When YouTube Shorts were announced, I kind of scoffed at them.  I looked at them as an answer to the millions of people that were going to TikTok and consuming their videos, 30 seconds to a couple of minutes at a time.  I am sure that TikTok, which was kind of filling a void left by Vine, was taking some market share away from YouTube and the company needed an answer.  And with that YouTube Shorts became a thing.  It was a think I just ignored, until I saw a fellow streamer on YouTube, AmberPeoples, was putting together creative highlights in proper mobile 9:16 aspect ratio.  I was curious and I saw that these little videos were not only getting large views, but they were driving traffic to her channel.

At this point, I still scoffed at the idea.  I was putting 16:9 content on TikTok here and there, but it wasn’t getting big traffic.  I would get some decent looks withing the first 48 hours, but not much at that point.  So I still did not see the need to make this kind of content from a user standpoint.  I mean, was it really going to drive traffic to my YouTube channel in any significant way?

Well, call me completely wrong and I can admit that.  I went through and again, leaned on my friend Amber, and a video that she posted to craft good looking 9:16 highlights.  After some practice and a license purchase, I posted my first couple of YouTube Shorts.  Again, I was not expecting much compared to my TikTok posts, but holy crap did it make a difference.  Yes, as with most things, my Shorts could be hit or miss.  I would have one that would get 40 views, but the next one might get 1000.  The bigger thing was that the shorts were driving traffic to my channel and views on my long form videos.  The shorts were becoming a 30-60 second advertisement for my YouTube Channel.

I have been putting YouTube Shorts together now for about 30 days and I have noticed a difference.  I have more viewers coming into live streams, more viewers hitting up the both the archived streams and the Shorts in general.  And it has led to more followers.  In a 30 day span, I have added almost 25 new subscribers.  Sure, it sounds like small potatoes, but when it was taking me months to gain five viewers, the results speak for themselves.  And it is only getting better.  I find there are more comments, and I have made a point of interacting with those comments and it is helping with more people checking out the videos.  And if you look at the video above, you can see that it does not take much to put something together that people will find enjoyable. 

Creating the Shorts do not take all that long, and I am finding that I can use the same work to post to TikTok as well, boosting my presence there as well.  It is not as big a hit as they are on YouTube, but hey, any exposure and growth is good, right?

So if you are looking to help grow your exposure and audience on YouTube, it wouldn’t hurt to take some time and post some Shorts, to expand that exposure.  Besides, you never know when a video will blow up, like my Terminator post that gave a shout out to Sarah Connor.  I have no idea why it blew up, but it did.

Please note that this was not a paid advertisement for YouTube Shorts, Amber People, or any other devious item.  I just wanted to share my thoughts on how this tool was driving growth on my channel and I hope it will drive growth on you channel as well.