WARNING! YouTube SHORTS Will Destroy Your Channel 😬

[@JevenDovey]

Here’s my new Shorts channel: youtube.com/@CreatorFilmSchool?si=x54XX8QEkieUXJVz

[@worldofnuance]

I just wrapped up 4 straight months of posting a short daily to my channel. The reason I stopped was because I accomplished what I wanted: to get to 1,000 subs. Subscribers only mattered to me until reaching that milestone. Now that I’ve got that taken care of, I’m focused on getting back to my long form strategy since those kinds of videos will bring the kind of audience I want to reach. I think shorts are great for creators who are just getting started and are testing the waters. I’m about a year into this journey and shorts were good for getting feedback and data from KZbin faster than I would’ve if I had only just focused on long form videos. Posting them daily was also good for building a creative habit, which is what you need to get off the sidelines of and into the game of KZbin.

[@MensGroup]

Sounds like a good way to confuse the algorithm for your long form content.

[@Easy_Eds]

I agree with all this. One additional benefit, at least for me, is the extra motivation I receive from seeing the larger number of views my shorts are getting.

[@creativechristiancontent]

Your views are all over the place one video has millions then another video only 400

[@RyanForrest1664]

KZbin shorts destroyed my channel for a period of time. I basically stopped doing them and I’m back to normal

[@ImatKaymaz]

U deleted all shorts? How did u fix the problem?

[@WorldAccordingToBriggs]

My channel started a plateau in late September when I got back from VidSummit. They were all about doing shorts. So, I started doing shorts a couple of times a week at least. Going over my analytics it looks like that is the problem. My channel started the decline 30 days after I started shorts on the regular. My audience is too old for shorts and the new people shorts brought in weren't watching long form. I think I have to stick with long-form and live stream.

[@JakeRichandAnnaChah]

Damn! this video couldn't of come at a better time Jeven! we just started ramping up our short form content and after 9 days have noticed ad revenue drop, thinking we might follow suit in removing the shorts from our main channel to keep the long format viewer. Thank you for sharing this.

[@PianoVampire]

I would do it quick before the shorts totally take over and tanks your long form content. On another channel of mine my revenue dropped 50% and has still not recovered - I've deleted all the shorts, it's very slowly going back up now.

[@MensGroup]

Any update on this?

[@REDPanti]

My shorts videos have enjoyed immense popularity with millions of views, but they appear to be adversely affecting the performance of my long-format content. Consequently, after careful deliberation, I have made the decision to remove all of my shorts today. I am hopeful that this action will help rectify the issue and allow my long videos to gain more visibility and engagement.

[@VoytecArmHub]

Any update bro?

[@REDPanti]

@@VoytecArmHub still same impressions

[@MensGroup]

@redpanti update?

[@REDPanti]

@@MensGroup I stopped posting shorts, but it didn't make much of a difference to me. I didn't post shorts for almost 6 to 7 months. Then, on the advice of my KZbin partner manager, I started posting shorts again and began linking long videos to the related videos option for shorts. But it's been 2 years since my reach declined, and it still hasn't come back. Maybe it's because there's too much gap between my videos.

[@MensGroup]

@@REDPanti Thanks for the update!

[@ZdenkaDarula]

I saw this happening on my channel 8 months ago when I tried a few shorts and I IMMEDIATELY STOPPED. Yes, it destroys your channel literally. It will bring your revenue down. I have been working with a few video editing companies last few weeks as I am trying to get part of my life back after 5 years lol... whenever they offer shorts I always respond. "absolutely no. It destroys the channel"... I am sorry you are also seeing these numbers. If you want to make money, stay away from shorts on long-format channel...

[@DetroitNinja]

I'm a shorts guy and it works for me. My sub count went way up. This is my short goal. Yes, I want to earn money too but my goal right now is to grow subscribers.

[@MallorcaUnderTheSun]

Thank you for your honesty and transparency. Exactly what I’ve experienced - it’s not worth the vanity metrics to get the subs, a drop in income and a bunch of viewers who don’t watch your long form . Great vid as always !

