YouTube Shorts: The COMPLETE Guide!

YouTube Shorts: The COMPLETE Guide!
- YouTube Shorts are a new TikTok like short video format on YouTube. And they're a powerful tool to help you grow your YouTube channel and engage with your audience. So, in this video, we're gonna run through everything you need to know from how to make an upload YouTube Shorts, to monetization options and useful apps to help you boost your results, and a ton of tips and tricks to get more views. Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video, where we help you grow an audience and scale your revenue with online video. If you're seeing value in this video, make sure you're giving it a thumbs up, it really makes a huge difference.
And all the links to everything I mentioned in this video, you can find link in the description box below.
So, YouTube Shorts are very similar to TikTok videos. They are short vertical videos. They need to be less than 60 seconds. They need to be vertical or square.
Horizontal videos won't work and videos are longer than 60 seconds aren't going to work either. Now, for YouTube, these are a totally different style of content and engagement to your regular videos. These are much lower commitment for your viewers. They're gonna be much faster for them to consume and to watch on the go. Now, while Shorts are optimized for viewing on mobile devices, they are still accessible and viewable on desktops and TVs as well.
And there's also no requirements to start creating and uploading Shorts. You can do it on a brand new channel from day one. So, to start off with, we'll look at how to view and how to use YouTube Shorts, and how to upload this new YouTube Shorts format versus your regular YouTube content.
Then we'll dive into how monetization works and some simple apps and strategies to easily maximize your engagement, views, and subscribers. And if you're someone who's already been playing around with Shorts, let me know, how are you finding them?
Has it been an effective strategy for growing your channel? Let me know down in the comments what's working for you. Okay, so to find and view YouTube Shorts, you wanna open up the mobile app and you wanna scroll down to the Shorts section on the main screen. And you can see here that says Shorts beta. As we scroll across, you can see all the different Shorts here that it is suggesting for me, and even directly on YouTube channel pages, where they have that feature enabled.
Now, this is something that as it's all still so new, YouTube is still building this out and it will likely change, and likely refine this over time. Some people might even be seeing right now, a dedicated Shorts button down the bottom of the app, taking them to a dedicated area just for YouTube Shorts.
And when you select one that'll auto play on loop, until you swipe up to move on to the next one. And then swiping up and down, will let you move back and forth between them. Now, in terms of interaction features for your viewers, in the top there, you've got three little dots.
If you press on that, then you can view the videos description, you can turn captions on or off, you could report the video, or you can send feedback to YouTube. Just hitting cancel we can go back and we can give the video a thumbs up, we can give it a thumbs down.
We can view comments and leave comments on the video. We can also share it. Now, the button down the bottom right-hand corner will let you sample 15 seconds of audio from a video where you are seeing this.
And we'll jump into this one specifically in just a minute. Now, there's also a subscribe button down the bottom, which is something that makes these so powerful for growing your subscribers. And if you tap on the YouTube channel name down the bottom, then you can see all the YouTube Shorts that that channel has created. You can subscribe to the channel directly on that page as well. Or if you wanna go over to the actual YouTube channel, then you just need to select it again at the top.
Now, when you're viewing the YouTube Shorts in the app like this, they don't show any custom thumbnails, but you can still upload them and use them on your videos for when they're gonna be displayed on desktop or on your YouTube channel page. Now, in terms of creating YouTube Shorts, a YouTube does have some Shorts creation tools that they are rolling out. Some of them you might have access to already, but you don't need to be using YouTube tools in order to be able to create and upload and use the Shorts feature. Any vertical video that is under 60 seconds can automatically be picked up as a YouTube Short. YouTube now even saying that you don't need to use the #Shorts word in your titles or in your description for your video to be recognized as a short, but this is still something that our YouTube partner manager did recommend that we did still use in our titles, if we weren't gonna be using the YouTube creation tools.
So, it's not required, but it's not gonna hurt to still use it. Now, in terms of these Shorts creation tools that are provided by YouTube, there is a short camera to help you create or record your videos. There's also a short editor will let you edit those clips down to add text, to add filters, and even adjust the speed of your video as well. So, when you've got access to those in the YouTube app, you just wanna come down to the plus button in the middle and you'll see there, create a short. And then straightaway here you can say, hey, I'm on camera, this is the YouTube Shorts camera.
We have the ability at the top to add in music, we can flip the camera around, we can adjust the speed of what I'm recording, we can have a countdown timer, we can add in filters to change up the look and feel of the video. Again, we can do all of this afterwards as well. And you can see the default here is for 15 seconds. If I tap on that, we're able to change it to 60 seconds to record the full minute. So, I do think it's interesting that they've got this set to 15 seconds as default.
