Have you ever had a teacher tell you to pay attention?
My grandmother used to say, “You have the attention span of a goldfish.” To which I would generally reply, “Sorry? I wasn’t paying attention.”
Well, turns out, grandma wasn’t far off.
A goldfish’s attention span is roughly nine seconds. In a study by Microsoft, they found the average human attention span is eight seconds, down four full seconds from the year 2000.
A four second change is huge. It points to a historic and abrupt evolutionary change to the human brain, remapping and reshaping it to conform with outside stimulus. That being the paradigm shift in our technological processes brought about by an increased reliance on handheld cellular information retrieval devices.
In short, because of cell phones, grandma was right.
With change comes opportunity. And in the world of content creation there is always a new opportunity.
TikTok was the first to successfully jump into the short-attention-span-theater. And they became incredibly successful in a very short time. TikTok stars like Charli D’Amelio, with over 140 million followers, earned more than $17 million in 2021, according to a report by The Independent.
In the first quarter of 2022, the TikTok app was downloaded more than 175 million times.
According to App Annie’s 2022 Forecast, TikTok is expected to reach 1.5 billion users by the end of 2022.
That could be bad news if you’re strictly a YouTuber.
2021 saw a sharp drop off in long-form YouTube views.
So, the question is, “What can a YouTuber do?”
YouTube Shorts was rolled out to the world in 2021. Immediately creators began to ask, “Can YouTube Shorts replace TikTok?”
Well, YouTube thinks so.
As early as July 2021, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said YouTube Shorts had more than 15 billion views per day.
And by January 2022, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced that YouTube Shorts had reached more than 5 trillion all time views.
Good news?
Well, YouTube Shorts is doing so well that, like with TikTok, viewers are moving away from YouTube’s own long-form content.
So back to the question, “What can a YouTuber do?”
The answer? Like a Bermuda native, you should embrace the Shorts.
In an ironic twist, creating YouTube Shorts can actually increase your success with long-form.
Creators like Zach Hsieh (ZHC on YouTube) are using Shorts to reach an entirely new audience.
In a recent Tubefilter interview, Zach said there are, “a lot more people finding us through short-form content and getting into our long-form content because they first noticed us through short-form.”
In the same way that YouTubers have crossed over to TikTok to promote their long-form video, they can now also use Shorts to promote their main primary source of revenue.
Brandon Baum first started with YouTube Shorts when he had only 2300 subs. Two weeks later, his subs jumped to 148K with more than 65 million views. Today, at nearly 3 million subs, he credits Shorts as the key to his success. “Creating Shorts has taught me so much and has been an incredible opportunity for me as a creator.”
Lisa Nguyen, who is a food content creator with over 3 million subs, simply states, “YouTube Shorts has worked.”
If you’re still unconvinced about integrating YouTube Shorts into your strategy, let’s break it down.
70% of all YouTube watch-time comes from mobile devices. 775 million active iPhone and iPad YouTube consumers prefer short form content. Did we mention that Shorts has 5 trillion all time views? That’s 30 billion views per day!
YouTube creators also get twice the exposure with Shorts. YouTube Shorts appear in two places: the Shorts Page and the Home page. This lets the search algorithm work twice as hard to promote your content.
Finally, YouTube Shorts are, well, short.
A Short can be created quickly using your existing content. Just cut a piece of it to 60 seconds or less, add music, titles, and hash tags, and post… right from the YouTube phone app.
Because it’s that easy, you can publish more often. Instead of once a week, try once a day. And, as we all know, the more often you publish content that viewers watch and interact with, the more you are rewarded by the algorithm.
The bottom line is that if you are not using YouTube Shorts, now is the time to start.
YouTube Shorts is a fun, creative, and proven way for content creators to engage their audience and an incredible opportunity for your content strategy.
If you still need further encouragement, Zach Hsieh sums up the value — “I would just say: use Shorts. Shorts is an amazing tool. It’s really been blowing up and I’ve seen a lot of creators find a lot of success through posting Shorts. If you’re an aspiring creator, you should try it. Right now.”
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