I... DON'T Recommend YouTube Shorts to Most Creators Right Now. Here's Why.

YouTube Shorts aren't playing well with growing on YouTube right now. Here's what's happening.

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[ThatNateBlack]

Tell me more of what your experience with Shorts has been so far!

[BasicallyHomeless]

I recently deleted 50M shorts views.

I had one short getting thousands of views per hour, absolutely ballooning my subs per day. That was awesome until I realized all those new subscribers are from a completely different demographic than the audience that watches my long-form content. I gained about 150k subs in a few months, and found that it negatively impacted the CTR and retention of my longer videos.

The new subs from shorts were getting served my long-form videos and not clicking them. Because like you said, that’s the wrong audience. That shorts audience has a different behavior.

I’ve concluded that “shorts” is almost like its own niche on the platform. I’ve thought about what the solution might be for so long- I think it may be separating shorts subs into a different metric like “followers” or “shorts subscribers.” That seems so convoluted though.

Great vid! Thanks for all the info you provide

[John.Harper]

I deleted my shorts. I followed all best practices but at the end of the day the results weren't worth it. I made shorts that aligned with my long form that blew up, but the conversion was either poor or not worth it. And so what if you get a short with a million views and 10k subs earned. Those 10k subs will never contribute to your long term success unless you want to pump out high quality shorts to give YouTube HUNDREDS of millions of views for pennies on the cpm/rpm. Shorts only line YouTube's pockets, they get a huge boost in stats while paying virtually nothing. Meanwhile you're artifically pumped and excited over the vain success from a piece of content that will never result in higher authority or more money.

[STREETFOODJOURNEY]

Youtube Shorts really destroyed entire ecosystem on YouTube. When i have 90K Subscribers, my channel easily make $15.000/month from long from videos, now my channel 1.4 Million subscribers, i only make $4.000 monthly on average. Since youtube launched shorts, youtube no longer push long form video. That is the fact. That's why you see lots of big youtubers decided to retire 😂

[SelfServingSkillet]

I think YouTube should separate the platforms. As a long form content creator that has 0 interest in watching or filming shorts, I'd love to either: get them on to a platform called YouTube Shorts, or if too much damage has been done already, create another platform called YouTube Classic where all the long form content creators can transfer their stuff. They can sync the two sites so that a creator can do both if they want, or completely ignore one or the other. Thanks Nate for all that you do!

[CheapPickle]

I think I am one of the people you are talking about who has done very well with shorts and it hasn't hurt my long form in anyway but rather helped me out. I gained almost a million subscribers on my channel within a month and my shorts feed into my long form vids since they are the same content but in a longer form. My niche is gaming and I usually play minecraft.

[kevinbparry]

Can absolutely confirm. I'm so much more of a short form creator and generally struggle with long form. Have brought in millions of subs to my channel through Shorts but there is zero conversion to the long form

[MrThinkImPossible]

I stopped making YouTube shorts 4 months ago. My channel has grown significantly since then.

[kevin_x]

It seems like most YouTube shorts viewers are unaware of how the linking solution works. YouTube hasn't done much to inform and educate the creator and even less to teach viewers and users of the platform.

[beautifullybakedbybonne]

I’m so bummed. At a last ditch effort to get my channel going, I made shorts. The idea was to just start (which seems to be the hardest part for me). The first short I made went viral and hit 1.1M in the first 3 weeks. It also gave me 1500 followers. That’s great and all but they aren’t my people! I’m almost 100% confident they aren’t interested in what I really do and create. Hoping I haven’t shot myself in the foot here. Your videos I find so helpful and I really enjoy your personality and appreciate your special touch on everything. Just wanted to say thanks. 🙏 ❤

[DetroitNinja]

I create mostly Youtube shorts. It takes a few minutes to record, edit, and upload to Youtube. Some of my Youtube shorts have gone viral in the millions and I've earned in the several of thousands of dollars ($) in a few weeks. Also, my subscriber count has rapidly increased. Lastly, with the new vertical live streaming, it's a great transition feature from shorts. Its's a WIN for my channel.

[BlackBearForge]

As I saw my shorts doing better, my long form content started to do worse. Last year, I deleted all of the shorts and within a month my long form views and related revenue started going back up. Shorts seem to attract a different audience that doesn't watch long form video when the algorithm recommends it. That tells the algorithm that these "regular viewers" aren't interested in my latest videos.

[Kensconsin]

You nailed it...shorts don't convert. Short form viewers don't watch long form content. It may create some new subscribers (I have 20 from a short yesterday, first short I've done in months) but they usually don't join your Livestreams or watch your long form content. I'm glad to finally hear a "YouTube coach" say what I've been saying forever.

[sean-ortiz]

The only person I have seen integrate shorts and long form symbiotically is Ryan Trahan. He has made a ton of shorts that are just cut up versions of his older long form videos and he leaves the shorts on a cliffhanger, therefore pushing the short audience to the longer video. It's genius. But yeah for the rest of us plebs that don't have a team of editors, a think tank and videographers, we gotta stick to one format

[DistortionsUnlimited]

We don't like YouTube shorts thus far and have not seen any benefit on our channel or other channels we manage. We don't pursue them anymore. We have seen much more community engagement with short content on Facebook and Instagram. Engagement that converts to sales, growth, comments etc. It feels like it was a strategic mistake for Youtube to step back from long-form content and the creators that make it and push so hard on shorts. I understand that peoples viewing habits can change, which platforms, on what device, lengths etc. But isn't it the case that there are other platforms that do verticle short video better? Now perhaps there will be an opening for another platform to become the space for long form.

[PhilFlock]

I have a healthy shorts and long form strategy rn.
I do vfx tutorials in my long form and just the final results in yt shorts. So they work on their own. But also together.
Took me a while to figure that out

[pentagrammotorsport]

At the same time, TikTok is trying to push us to make “full screen”, long format videos. Yet they get no traction because they simply aren’t what the audience goes there for.

[investingissimple]

My opinion on short-form content has always been that if you are looking to build a strong community, shorts are NOT the way to go. That's why I stayed away from shorts on most of my channels. However, when YouTube introduced the related video option, I got excited and started posting shorts on this channel as a way to keep the channel active while I am working on a big project. I was hoping that with the related video option, the short-form viewers would move over to my long-form content. But I couldn't be more wrong. I posted about 10 shorts that targeted the same audience as my long-form content, and the 10 videos got around 40k views combined. Out of these 40k views, the related videos got just 13 views, and in total, the channel got less than 15 subscribers from shorts. In comparison, the least watched long-form video on this channel is sitting on just under 700 views, and it brought in 16 subs. I don't want to say long-form is better than short-form as both have their pluses and minuses, but it's important to know what we want to achieve with our content before making decisions on the format.

[CarolineEstelle]

I was left blind sided when I moved to long form content. I don’t know what to do it’s like I’ve ruined any chance 😢

[themirrorbeauty]

I'm in the beauty niche, and YouTube shorts work well for most creators here. You can share an instant makeup transformation lip synching to a fun song and direct the viewer to a longer tutorial, makeup compilation or product review. The conversion is still low, as you say, but I'm okay with that, since I enjoy doing YouTube Shorts on their own, and I would be doing them regardless. I also do already make most of this content for TikTok and Reels, so it doesn't take a lot more time to get it ready for YouTube Shorts. For some of my successful shorts, views don't just come from Shorts feed, but a lot come from search or sound pages, aka people are actively choosing to watch that video.