Since launching in 2005, YouTube has been home to countless video trends and many forms of entertainment. Who remembers Charlie Bit My Finger, David After Dentist, and the still very relevant Leave Britney Lonely?

Now, the squad backside 1 of the most visited websites in the world has hopped on the short-form video bandwagon by creating YouTube Shorts. These 15-60 2d videos are designed to entertain audiences and assist brands and creators bulldoze engagement.

Complimentary YouTube Growth Checklist: Find out how one YouTuber grew his channel to nearly 400,000 followers in 4 years and how you can proceeds 100,000 followers a year too.

What are YouTube Shorts?

YouTube Shorts are short-form, vertical video content created using a smartphone and uploaded directly to YouTube from the YouTube app.

Using YouTube's built-in creation tools, you tin can capture, edit, add together music from major labels (including Sony, Universal, and Warner), add together animated text, command the speed of your footage, and edit together multiple 15-second video clips to create your Shorts.

Viewers of your Shorts tin can share, comment, like, dislike, or subscribe to your channel while viewing the video. The content doesn't disappear and remains on YouTube, unlike other short-class video apps like Instagram Stories and Snapchat.

Why try YouTube Shorts?

Initially launched in India on Sept 14th, 2020, and rolled out across the U.S. on March 18th, 2021, YouTube Shorts chop-chop surpassed six.5 billion daily views globally. Shorts was finally released in beta-style to 100 countries worldwide on July twelfth, 2021.

YouTube'southward VP of Production Direction described the video format as "a new brusque-form video experience for creators and artists who want to shoot brusque, tricky videos using nothing only their mobile phones," and goes on to say, "Shorts is a new way to express yourself in 15 seconds or less".

YouTube's effort at short-form video content isn't a far weep from other ephemeral videos on social media, including TikTok, Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, Snapchat Spotlight, and even Twitter Fleets and LinkedIn Stories (RIP).

And curt-grade video is no stranger to YouTube. The channel's start ever upload was only 18 seconds long.

But, what sets YouTube Shorts apart is its ability to convert viewers into subscribers for your channel, a must-do for brands and creators.

[EMBED] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EJIH8kxTn8

When you're setting up YouTube Shorts, you can create an entirely split up channel for your Shorts or place the Shorts widget in your main channel. But we recommend keeping your Shorts on your main channel. This is because aligning your main feed YouTube content and your Shorts content in one place will make it easier for your audition to stay engaged with your videos and give them more opportunity to hop from Shorts to YouTube videos and ultimately subscribe to your channel

Viewers tin can find your Shorts by tapping Shorts at the bottom of the YouTube app.

Shorts button on YouTube mobile app

Alternatively, audiences tin can admission Shorts:

  • On the YouTube homepage
  • On your aqueduct page
  • Via notifications

How long are YouTube Shorts?

YouTube Shorts are vertical videos that are sixty seconds or less in length. Shorts tin exist a 60-second continuous video or several fifteen-second videos combined. Nonetheless, if your Short uses music from the YouTube catalog, your Short will exist limited to 15-seconds only.

Pro tip: YouTube will automatically categorize any YouTube content that's lx seconds or less equally a Brusk.

How to make a YouTube Short

Step 1: Download the YouTube app

You lot can just brand Shorts natively in the YouTube app. This is a smart play from YouTube to go along everything in one handy place, rather than asking people to download and sign upwardly to another app to create Shorts.

To gain admission to the YouTube app, exercise the following:

  1. Login to your app store of pick (iOS App Store or Google Play) and search for YouTube
  2. Download the official YouTube app
  3. Login using your Google login or a separate YouTube login

Step ii: Start creating your YouTube Short

one. Tap (+) icon on the button of the app homepage, then tap Create a Curt

tap plus icon to create a Short

2. To record a 15-2nd video clip, hold the red record push or tap it to start recording and so again to stop

3. If you want to record a full sixty-second video, tap the number 15 above the tape push to change the video length to sixty-seconds

4.To add special effects and elements to your video, scan the toolbar on the right of the screen

a. Tap the rotating arrows to switch the camera view

b. Speed up or slow down your Short by borer the 1x push

c. Tap the clock icon to set a countdown timer for creating easily-free videos

d. Add filters to your Short by borer the three circles icon

e. Add retouching to your video by tapping the magic wand

f. Tap the person icon to switch up your background and add a light-green screen or photograph from your smartphone's library

g. Tap the ghost icon to help align your transitions between video clips

five. To add sound to your Short, tap the Add sound icon at the superlative of the screen. Notation that yous tin can simply add an audio rails to your Short before you start recording or afterward in the editing process

add sound to YouTube Short

vi. Made a mistake? Tap the reverse arrow next to the record push button to disengage

Step three: Edit and publish your Short

  1. In one case yous've finished recording, tap the checkmark to salve your Short
  2. Next, finalize your Short by adding a music rail, text, and filters
  3. If you want to swoop deeper into editing, tap the timeline icon to change when text appears on the video timeline
  4. One time you're finished editing, tap Next in the meridian correct-hand corner
  5. Add the details of your Curt and select whether you want to video to be public, unlisted, or private
  6. Select whether your video is appropriate for kids or needs an historic period brake
  7. Tap Upload Brusk to publish your video

How to monetize YouTube Shorts

Equally a business owner or creator, y'all might be thinking, "how tin can I monetize YouTube Shorts?". Afterwards all, using YouTube to bring in extra revenue is standard for many creators and brands.

Costless YouTube Growth Checklist: Discover out how 1 YouTuber grew his aqueduct to about 400,000 followers in 4 years and how yous tin gain 100,000 followers a year besides.

Go the checklist!