[@BOXINGEGO]

He ain’t lying. I’ve been a full time KZbinr over a decade with over 300k subscribers. I’ve done case studies with Shorts, and BOTH times Shorts negatively impacted my channel instead of working together with my normal long-form content. Going Viral with Shorts is the worst thing that can happen to you. Think about it. If you have a massively successful video, KZbin will serve out more content of similar nature. So if you are a long-form channel & you have a Short that hits, KZbin algorithm will suddenly cause Shorts to be the priority and over-promote all your other Shorts thinking that’s what your viewers want. Meanwhile your core audience won’t get fed out your normal content (which gives you more money, longer duration, MORE ADS) so you’ve essentially cannibalized your channel. And worst part about it you’ll never be able to compete with a short video with long form! It’s shorter, typically puncher editing, and KZbin is overly promoting KZbin Shorts so there is NO WAY for your long-form content to catch up. It’s much harder to make a 10 minute original video do 20 million views with no major backing than a less than 1 minute video. This is the major problem with KZbin trying to keep up with TikTok. They haven’t figured out how to work the algorithm to prioritize both and/or to appeal to viewers who enjoy long/short form content.

[@SeanOzz]

This explains a lot. I had a few shorts go viral with 2-15 million views each. Looking back to before that happened I was pulling 2000 a month. Now I’m pulling 250 a month. Might be time to remove the shorts.

[@KCTopDawg]

This is what I am going thru right now with 4 viral shorts. Long form is suffering big time. My $$$ from long form has plummeted and my long form may never recover 😢

[@metal_helm]

You nailed it

[@Pex_Garca]

I'm going through the same problem 😢

[@MensGroup]

Thanks for sharing this. Great perspective.

[@BlackBearForge]

This is exactly what I found on my main channel. The better the shorts did the worse my long form content did. I unlisted all of the shorts on the main channel a few months ago and I am now seeing long form views and revenue coming back up. Shorts also result in a real dumbing down of the comment section with the majority of commenters seeming to compete for who can leave the dumbest comment. I have a second channel for shorts and rarely post any more due to the lack of earnings, even though it gets more views typically

[@milosh9k]

Interesting insights, Jeven! Thanks! There is another issue with the long form, I think, there are more and more video creators and videos coming to KZbin but now the audience is not growing so fast if at all. So if there were 100 videos on a given topic in the past now there are 1000, and no matter how good the creator is, the views will be split into more chunks. And, as you properly mentioned in your video, once more viewers get addicted to the short form both creators and KZbin will suffer

[@reviewthecheapest]

Exactly the same experience here... Everytime I upload a short, the long form videos, that I upload after that short, tank and they barely get views. Once I stop uploading shorts for a long period of time, let's say, a couple of months, the new long form videos I upload start getting good amount of views once again. Also, when I upload shorts, the overall views for the last 28 days remain the same, but the revenue drops significantly, which leads to my conclusion that KZbin actually replaces your long form videos with your shorts, when it comes to search results, recommended content etc... meaning they recategorize your channel from long form channel to shorts channel, leading to your long form videos dropping in rankings and in exposure. So the whole theory of KZbin that shorts are complementary to your long form channel are false. They cannot cooperate, the algorithm categorizes your channel either as a long form channel, or as a short form channel.

[@quizwell]

Interesting, you could be onto something there

[@midnight-reading]

I completely agree, it hurt my channels long form after i made only 10 shorts, then my long form went to almost zero views 🤷🏻‍♀️ never listning to youtube creators channel and their advice again.

[@MensGroup]

Thanks everyone for sharing. Very useful!

[@BellasBigAdventures]

I have a tiny channel and tried 30 days of shorts but as you say those people it attracted did not stick around when the next long form video came out and they earned a tiny amount of revenue. It did also attract younger people and more women oddly. Keep up the great videos Jeven.

[@BeginningsAndPaths]

I think there is also another potential problem here especially for a smaller channels: doing long-form and shorts (and podcasts and live and all that) could result in some kind of burnout if one doesn't have a whole team behind him. So, it's probably a good idea to decide from the beginning what kind of videos one wants to make and to concentrate on that type of videos without dispersing one's time and energy, at least at the beginning.

[@briskettaco]

Very good point.

[@TheLoungewithLT]

Truth. ✔️I’m definitely suffering from burnout as a result of trying to do both.

[@BeginningsAndPaths]

@@TheLoungewithLT Ouch! Be careful with that. I made in the past similar mistakes always working on two jobs until I got a burnout. Learned the lesson, quit the second job and started my channel doing what I like but without the everyday rush. Take care.

