TikTok and Instagram Reels have some competition: Brands and creators, now is the time to harness the power of YouTube Shorts.
Shorts is averaging more than 70 billion daily views and is watched by more than two billion monthly logged-in users. Meanwhile, #Shorts has been used for more than 800 million YouTube videos across 45 million channels. Impressive figures, considering it only launched globally in 2021.
Football freestyler Ben Nuttall is one creator who has seen rapid growth on the platform. “Within the first two months of uploading Shorts, I gained 100,000 subscribers and within eight months I’d gained one million subscribers,” he told CORQ. At the time of publishing, Nuttall had more than 1.8 million subscribers.
His two most-viewed videos are his football versus robot challenges, which have exceeded 296 million views and 93 million views, proving YouTube’s short-form vertical has an active and engaged audience.
Key takeaways
- More than two billion monthly logged-in users watch Shorts.
- CORQ spoke to five creators, who said reach, views and subscriber growth are the main benefits of the feature.
- Videos can only be up to 60 seconds in length, which creators said is a pitfall.
- The content that works best on Shorts includes comedic sketches and entertaining videos in the lifestyle vertical with an eye-catching hook and strong storytelling.
- Brands have yet to fully capitalise on influencer partnerships and advertising on Shorts.
- YouTube researchers revealed that Shorts is the top platform across Europe, the Middle East and Africa for viewers to discover new brands and products.
CORQ spoke to five creators about their experience with the feature, including the benefits and pitfalls, as well as opportunities for brands.
Brand opportunities on YouTube Shorts
Companies are focused on Instagram and TikTok, but in 2023 YouTube researchers found that Shorts is the top short-form video platform across Europe, the Middle East and Africa for viewers to discover new products and brands.
Marketing platform CreatorIQ’s recent analysis found that across 2023 there was a 700% year-on-year increase in spending on creator partnerships on Shorts. #Ad has been used for more than 2.2 million Shorts across 296,000 channels.
Brands are slowly catching on to the appeal of YouTube’s short-form vertical, but only two of the five creators CORQ interviewed had used it for paid partnerships.
Comedy creator Cole Anderson-James told CORQ that brands don’t know how to use it as a promotional platform. He explained companies are more focused on long-form YouTube integrations, Instagram and TikTok, and that he has had two deals for Shorts fall through.
Still, there is a clear opportunity for companies to tap creators for paid partnerships on Shorts. Nuttall said: “When I do collaborate on [Shorts], I find the engagement to be higher than on other platforms.” He has partnered with companies such as FIFA (one ad has more than 69,000 views) and BoohooMAN (more than 59 million views).
Comedy creator Holly Laing told CORQ she has recently started doing paid work on YouTube’s short-form feature with brands such as Candy Crush Saga (more than 183,000 views) and charity the Retail Trust (has exceeded 152,000 views).
Outside of creator collaborations, brands can also look to advertise on Shorts. Video ad agency Precise.TV’s 2023 analysis of ads on the YouTube feature and TikTok revealed that placements on YouTube’s short-form section cost approximately 50% less than the ByteDance-owned app.
Additionally, companies and agencies can use Shorts to build brand awareness. Duolingo’s comedy skit has more than 17 million views while a clip from Channel 4.0’s Tapped Out series has more than one million views.
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How creators use Shorts
Influencers told CORQ they have seen an increase in viewers, reach or subscribers when they consistently post Shorts.
Anderson-James’ subscriber count has grown “massively”, gaining more than 100,000 subscribers within just a few days. His top video across any platform is a Shorts skit about fairground games from 2022 (45M views).
“If a piece of content doesn’t do well on TikTok or Instagram, I can guarantee it will do well on Shorts,” he said. He considers more than 250,000 views to be “good” for the YouTube feature.
Similarly, Laing said Shorts is the “main reason for my growth on YouTube now”. She started testing the feature in July 2022 and has posted consistently since January 2023. She had accumulated 60,000 subscribers during her ten years on YouTube and now has more than 848,000 subscribers.
Lifestyle creator and entrepreneur Tati Kapaya has also been able to reach a wider audience because of the feature and pointed out that one key benefit of Shorts is that it’s part of YouTube, a search engine owned by Google.
Kapaya told CORQ the best performing Shorts are those that are “interlinked with the long-form content I’m already producing”. To complement a travel vlog about four days in Italy, Kapaya made a short-form video about how much she spent on holiday and linked back to her vlog in the description.
Meanwhile, lifestyle creator Lucy Moon told CORQ her best performing Shorts have “very snappy editing, tell a story in some form, feel highly engaging and are quick”. Moon cited lifestyle vlogger Maddie Borge (Macerly) as a creator who makes “exceptional” Shorts because of her “fast-paced lifestyle content”.
Where Shorts falls short
Creators might gain subscribers from Shorts, but this doesn’t necessarily lead to an audience for their long-form videos.
Kapaya said this is something creators are concerned about. “If [YouTubers] start making seven Shorts a week and only have one long-form video, yes we’ll see an increase in our reach and viewers, but we might not see [an] increase in engagement and watch time, which is not as great.”
Shorts can only be up to 60 seconds long, which Moon and Kapaya noted is one of the feature’s main pitfalls.
“To make good content that resonates with an audience, to not just make them laugh, but to get them to potentially want to explore your other videos in 60 seconds is challenging,” Moon said.
Moon hopes YouTube will expand the time limit to two or two-and-a-half minutes, while Kapaya wishes Shorts could be up to 90 seconds in length.
When it comes to financial gains on Shorts, influencers can monetise their content and receive 45% of the allotted ad revenue (compared to 55% for long-form videos) through the YouTube Partner Programme.
For Moon, the monetisation is a “huge pro”. “Even though I would say that I’m not performing to the best of my ability on Shorts, I’m still making money.”
Elsewhere, Moon wants improved editing features and more sound options and tools, while Kapaya would like more detailed analytics about her Shorts audience. CORQ contacted YouTube for inclusion in this article and asked about the monetisation opportunities, creator benefits and which content does well but did not receive a response before publication.
The future of Shorts
YouTube’s plans are mainly centred around artificial intelligence (AI) and creator-friendly tools. The Dream Screen feature – which allows creators to use AI-generated video or image backgrounds – was announced in 2023 and will be released this year. YouTube is also working on Dream Track, an AI sound tool for Shorts, and is introducing YouTube Create, a mobile editing app that is currently in beta.
Shorts is quickly becoming the platform to watch – expect more creators to use the YouTube feature to cross-promote their short-form content from other apps to reach new audiences.
Some final advice from Nuttall: “It might become harder to gain traction on [Shorts] this year with more and more people jumping on the bandwagon. So if you haven’t already, definitely get on there now.”
By Caroline Edwards, CORQ news and features writer.
YouTube Shorts vs TikTok: the battle for long-form content