you know you do you and that's just a thought that you could intervi intro yeah you know integrate shorts with pointing to full videos and maybe vice v

ersa and playlists and cross-promoting we call that circular video viralocity here at think media where you're kind of always thinking about how you can strategically while adding value cross promote your content from playlists to videos to the part one two three to this to that to other things constantly kind of cross-promoting again in a way that always adds value to the viewer and number 21 shorts will continue to evolve and that maybe goes without saying they're at a huge place of maturity r

ight now because uh they're the cameras now rolled out to the full u.s you can see youtube is fully behind shorts it's gonna be a thing for sure it already is a thing you know i think it's worth it to think things through and here's my point if you adopt shorts in the next one two three months three months from now it's going to be new if you adopted in 2021 it's gonna be new in 2021. mark zuckerberg said move fast and break things unless you're breaking stuff you're not moving fast enough posti

ng one short on your channel is not gonna like ruin your whole world you know what i mean it's not your subscribers aren't gonna like hate you but you gotta listen and always listen to their feedback and think about the value so move fast test it try it post three post one or two try it you know mess around with it if you're not breaking something you're not moving fast enough and i've seen some people who've posted a bunch of shorts they've kind of worked and i'm like but what really is it led

to i mean they sort of got on the short shelf like how does it connect to your bigger strategy so i think experiment a little with shorts just kind of some personal advice don't stress out like posting one or two or three is gonna destroy your channel there's no way it would do that like it might you might go huh you could read the comments get some feedback it might lead to a whole new opportunity and a whole content pivot for you and and then continue to stay subscribed here and get informatio

n because no doubt about it this will evolve and we will be committed to always bringing you the best information here at the think brand uh so that you can always get more views build your influence and make a bigger impact with the content that you're creating and that reminds me uh to of the question of the day i want to hear your story about shorts do you think they're legit do you think they've hurt your channel have you got negative or positive feedback if you've posted some in the comment

s have you posted one yet is the shorts camera did you update your app do you see the shorts camera down below maybe if you're outside of the us do you have the shorts camera what questions do you still have about shorts i would love to hear from you and those were just some of my thoughts and as a reminder i'm so pumped because today's video is brought to you by the youtube impact challenge this video is brought to you by ytimpack.com a five-day live and highly interactive challenge where you w

ill learn how to start and grow a youtube channel that helps people and makes money you'll get the newest strategies and learn exactly what's working on youtube right now register today at ytimpact.com [Music] you