[@TheLoungewithLT]

@@BeginningsAndPaths I definitely will, thanks! Cool channel, btw😄

[@Jason_Hermann]

I appreciate the info Jeven! I have heard they are similar to having two separate channels almost which sort of makes sense to me. I am way more comfortable with long form content , and I had very limited experience with short form on my main youtube channel. Every time I try one it seams to not do well and I disable the short video. I decided it might be better to share my"shorts" on instagram since that platform at least to me makes more sense based on my content. It's a hard topic to navigate with opinions varying wildly... In addition to me, the removal of links really makes it not worth the time in addition to poor ad revenue w/ shorts... In the end I don't think it is worth it for me to mix on my current channel. Possible it might make sense on my other newer channel to help grain subscribers in the early life of the channel, but I need to experiment more....

[@BackyardMaine]

Im experiencing the same thing here on my channel, well kind of. I have had a lot of success on short form content and like you said it builds the vanity metrics. When one of my shorts takes off I see a 30-50% drop in views on my long form content. I haven't made a short in about three months and two of my long form videos that were a year old took off. One of them has 110k views and the other is coming up on 400k views. I really don't know what the best course of action is right now. I might move all my shorts over to anther channel..

[@AdventureGearTV]

I appreciate this video. Shorts have ruined my CTR recently. This is mainly because I made some viral shorts that are off topic. So, YT seems to be showing my long form content to the same viewers that liked my shorts, but they are not interested. So, now I'll make shorts that are on topic, but less likely to go viral due to the small niche topics of my overall channel.

[@DarrellaaS]

This confirms my thoughts on Shorts too. I would rather create a 1m15s video that is short but doesn’t present as a Shorts. It still delivers some valuable information quickly, but blends better with my longer form content.

[@RIKIBRO]

Will you consider KZbin promote longer video (over 7 mins) more than those shorter video (1~2 mins)?

[@PatrickRambles]

I've also noticed a big shift in audience geography, my Indian viewership exploded based on some well performing shorts. I love my Indian audience but it's obviously not great for revenue.

[@M.A.D.C.J]

Same here

[@LivingWithChronicPainAndBeyond]

Thank you Jeven! I'm a new creator and you just confirmed what I thought might happen. It was fun making a few shorts, but it took time away from making what I really wanted to get out there. Thx for letting us know

[@Freakinreviews]

I posted shorts to my main channel in early 2022 and noticed many of the potential issues you mentioned here, so I quickly decided to stop posting shorts to my main channel and keep them on a separate channel. There is one stat that really jumps out when comparing the audience among the two channels: viewer age. On my main channel, most viewers are 25+ while on my shorts channel, the 18-24 group comprises almost half of my viewers. It's just not the same audience, and I'm glad I've kept them separate.

[@technickr]

I have the same issue for my channel. Since i have started posting shorts, my channel has reached a platou and new long form videos do not get any traction my previous videos did. I have made them all unvisible. That changed the situation a bit. Should i delete them all? You said a friend of yours did this and gained his power back, right?

[@jonsprog8624]

I would be careful about deleting all your shorts. I did it on one channel and it completely ruined my views on all my long videos after i did that

[@TheTMax]

My channel is still quite small, so I think shorts are helping me grow and get more people seeing my long form content. But, if I reach a point where shorts take over my channel, I'll create a second channel just for shorts, since my preference is long-form content. Good to hear about this before I get there so I can prepare. Thanks, Jevin!

[@animatinghistoricalfigures2298]

Bear in mind what is probably happening to Jeven is that his regular viewers don't like Shorts. That's not surprising - its not what they signed up for. Your channel is new so people don't necessarily have a resistance to shorts-in fact they might even prefer them.

[@TheTMax]

@@animatinghistoricalfigures2298 The Shorts definitely seem to be helping me for now!

[@archvaldor]

@@TheTMax I checked out your channel and having been on yt successfully for a decade now I get a pretty good sense of who is going to succeed. You've definitely got it. It takes a while but you will definitely get there you've got obvious talent and charisma. Plus you seem to have an impressive work rate. Just thought you'd appreciate a word of encouragement.

[@TheTMax]

@@archvaldor You thought right, sir!🥰 I definitely appreciate the positive vibes and I'll continue to make videos, as I genuinely enjoy it. Now, I kinda wish I played WoW so I could better appreciate your content😅

[@cats-being-cats]

Yesss 100% shorts killed my channel! It's impossible to convert shorts viewers into long form content. I'm curious, did you test posting a longer video on your second/shorts channel to see the results? My bet is it completely flops. I'm lucky if mine gets 1k views. The new related video feature kinda helps a little but not really.

