When YouTube Shorts came onto the scene back in 2021, it was hard to see how they could compare with the ultimate short-form platform: TikTok. After all, YouTube wasn’t known for short-form content, far from it. YouTube Shorts tips and tricks were not a thing yet, and everyone was trying to figure out how to harness the new platform’s potential. How could they master long and short-form audiences when these demographics tend to differ? Well, they did. 

YouTube has done a phenomenal job at showing the growth potential of Shorts and offering brands another way to promote video outside of TikTok and Instagram reels. With over 65 billion active users daily and counting, this platform makes finding your audience more accessible, increases visibility, and gets the most out of your content. 

Let’s look at some of the best benefits of this platform for publishers and YouTube Shorts tips for getting started. 

Importance of short-form video for growth

Short-form videos have become vital tools for publishers to reach their audience. These catchy bits have dominated social media and helped businesses put a face and voice to their brand. 

Videos are faster and easier to consume, which is essential in a fast-paced society like ours. They inspire more engagement, further reach, and are generally more fun to watch. Plus, people are more likely to remember a video. The combination of images, music, and voices sparks emotion. An emotional connection to content makes users more likely to share—all good things for publishers. 

With all this being said, what makes YouTube Shorts more successful than other short-form video options like TikTok and Instagram reels? Why take the time to post here if you’re already posting on so many other accounts? 

Benefits of YouTube Shorts & tips for publishers 

Right now, YouTube is pushing Shorts. There are over 1.5 billion monthly users on YouTube Shorts, and it’s growing 135% year over year. Some statistics show the demand for videos is outsourcing the supply! It’s a great time to enter the ring.

High engagement with your audience 

YouTube Shorts are all about building community. People on YouTube are looking for engagement: to make connections, ask questions, and get tips. When you request feedback on this platform, you’ll likely get it. This engagement piece alone makes YouTube Shorts something to explore. You want to build trust and engagement with your audience. 

Because short-form content is geared towards those users with short attention spans (which many of us are guilty of having these days), plan for spontaneous engagement. YouTube Shorts only allow a maximum of 60 seconds per video. This is a place to put your best foot forward, creating quality content your audience wants to engage with. The growth potential is certainly there, but you have to put your best foot forward to access it. 

Reach more people

Newsrooms will find building community with YouTube Shorts worthwhile because you can access broader audiences than other platforms. It’s not as limiting. By creating videos on various topics of interest, you can reach different demographics you may not be able to tap into with stricter social algorithms. Reaching a larger audience in a short period of time increases visibility faster. 

YouTube Shorts have also been found to have a higher social media ROI regarding content creation. YouTube has a solid integration with Google, which puts its videos at the top of the search engine. By optimizing your YouTube Shorts for your audience, your videos will have long-term discoverability and a better chance of reaching people outside of the platform, too!

Expand within the platform

Let’s not forget that YouTube remains the leading platform for long-form content. There really is no comparison. While the audiences that consume long-form videos are not the same as the users consuming YouTube Shorts, that doesn’t mean that you can’t attract one by using the other. 

If you already have a YouTube channel, YouTube Shorts is easy to integrate without creating another account. You can link longer and shorter videos to give users the choice of which side of YouTube they want to engage with. This creates an even stronger bond with your readers and makes the platform more versatile for sharing information. 

Developing your brand voice

YouTube Shorts are a perfect way to let people know who you are so they can vibe with you. It’s easy to focus more on what you do rather than who you are. But remember, readers love to know the faces and voices behind the content. They want to know they support a brand whose values and ethics match theirs. 

You can create YouTube Shorts to highlight your mission, team, passion, style, or anything that gives your audience an idea of what your brand stands for.  

Repurposing video to other platforms

The videos you make for YouTube Shorts can easily be repurposed on other platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. This means that even though you are spending time on an extra platform, you’re not spending any additional time creating content. Cross-promotion is important to save time and reach different demographics without limiting your audience. 

Another cool resume feature? YouTube Shorts has a tool that lets you reuse clips from longer videos to create Shorts! So, if you are already creating longer videos or have longer videos you want to optimize, make a short-form video to prompt crossover across your account!

Measuring your success with analytics

YouTube analytics tools are easy to access and help keep publishers on track with their engagement goals. There are tons of ways you can monitor your accounts, but here are some of the most important metrics we suggest staying on top of:

• Video views: YouTube uses this metric to visually represent how many viewers watch a video. It doesn’t tell you how long they watched it or who watched it more than once, but it’s a good place to start measuring which videos perform better than others.
• Shown in feed: Videos that appear in the Shorts feed tend to experience higher engagement. Compare videos that appear here to those with lower views to better understand how to create future content.
• Average view duration: The most successful YouTube Shorts are the ones watched all the way through. This metric will let you know which videos your audience hung on to till the end and at what point they tend to drop off.
• View sources. Knowing where your viewers are coming from will allow you to create a stronger content strategy. View sources tell you if your viewers are coming from on or off the platform and if they are finding you through YouTube features like the content tab, searchers, or recommendations.
• Top Shorts: YouTube will highlight your top videos based on the number of views. This metric provides a quick snapshot of what’s working well and what videos are falling flat.
• Traditional engagement. This category includes metrics you typically watch for on other platforms–likes, shares, and comments–and unique metrics to YouTube, such as new subscribers.

For more YouTube Shorts support, contact us with questions or request a demo of our tool to see how True Anthem can help you manage all your accounts in one place.