YouTube Publishes New Guide to Utilizing YouTube Shorts

With over 1.5 billion YouTube users now engaging with Shorts content every month – equivalent to 75% of the platform’s entire user base – it’s worth considering whether Short video clips may be of benefit in your YouTube strategy, and how you can use the format to best effect.

Which is where this new guide comes in – YouTube has published a new, 31-page overview of YouTube Shorts, covering everything from creating your video clips, to editing, to trend tips, analytics and more.

You can download the full ‘Shorter Side of YouTube’ guide here, but in this post, we’ll take a look at some of the highlights.

First off, YouTube provides a basic overview of Shorts, and how to use the Shorts camera.

There are also tips on some more advanced editing and creation techniques, like pulling previously recorded videos from your camera roll to add into your Shorts clips.

YouTube’s also included pointers on incorporating sounds and music:

As well as notes on Shorts discovery, and how Shorts content is highlighted to users.

The last section provides a range of trend tips and notes, as well as case studies, highlighting different ways in which you can use Shorts to maximize attention and engagement.

It’s a handy guide – there are no top secret insights or algorithm notes to help boost your Shorts performance. But it does provide an essential overview of what you need to know to use YouTube Shorts, which could help to get you started with the option.

And again, with Shorts usage growing fast – already at over 30 billion daily views, in total – it is worth considering whether Shorts are a fit for your content strategy.

You can download YouTube’s ‘The Shorter Side of YouTube’ guide here.