[@DrapersDoingRenos]

Thanks Jeven!!! I have been seeing alot about this, the vanity metrics are so compelling!!! Thanks for sharing the Ad Revenue impact! We are definitely to growing a long form channel and will also be taking our shorts down!! We are not monatized yet, but working hard want to get there! Your videos have been a big help.😃

[@BeeCharmer880]

100% agree. I unsubscribe to channels with too many shorts. They are annoying

[@SivertAlmvik]

Same here. Shorts is insanely annoying. When I'm on KZbin, I'm looking or long form videos and I have set a side time for it. IG and TikTok is OK because I expect short form videos when I go on those platforms.

[@JevenDovey]

Make sure you're subscribed here then cause I wont be posting shorts 😜

[@NickRno77]

Me too

[@twoturtleshomestead]

​@JevenDovey glad to hear this ! I've just started learning storytelling and just got my first drone. You're my go to channel for education and I was disappointed with all the shorts!

[@Chawngengehein]

Me either

[@BuildMontage]

Shorts has been a disaster from the beginning... I had a similar experience when I posted shorts so I stopped as quickly as I started.

[@ShinyTechThings]

It's been inconclusive on my channel. I did for 64 days and it made almost no difference to the revenue. Everyone will have to try themselves and see if and how it affects their own channel.

[@JevenDovey]

Yup I agree

[@alantuttphotography]

Thanks for confirming my gut instinct. I'm definitely one who wants long-form only, and it pisses me off that KZbin tries to cram shorts down my throat and won't give us an option to remove them from our subscription page and other feeds.

[@AnandaGarden]

Amen! I would remove them in a heartbeat. Would love an option to turn them off per channel, as there is one of my 135+ subscribed channels whose short content I will watch.

[@CrazyAboutFlyFishing]

I had exactly this happen. Went from 10k subs to 47k subs but my longform views and revenue tanked. Finally deleted shorts with a combined total of 20m views and now my channel is recovering slowly even though I am making very little content currently. I have stopped shorts entirely. I retested it recently and made 4 old shorts public again and very quickly had the same results so I made them private again and views on longform are climbing back up. So all longform from here on for me.

[@bluerangerpetershorts]

major help from this video since no one else is giving a comprehensive take with the new addition to link to your long form videos on KZbin now. Would be great if we could link videos from our other main channel.

[@JASON-vn9nn]

I am confused though. If Shorts are only useful for getting views and subs... and they don't necessarily watch the long form content (which supports business), WHY invest time and energy in creating a short form only channel at all? Can you provide a thought regarding this? I'd greatly appreciate it!

[@LesFrenchiesTravel]

This is a great analysis, you deserve a lot more views on this because Shorts can really be a double edge sword for creators and you nailed it. Everything I've seen and experienced points to exactly what you are saying, Shorts can be a really good idea and can also be detrimental. Thank you very much for this. Cheers!

[@JevenDovey]

Thank you. We only hear about the positives about shorts but the more I dig the more I’m seeing how bad it is for some channels. Help get the word out and share this video 👍

[@starlandandmore]

Deleted them all yesterday, put them on my tiktok channel, KZbin should stick to longform.

[@twowheeltim]

I'm glad you did this video, and I'm going to be bluntly honest. I've been a sub to your channel for nearly 3 years, now, and what drew me in was your great long-form educational content; I'm also one of your Creator Film School members. I grew tired of your short-form on this channel and never watch it...any if it. And it hasn't been for just the last 30 days, but over the last several months. With that said, in my opinion you're a brilliant creator and I've learned so much from you, and you have helped me with my own teensy creative endeavors. Without your instruction, I believe I wouldn't have come as far along as I have the past couple years. I'm happy to hear you're moving the short-form, but either way I'm a patient and loyal subscriber! Thank you! 👍🏻

[@KRXOVRmedia]

Yup. Granted, I have had Shorts that went viral and brought people to the longer video (even from TikTok to KZbin), but there's definitely an impact on how long form performs afterwards.

[@Belindasdiys]

That's exactly what happened to my channel. My long views dropped so much after I started creating shorts. That's so disappointing you would think shorts would help your long videos.

