Photo Credit: YouTube
Over 1.5 billion users watch YouTube Shorts every month. The Google-owned platform reports that more than 70% of those surveyed regularly watch short-form videos.
The launch of Shorts is leading to the rise of multi-format YouTube creators. Those who incorporate short-form and long-form video see better overall subscriber growth and watch time than those only specializing in one.
“These increasingly mobile viewers need content that suits their active lives, varied interests and wide-ranging attention spans,” the company writes in a blog post. “Multi-format creators are meeting this demand by adapting content strategies that utilize YouTube’s distinct and specialized video formats and data analytics. These multiformat creators are using YouTube to lead the next wave of the creator economy.”
YouTube creator Ian Boggs, who began creating Shorts during the pandemic, saw his channel grow to 5 million subscribers within a year. Ian has racked over 4 billion views, and 73% of those come from his Shorts.
“As a creator, Shorts allows me to express myself in a bite-sized manner, which led to my long-format success,” says Boggs. “When I create stories that are easily consumable through Shorts and often go viral because of the fact, viewers are eager to watch my long-format content, as well.”
Tara Walpert Levy, vice president of Americas for YouTube, says, “Our creators are at the center of all we do, and through innovations in Shorts, live and podcasting, we’re now able to provide a one-stop-shop experience for creators to truly flex their creative muscles, build audiences and make money. By shifting to a multiformat approach, these creators are building unrivaled content strategies specific to their individual channels — while changing the larger content game and driving the creator ecosystem forward.”
Beauty and food content creator Rosanna Pansino says she’s seen views on her main YouTube channel double yearly since she started posting Shorts. The format is now her channel’s primary source of traffic.
“I’ve been on YouTube for over 10 years, and I’ve always wanted to dabble with comedy videos,” she says. “That’s something I’ve started to do with Shorts, and the response from the community has been amazing. It’s a really cool way that I can test different types of content I’ve wanted to make and see how people respond.”
With over a billion monthly active users, TikTok has consistently led the rise in short-form videos. It makes sense for YouTube to double down efforts to encourage creators to use Shorts, providing fans less reason to divert their attention to another platform.