They might be that they're encouraging shorter Shorts than just the full 60 seconds. So, it definitely would be something to play around with. But now that I have this set to 60 seconds, if I just press and hold down the bottom here, then it's going to start recording my video. Much the same as Instagram and as TikTok. And when I release, it's actually going to stop the recording at that point.
And you can see at the top with that red progress bar, how much recording I have already done.
Now, to continue recording up to my 60 seconds, I can press and hold. And you can see that the second part of this clip has started. Now, if I wanna remove one of those takes or a chunk of video that I just recorded, I can press the undo button down the bottom here, and that will remove that last take. I can also press it again to go back to the start.
Now, if I wanna actually undo what I've just removed, then there is a redo button here off to the side where I can bring those clips back.
So, that's something that could be helpful if you accidentally delete your footage, but instead of just recording in the app, you can also import videos that you already have on your device. So, if I come down here and pick this clip here, this is a minute seven second video. I can actually edit and trim down to a minute in here or up to a minute if I already had something recorded and then I can add this in to use in my Shorts as well. Now, there's another cool feature that I wanna mention in here.
If you're getting creative with your videos, you can align up your shot with your previous shot. So, let's say that I was recording, I'll press record here. And I'm talking about, I finished with my head like this, and I stopped recording. If I come over here and press the align button, it's gonna show me the last frame of the video. So, I could maybe go change my shirt or something, or write something across my face, just to mix up the video a little bit.
And then when I wanna start recording, I can just position myself where I am going to be close. And press record and keep talking. Now, this is creating the new video that where the start of it was aligned with the previous video. So, if I stop this now, we now have two videos up the top. I can turn off the align feature, and we've actually just align up those two clips.
So, it allows you to get pretty creative with some of the shots that you're able to create in here. Now, once you're happy with the video piece, the recording, you just hit the tick down the bottom and we can come in here and we can add in again music, down the bottom left. Now, with the music, you can see that we've got access in here to a lot of copyrighted music, but in order to actually be able to use this in our video, you are gonna be limited to 15 seconds. So, if your video is longer than 15 seconds, then you are limited to using this only at the start of your video.
So, if we go to add this in now, we will get to choose which section of that track that we wanna use.
If we press adjust down the bottom, we can position and pick the section of the music track that we want, but where it's actually used in our video is always in the first 15 seconds. We can adjust the volumes of us speaking versus the music with this slider down the bottom here.
So, if we want the original footage or me louder, then I would slide this across that way, and it's going to quieten down the music. To add in text, we can either tap down the bottom to the text button, or we can tap anywhere on screen. And then just like most other apps these days, we can just type in our text and then we can customize up how it looks.
So, there's a few different presets or styles in here that you can use. Let's just go classic. We'll go down.
We can move it around, we can pinch to zoom to make it bigger or smaller, but let's say that we've got multiple text boxes in here. Let's go Text two.

 
Very creative Justin, well done. Then we can come down the bottom here to the timeline and we can actually choose when we want this text to be shown on screen in this short video. So, we might want text number one to come in at the start and then disappear and then text two to appear. So, you can see how easy this is to quickly add and adjust when we wanna have our text on the screen. And if we swipe across, we've got access to those filters again, down the bottom to change up the look.
When we're ready to post it, you just wanna come up at the top here to next. Then you need to give your video a title.
Again, I would recommend still using the #short at the end of it. Amazing video, let's go #Shorts. You get to choose how it's going to be posted, whether it's going out publicly on your channel immediately, whether you wanna have it as unlisted or private, or you can schedule it for release at a later date and time.
You will also need to specify if this content is designed for or if it's made for kids. So, your options in here is yes, it's made for kids or no, it's not made for kids, but also if you wanna age restrict your content, then you can restrict it to over 18 only in here as well. Once you've got those set, you just need to hit Upload, and that will be uploaded to your YouTube channel.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, you also have the ability to sample audio from people's Shorts as well. Where they have this enabled on their videos.
So, if we're viewing this short here or this video, we can press the little button in the bottom right-hand corner and we can hit the button here to use this sound. And it's going to let us use the sound from that video or 15 seconds of that video in our video.
And it's going to link off back to that original piece of content as well. Now, this isn't just limited to YouTube Shorts, you can sample audio from regular YouTube videos as well. And the link is gonna be taken back to the original content creator.
Now, having other people sample the audio from your videos is something that you can either disable from your entire channel or enable across all of your videos or you can just enable it on specific videos. And that's done on the desktop, in the upload area for those specific videos. But remember it does create a clickable link back to your original content as well. So, it could be a great way for new people to find your content. Now, one thing to remember here is if you are sampling audio from another video and that video gets taken down or gets removed, then your video that was linking to that original, it will still work, but that piece will then be muted in your video.