[@beautifulscotland4u]

Your are absolutely right!!! It does ! It’s give of thousands of views for any short and kills your regular videos.. Alas I figured out too late I am stopping to upload shorts anymore

[@markwiemels]

This was an extremely helpful video. Thank you so much for making it! Just as an addition to this, and you may know this already, KZbin seems to consider each channel worthy of a certain amount of exposure, across KZbin as a whole, and part of what I think we are seeing here, is the diversions of impressions away from the long form videos and given to the short form videos. Which you should be able to see in analytics. You would have seen this before, when you have a new video, that KZbin loves, and while it is booming, some of your older videos are getting less views, once the new video dies down a bit, the old videos go back to their normal daily views.

[@PianoVampire]

100% - I've stopped making shorts on my larger channels and only continue on them with channels where the growth has stopped or smaller ones. I had exactly the same thing - a massive shift towards the shorts, which quickly became my top videos but at the expense of my longer form content, resulting in 50% less revenue (even though subs and views had 3x)

[@MarianoPierantozzi]

Thanks a lot! I have the same experience. I have a 120,000 KZbin channel but I have the same experience. Now I am thinking of another channel! Thanks a lot. You re my mentor.

[@andyxfilms]

I'm a new to youtube creator and in the beginning, my long-form videos were averaging about 4 to 10K views, when I committed to posting shorts consistently as well - it killed my views on my new long form videos, they're now having a tough time breaking 1K views. Anyway - great data. Thank for the help!

[@M.A.D.C.J]

Oh my gosh same! Some of my older videos used to always do well, now I rarely even hit 100 views on my long form ever since I started shorts.

[@prechathenomadmama]

SAME! Gonna delete my shorts now

[@andyxfilms]

hate that it comes to that, hope youtube fixes this "issue"@@prechathenomadmama

[@kelvineldridge]

Hi Jeven. It's been about a month now. Has your channel recovered after removing the shorts? I think what you've done by removing shorts is a very interesting experiment. I stopped posting shorts to my channel about three weeks ago as a result of your video and really it hasn't made any noticeable difference to views or revenue from long form videos. The only impact, which was expected, are subscribers and views from shorts have dropped off dramatically. My channel is tiny in comparison so trends can be harder to spot.

[@HereBeBarr]

I've been thinking about this myself. Some great points Jeven!

[@KevinEassa]

I have been cranking daily shorts (on days that aren't long form days) for about 6-8 months now and I'm burnt out on it. Plus I don't think I'm good at short form content, but I think my long form is valuable. I'm worried if I stop shorts now the algorithm will negatively impact my channel but I also don't want to put out subpar content. And similar to you, shorts don't assist my business strategy. Anyways, great breakdown, thanks for this video

[@Jeremyryanslatepod]

I've really seen this. Its demolished, my long form videos which are 45-60 minutes. And my traffic is now 80% shorts that don't watch long form. It also changed dramatically how new videos perform when released.

[@PrecisionRifleNetwork]

yes 100%. they will kill your views. Create a completely seperate channel for shorts. posting shorts a few times each week on my long form channel, really started to negatively effect my views, revenue, etc.

[@PaulVoorberg]

Thanks, finally someone that tells it like it is. You won't hear the truth from KZbin itself! They're really failing creators here if you ask me.

[@3604Kvideos]

Thanks for sharing your experience Jeven. I did some testing on my other tiny monetised channel by removing Shorts (all but one) for a month and it was hard to tell the difference. If anything, revenue went slightly down. Now with Shorts back up, revenue and subscribers are climbing again.

[@JWNRW59]

Most of what I see is shorts being posted as a briefer clip from their long form content. Every once in a while I find the odd channel posting original content to the shorts and long form content. That is useful for me.

[@outsaner]

shorts nearly ruined my main channel. It is a hockey channel BUT has always included my dogs in the content. Last summer I started posting shorts of me and the dogs at the river because hockey season was over. This was when KZbin really started pushing them and I had a few blow up very quickly and my subscriber count grew by almost 30%!! Within days however, views on my my long form went down by 40-50%. My analytics went all whacky and after about a month I stopped posting shorts except maybe 1-2 per month. Over the last year, slowly but surely I have lost most of the people who subscribed just for the dogs and views have gone back to normal, but for 3-4 months it was REAL bad.

[@4WheelingSA]

This is a very valuable video. Now with the link from shorts to long term might it change? I have also heard that somewhat sand Shorts is fast paced - like a highway. Some people like driving fast, so they won't like to go to a slower road (long form), so maybe your content got more pushed towards the highway and they don't want to drive on the slow road and the people on the slow roads did not want to drive on the highway. If it make sense? So the question will be to get the best middle ground...