Let's offset with the bad news. Considering YouTube Shorts are shorter than standard YouTube video content, you tin't run an advertising on them, which makes YouTube Shorts tricky to monetize.

The skillful news is that to counter Shorts being ad-free, YouTube launched the YouTube Shorts Fund, a $100 meg endowment that anyone is eligible to participate in by creating unique Shorts that "delight the YouTube community." YouTube volition advantage creators based on "whose Shorts received the most engagement and views to reward them for their contributions."

YouTube Shorts: best practices

Get direct to it

Make the kickoff few seconds of your video heady and grab the audience's attention right off the bat.

Go along information technology snappy

Shorts aren't a full-diddled video and piece of work best if the content isn't just ane continuous sequence. Instead, play around with different cuts and edits to help keep your viewers engaged.

Think most replays

Shorts are played on a loop, and so consider how your content volition come up across if it'due south continually repeated.

Add value

Don't only create for the sake of creating. Instead, give value to your audience through your Curt and align the content with a goal, e.yard., increase date by 10% or acquire 1,000 more subscribers.

What'south your claw?

What volition make a viewer come up back for more than? Think well-nigh how you lot can claw in your audience to view your Shorts repeatedly.

Get the vibe right

YouTube Shorts isn't the place for shortened versions of your long videos. Much like Instagram Reels and TikTok, Shorts is the identify to give your audience brusk, snappy, and easily digestible content, for case, viral trends or behind-the-scenes looks.

7 ways to use YouTube Shorts

Platonic for reaching consumers with shorter attention spans, YouTube Shorts is the perfect solution to drive more than date for your channel, abound your subscribers, and showcase your brand's authentic side.

Just under forty% of businesses are already using brusque-form video to promote their production or service. If you wait much longer, you may fall behind. So, get creating!

Promote your regular channel

Use YouTube Shorts to promote and grow your regular channel. Every time you post a Short, it's an opportunity for your content to get a view, and that view could turn into a channel subscriber or someone who engages with your main channel content.

The subscriber box is always visible when you post a Short, making information technology easy to subscribe if people like what they see.

Shorts also help you to navigate YouTube'due south algorithm because your channel will see an increase in engagement, 1 of the key ranking factors for how YouTube prioritizes content. This should increment the number of people who are exposed to your aqueduct.

Showcase less polished video

Not every video you create for YouTube needs to be pre-planned and polished to perfection. Behind the scenes (BTS) video footage will give your audience a sneak peek into the background of your aqueduct, brand, and products or services.

Backside the scenes footage can accept on many forms. Here are a few ideas to get y'all started:

  • Company events
  • Product launches
  • Product updates or coming soon
  • Workplace updates, e.g., a renovation

BTS videos assistance institute your brand as authentic (a huge plus to tapping into the actuality-driven Gen-Z) and help deepen consumer trust. Subsequently all, people buy from people, and showcasing your brand's human side with BTS is a peachy way to institute a potent human relationship with your potential customers, subscribers, and viewers.

Pop US singing show The Vox used Shorts to bear witness exclusive BTS footage.

Tease your audition

Think of Shorts as the charm-bouche of video marketing and use the format to whet the appetite of potential leads. For example, you could post a 30-2nd Short virtually an upcoming product release, along with a CTA to drive viewers to a longer YouTube video that goes into more detail and directs your viewers to a landing page to sign upward for early access.

Dental Digest is ane of the nearly successful Shorts creators. Hither, they've created a short teaser review of a famous toothbrush line. The Short works because it's snappy, engaging, relevant, appeals to a younger audience, and positions Dental Digest as an authority in its field.

Create engagement on the fly

YouTube Shorts allows your audience to appoint with your brand on the fly rather than commit the time to watch a full-length video. And because five% of viewers finish watching videos after the one-infinitesimal mark, snappy, short-form content ensures that your audience watches until the end, receives all of your messaging, and engages with your CTA.

Jump on trends

In 2021, the earth-famous K-popular group BTS (not to be confused with the acronym for behind-the-scenes!) partnered with YouTube to announce the Permission to Trip the light fantastic toe Challenge and invited audiences across the world to tape and share a 15-2nd version of their recent hit song.

YouTube'southward global caput of music, Lyor Cohen, said: "We are humbled to be partnering with them [BTS] on the 'Permission to Dance' challenge on YouTube Shorts, helping to spread happiness and build lasting connections amongst their fans on YouTube across the globe."

Shorts provides brands and creators with an opportunity to jump on a tendency, e.g., a trip the light fantastic motion or claiming that's doing the rounds on social media. We're not saying that you need to commit to every dance claiming that does the rounds on social media, only keeping on top of video trends will position your brand as electric current and up-to-date and improve your chances of going viral.

Level up your user-generated content

YouTube Shorts are a straightforward format to ask for user-generated content (UGC) because Shorts can be created by anyone, anywhere, with access to a smartphone. So, for example, you could send your new product to a group of brand loyalists and ask them to create YouTube Shorts that showcases the unboxing feel to help expand your brand reach.

Save money

Creating YouTube Shorts is a cost-effective video marketing strategy. The format tin can be created past anyone with a smartphone and eliminates hiring a creative agency or video marketing company to create your video content.

YouTube Shorts should be an essential role of your video social strategy, non become your unabridged social strategy. Work with your social and content teams to uncover opportunities to incorporate Shorts into campaigns, and always accept a purpose for your video. For example, to retain and delight current customers, push your audience to subscribe to your channel and generate more than YouTube appointment.

Stay ahead of the social media game with Hootsuite. Schedule posts, analyze results, build your audition, and grow your business. Sign up today for free.

Get Started

Grow your YouTube channel fast with Hootsuite. Easily moderate comments, schedule video, and publish to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Attempt it for Complimentary