16 Sep What Is YouTube Shorts & How To Use Them
YouTube has come up with a new way for brands to interact with their audiences and it’s called YouTube Shorts.
Short, vertical videos have been all the rage in recent years (think TikTok), so it’s no surprise that YouTube—the world’s most popular video content platform—wants a piece of the pie as well.
More than 70% of all YouTube watch time comes from mobile devices. So this new feature, which allows mobile users to browse video content more easily, is a good step forward for YouTube.
Since YouTube Shorts was released in July 2021, the feature has gotten more than 15 billion daily average views.
What’s more, if someone finds your brand via Shorts and subscribes to your channel, they’ll be notified every time you produce long-form content as well.
Not bad if you’re a brand looking for ways to expand your target audience.
But how do you use these YouTube Shorts?
YouTube Shorts can be created using just your smartphone and the YouTube app. The built-in creation tools allow you to capture, edit and even add music from all the major music labels (think Sony, Universal and Warner etc), add animated text, speed up or slow down footage and edit multiple 15-second clips together.
Once your short, vertical video is uploaded, viewers can share, comment, like, dislike or subscribe to your channel while watching it. These videos won’t disappear over time like Instagram Stories, but will remain on your channel permanently.
If your brand creates video content for TikTok or Instagram Reels already, repurpose those for YouTube Shorts to increase engagement. Take note that YouTube Shorts has a maximum length of 60 seconds—15 seconds if you want to include licensed music—so keep your content short and sweet.
With the current popularity of YouTube Shorts (and how they’re advertising its use on the platform itself), Sprout Social believes YouTube is prioritising Shorts for performance and views, so you should consider uploading a Short every day in order to reach a wider audience.
Not sure what content to create for your brand’s YouTube Shorts? Check out this blog post we’ve written on TikTok marketing ideas, they’ll work for YouTube Shorts as well. Just remember to keep it vertical (no one wants to turn their phone to view Shorts) and hook your viewer from the first few seconds to keep them from scrolling past!
Need some help creating short, vertical videos for your brand? Check out our videography services here.
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