[@JohnSmith-rk6jt]

Thank you for being transparent about your channels. This is good information to consider

[@MotoJournoKris]

I think KZbin is probably manipulating shorts. I don't get notifications from a few creators I pretty religiously watch anymore, but suddenly YT is pushing their shorts that then link to those videos. I barely watch shorts at all, so there's no justification for that happening, except for KZbin throttling full length notifications to favour shorts, even to audiences who should quite obviously not be seeing this kind of algorithm change. If less than 1% of a viewer's behaviour is watching shorts, that should tell YT something... We've seen them do this with previous newer features too, to make those new features look artificially successful. We also know that eventually that drops off a cliff (polls anyone) once that artificial boosting goes away, but shorts is far worse because of the cannibalism. The other thing is that Shorts encourage a very very short attention span, which has the potential to not only damage the platform as a whole, but also reshape viewer behaviour in a really negative way, which will likely feed TikTok more than anything. It's a real shame that KZbin didn't just start their own separate shorts app to compete directly with TikTok, that's connected to the actual YT app for interlinking. Genuinely baffling why they didn't do this.

[@MattHorton]

I mean, I click off the checkbox that sends them to my subs. That seems to help. My channel is doing better than it has in a long time since I started doing twice weekly shorts between longform videos

[@M.A.D.C.J]

If I don’t do that my shorts do pretty bad lol

[@CozyHomebyMarnieandKida]

Thank yoiu so much for these insights Jeven - I had a feeling our shorts were hurting our channel growth and a lot of what you are bringing up really resonates with what we saw early on when we posted a lot of shorts ...I also have seen some KZbin "gurus" channels with absolutely zero shorts on their channels ...so also got me intrigued ...I have subscribed and appreciate your shares in this video - thank you - Marnie🙌

[@jonred233]

Shorts are beyond annoying If you're watching from a TV

[@Justin_Hikes]

Jeven, I was wondering if you have any updates to share on this since this video was published. Any relevant feedback from KZbin liaison or other KZbinrs since this was published? I really appreciate your analysis here. Thanks!

[@Justin_Hikes]

To clarify: The PUNITIVE aspect of Shorts reducing long form viewership seems like an unintended consequence for KZbin. All the rest makes sense where Shorts viewers may not be interested in your long form vids. Ok, but why would your long form vids get LESS VIEWS from the audience for longer vids? I don't doubt your analysis, only thinking there's something wrong algorithmically that could be improved from the YT side.

[@JevenDovey]

@@Justin_Hikes I removed all my shorts and my numbers came back to normal before I was posting shorts. I think Shorts can be good for smaller channels to get a channel growing but they are mostly going to be short only viewers. For bigger channels it seems to hurt but its not the case with everyone. Its something that you need to test for yourself and watch your data. Also you need to know what your goals are as a creator so when you're watching your data you can have a north star that you're directing towards. If you just want subscribers than Shorts is the way to go. If you want to make money of sponsors then Shorts will be a faster way to get bigger deals because they care about big view numbers. If you want to make ad revenue money then you don't want to do Shorts cause the rates are so low and bring in the wrong type of viewer for your long form content. If you want to sell products off platform then you probably want to avoid shorts so you can prequalify buyers with your content unless there is away to sell the products through the short format. It all depends on your goals as a creator. Start there and then work backwards to see if Shorts makes sense knowing that Shorts bring in views and subscribers (for short form content) but they won't necessary watch any of your long form content.

[@Justin_Hikes]

@@JevenDovey thanks so much for the detailed reply. It's really appreciated. Cheers!

[@TheStormwindGuard]

Ah some the numbers came back. So glad to hear it! On the fence for doing the same because I've had the same drop on two channels now after using shorts@@JevenDovey

[@BadBocher]

Unfortunately, the majority people, these days, don't have the zeitgeist to watch (or read) anything longer than 1 minute long. I've gone out of my way several times to create amazing videos that were 2-7 minutes long and the viewership average 50-100, whilst my "Shorts" have hit 21k plus.

[@Thekraken3]

Yes people are loosing the attention span drastically

[@NorwegianXplorer]

Yep, I experienced exactly the same, deleted all my shorts and everything went back to normal. No shorts for me!

[@GloriousPTDarts]

I'm interested, when you had shorts, do you think the quality of your long form views increased? Better retention, things like that?

