According to a recent YouTube announcement, in January 2023, fan-created Shorts increased the average artist’s audience of unique viewers by more than 80%.
Generating 50 BILLION daily views and touted as a ‘digital street team’, Shorts should be a central part of your YouTube marketing strategy.
In January 2023, artists active on Shorts saw more than 50% of their new channel subscribers coming directly from their Shorts posts on average. Shorts are the entry point, leading fans to discover the depth of an artist or label’s catalogue, including music videos, interviews, live performances, lyric videos, playlists and more.
Artist channels uploading both Shorts and long-form are seeing better overall watch time and subscriber growth, relative to those only uploading long-form.
Here are some ideas to help you get the best results out of YouTube Shorts.
IT’S RELEASE WEEK
Release week is an exciting time for artists and their teams. What better way to promote a new song or project than by sharing the ins and outs of what goes down during release week?
Taking your fans behind the scenes to experience release week will allow them to learn more about you and the process behind a release.
Tip: Showcase and react to all playlists your song has been added to!
Catch Their Attention: Short form is all about grabbing the viewer’s attention early and sustaining it. Creatively use text to guide the arc of the video.
Host a Short Q&A: Once in a while, take the opportunity to sit down with your followers and answer questions from an audience who wants to know more about you. Use the text feature, or reply-to-comment feature to show the questions on screen before answering.
BENEFIT FROM A COLLAB
Lean into collaborations to create variety in your content and get exposed to new audiences.
Reach out to your favourite creators, artists or even fans to collaborate on a new song, artwork for a release, or other creative endeavours you might have. The world is your oyster, and your creativity can expand the possibilities of what you can do together!
MAKE IT RELATABLE
Create content that makes your fans feel “Oh, I felt the same way too…”, to foster the connection between you and your fans.
Creatively using music in your Shorts in a heartfelt manner or sharing how a song makes you feel will help you create an instant connection and attract the attention of your audience.
USE THE MAGIC OF GREENSCREEN
Try out the green screen effect to visually transport yourself and the viewer to wherever you want. React to your fan-made videos or chart milestones in a visual and fun way. You can even use your own pictures and videos from the camera roll to point out details from your tour life or even personal life, that they otherwise wouldn’t notice.
SEAMLESS TRANSITIONS
Transitions are a great way to keep user retention and make a Short creatively engaging.
An example is to record the segment from the exact same spot during the soundcheck and live show. This makes for an engaging transition piece, cutting from the lowkey pre-show vibe to your fans singing along.
Tip: Use the align tool function in Shorts Creation Tool to facilitate the transition moment. Using the pre-chorus leading into the hook is often effective for the energetic feel.
IT’S REMIX TIME
Many artists have a collection of YouTube videos in their archives that showcases their catalogue music or performances from multiple album releases.
Use the “Remix” function available on eligible YouTube videos*, take this content to Shorts, react to clips of your older long-form videos, and revisit them with your fans. Learn more here.
COMPARE APPLES TO APPLES
Different formats will have different audience appeals and, as a result, varying performance.
When looking at channel performance, be sure to look at the analytics on the video level and avoid comparisons between long-form and Shorts performance.