Now, again, you don't need to be using YouTube creation tools, especially we don't have access to them yet. You can even use more advanced camera apps like FiLMiC Pro to give you more control of the videos you're creating. Or you can even just use the built-in camera app on your phone to record your videos. And then you could either edit them in the Shorts editor, or you can even use more advanced apps like VN Video Editor, like KineMaster, or like LumaFusion that are gonna give you a greater amount of control.
And we have full tutorial showing you how to edit in each one of those apps, which I will link it down in the description below.
Now, you also don't need to just be creating and uploading from your phone. You could use a regular camera. And you could rotate it on its side, so that it's recording in portrait. And you could use desktop video editing software, even professional software if you'd like, to edit down your vertical videos. And you can upload them from your computer as well.
So, once you've got your videos created on your desktop, you just need to go ahead and upload them as you would any normal YouTube video.
And select Upload Video. Then you would go ahead and select your video file, then enter in your title. Again, I would recommend using the #Shorts at the end of it, enter a description. And again, you'll need to specify if this video is made for kids.
Now, when you're uploading your videos through the desktop versus the mobile app, you do get access to extra things like custom thumbnails, or whether you'd like to publish your video to your subscription feed and notify your subscribers. You can turn things like that on or off for your video before they go out.
So, there is some benefit in using the desktop to upload and release your content, but you can still get access to these, if you're only gonna be uploading from your mobile as well. Instead of just releasing public, from the mobile app, you could be uploading your video as unlisted or as private, and then jumping over onto the desktop, adding your custom thumbnail and specifying whether you wanna notify your subscribers or not. Again, this is something that YouTube is still building out.
So, I definitely recommend going down and reading some of the comments to hear if anything major has changed since we released this video.
Now, in regards to monetization and making money from your YouTube Shorts, this is another area that YouTube is currently building out. They have said that they will be trying and testing ads inside the YouTube short section on the mobile app. So, it could be that you're swiping through and watching YouTube Shorts. And let's say every third or fourth one, you're gonna get an ad that plays in that area.
So, it could mean that if your channel is monetized, meaning that you're at that thousand subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, that could be another revenue stream for you with your YouTube Shorts. But even right now, if your channel is monetized, you can still make money from ads being run on your videos when they are viewed on desktop. Because essentially on desktop, they're treated as regular YouTube videos. So, it is possible right now to make money from your Shorts, but it's also likely going to be a lot less than what you would find that your regular videos will be pulling in.
Again, if you're already a part of that partner program.
And that's purely because of the length of your video being under one minute and having a pre-roll ad, it's gonna be less likely that companies will wanna run ads on your short videos, or even that viewers will wanna engage and interact with those ads because they just wanna get to the short content. So, it will be interesting to see how this plays out, but YouTube has also announced a $100 million creative fund to reward their top YouTube Shorts creators for 2021 and 2022. Now, this is eligible for anyone that is creating YouTube Shorts content.
Irrespective of whether your YouTube channel is monetized or not. So, the only real prerequisites here are that you are creating YouTube Shorts content, and that you are a top YouTube Shorts creator for that period.
So, by the sounds of it, there'll be splitting that a hundred million dollar pool into smaller pools for maybe a month period. And whoever the top creators are for that period, will get a percentage of that pool fund. Again, this is still new, but it does show us that YouTube really wants to push this short form content on its platform. Now, another thing to be aware of, if you start using Shorts is that you might find that your overall channel analytics are getting a little skewed because you're now creating much shorter videos, meaning that people might be watching those longer, but your overall minutes watched or time watched could be much less.
So, you might find that your channel averages are dropping in some areas increasing in others, where they have been skewed by these short form content.
I personally don't think it's gonna be detrimental to your channel or that it's really gonna be a big deal at all. And I really hope that YouTube do separate this out at some point. And you've got your own analytics, just for Shorts content, and the regular analytics for the rest of your content.
Now, no matter what type of video content you're creating, it is always important to hook your viewer in as soon as you can into your content. Let them know that your video is the right one for them.
Now, all of this is really just amplified with YouTube Shorts. You need to hook your viewers in immediately. It is so easy on this Shorts platform, as it is with TikTok and others as well for people to switch between and move from your video to another, literally with just moving their thumb up and down. They don't have to click back, they don't have to move the mouse around or anything like that. It is fast paced content consumption.
The moment that your video goes too long, or it's too boring, or you're not grabbing people's attention, you're not engaging with them, they're gonna move on to the next one.
So, while it is important to hook your viewers into any video. It is super important to do it really, really quickly and to stop them scrolling when they land on your video.
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