[@NorwegianXplorer]

@@GloriousPTDarts No, it went down, probably because it pulled in a little bit of the shorts audience, and they watch long form content shorter as well. All my numbers suffered when I had shorts. I got a lot of viewers from regions of the world that I do not really want to target.

[@dronyland]

I started my channel a few year ago only, and some people said I should start making shorts as well, because people were craving those lately, and that was the new "fashion". I am glad I didn't do it though. Instead, I have some ideas for starting a separate channel just with shorts. Great video and info Jeven !

[@Bubbabop]

Posting two shorts 10 days ago has hugely negatively impacted the views on my long form videos. Deleted them, now wondering how I’ll ever get the channel back to what it was 😢

[@AndreSjoberg]

Good run down on the scenario here :) A quick thought: could it be that it's not necessarily the shorts themselves, but the content *in* them, that might cause the drop in long form views? If the short gives "too much info away", as in "presents the content from a long form video in 1 minute or less" it would maybe make it less interesting for many viewers to watch the longer version of that video. A short that leaves the viewer hanging on the other hand ... just like a good hook of long form video, could increase the views coming from shorts, instead of the shorts being their own "complete" little story - so it could be it's not about *if* using shorts or not is right thing for a channel, but *how* they are used to hook new, and existing, viewers? Personally, I think it would be great if KZbin gave both creators and viewers a bit more options for what goes on in the feed, but of course "they know best" - but if a creator could set f.ex shorts to only show up for non-subscribers of the channel it would be easier to use shorts for "marketing" of the channel to new viewers while not "bothering" the hardcore crowd. Same for users - If a creator is constantly pushing out shorts that are repurposed from their long form content, and I usually watch all their long form content, for me having the ability to filter out shorts on a per creator basis would be great - the way things are now my feed is filling up with shorts from videos I've seen already in long form and it's keeping me from seeing new shorts I haven't seen, from creators I might not know about yet.

[@M.A.D.C.J]

I don’t think shorts should’ve been created at all on KZbin

[@AndreSjoberg]

@@M.A.D.C.J there isn’t inherently anything wrong with shorts, as long as they don’t force ut down our throats like they do now - for some creators it might even be a good way to promote long form, it’s just a pain having to be KZbin’s lab rat while they figure it out :)

[@AloneRacecar]

Very interesting insight within this video. It should help those who are to be aware of the YT Shorts. However I am glad that you know that every content creator here goes through a different journey when it comes to building their channel (including myself), I mean hey I’ve seen channels that have done well with either or. Especially when I tip my hat when I see someone doing well with balancing both regular videos and shorts. Now then… here’s the part where I become the black sheep from everyone. I actually do like YT Shorts because they are handy for when you are out and about especially when you don’t have time to settle down for a long 20 minute video. And they are great for content creators who are just looking to have fun and entertain everyone or a quick fix for the sake of viewership. Oh! And I also like how you pretty much have a large selection of songs to choose from without getting copyright issues for your shorts (most of the time). Now I am aware that Shorts aren’t that profitable and can be a potential problem when the Shorts start to “take over” the important parts the business side of one’s channel. For me personally this isn’t going to stop me for what I upload to my channel(s), but I would at best be aware of it. Of course at the state I am at, I just wan to have fun with the content I make while getting better at my craft. Either that be Shorts or regular videos. But hey when that time comes around when my channel becomes more relevant, I’m sure that I’ll make a decision on what’s best for me. 👍 However I know that I don’t want my shorts to dominate everything.

[@TexasSurplusPro]

It felt like a deceptive push to get us to produce shorts and that it would help us grow. I noticed exactly what you saw. I traded my long form viewers for shorts feed viewers. I’ll likely divide my content if I decide to continue making shorts..

[@MoreStephanieHarford]

Thank you for sharing this! I'm struggling regretting posting shorts before I started posting long form consistently. I still get views from my shorts but I'm realizing my audience is mainly from the shorts and my long form audience is much smaller. So I'm getting ignored by a big portion of my audience who only cared for the shorts. I have nearly 16k subscribers that happened after a short went viral, but my long form videos barely get anything. Now I'm trying to figure out how to fix this issue so I don't get shown so much to the wrong audience!! Ugh.. Do I delete the shorts and just wait for the algorithm to pick up on it or what? ahhh so frustrating.I revived a dead channel but changed niches too. I'm debating starting a new channel to get rid of all this bad data on my channel but I worked so hard for the last 8 months to grow and over halfway to my 4k watch hours within the year.. ugh

[@Premier_lawns_official]

I'm so glad I watched this, I did a lot of shorts this year (I did close to 30 in one month in the spring) and made some long-form videos that should have popped and didn't that had me scratching my head at the time. I was ready to scrap the shorts then a couple of long-form videos popped and got massive views and that made me think maybe shorts aren't so bad after all I have been toying with the idea of a second channel for a while now and I think this video will push that ahead.

[@perry.playss]

I think once KZbin figures out how creators can generate more ad revenue from shorts creators will no longer complain because let’s face it shorts ain’t going anywhere and it’s likely that long form will tank significantly within the next 10 years.

[@KenCoCreates]

Thank you for sharing I will be changing my shorts too into another channel. This probably saved me my KZbin future

[@TheAlvatorreGarden]

Its interesting this came up when it did. Im very active on Tiktok and I repurpose my short form vids here on youtube. But lately Tiktok has felt like wasted effort. This morning I was thinking of shifting my time and effort to long form youtube videos. Which I feel has more potential in the long run. Thank you for this video

[@theredonechannel]

Wow, caught this video just in time as I was just about to post my first shorts video lol. As a small channel, I feel like I don't really know what is right or wrong to grow but this video definitely help me make my decision. Thank you!

[@Priscillia_aforah]

Mine is quiet the opposite tho. Before now I hardly get people watch my videos but most shorts I’ve created has added to my subscribers and made people watch my long form content. I just started my channel 2months ago

[@JeffreyTadlockPhotography]

Thanks for the video. I had been adding in Shorts and while I do enjoy them, I wasn't sure if they were really helping me. I might put a pause on doing YT Shorts for now as we see how things sort themselves out.

[@GloriousPTDarts]

2 things spring to mind. 1) The people watching shorts were likely not going to be a quality viewer of your long form anyway and vice versa. If somebody starts watching long form and thinks 'meh' after 30 seconds or so then yes, you've got the view, but your retention is going to suck. Surely the people who tune in for the long form are naturally going to stay watching for longer so your views may go down but the quality of that view is so much better. They're bought in to your content and are much more likely to convert if you come to ask something of them. 2) Relying on ad revenue is a fools errand. Things change at the drop a hat. If your model is to rely on ad revenue to make a living then you're only just keeping your head above water at all times. Surely you want ro convert your views into some kind of affiliate links, patreon subscription etc. type model instead of relying on the volatile nature of ads? On paper, I'd rather have a smaller, more dedicated group of long form viewers than a larger, half pregnant group. If those less likely to watch long form are actually happier on short form, I'd rather keep them watching the short form instead of losing them altogether. Surely this is more of an argument about how well you can convert both sets of people.

[@AdventureTravelandScuba]

I just started doing shorts this year and my youtube revenue dropped by half on small channel nearly in half, so I will not make them anymore.

[@jjsadv]

Correct, they do.. I usually unsubscribe from channels that post shorts on long form channel’s all the time..

[@Mr_jae7]

How do I fix this problem? Make new channel or private all the shorts and focus on long form ? Plss reply I need this answer so bad ☹️

[@aroundnorth]

I have not seen a short you made and i prefer look at longer content like this, great video and keep up the great work. :)

[@rafterscott]

Thank you for posting this, I've been wondering something like this for some of my other channels. I appreciate this vid.

[@DistractionFuel]

My long form content gets seen by basically no one, no matter if shorts are a thing or not (I may as well be posting dead letters to myself for all the work I put into them) while I can see this might becoming a problem down the track, for now shorts are an absolute godsend.

[@TheTrampsWorld]

Good video Jeven, I'm a 2 yr old monetized long form small channel & i've been on a +45% growth track each year. I only pop 6 or 7 shorts monthly because I feel i have to. But my analytics are just wacky & my audience stats are all over the place. Overall views are still good but revenue is down. So now i'll concentrate on improving quality of long form while also reducing length of video.

[@livingworkingoutsidebox]

Some really good points. 👍 Now that they cut or blocked linking for websites and affiliate programs links these shorts are cannibalizing long-form channels!👍🤔💰🎥🎬🤯😭😱 What I'm seeing is affiliate marketers are putting short memorable websites as text in the shorts. Thank you for pointing out creators should be looking at the business side. 👍

[@AgentBlackCrow]

Personally I wish there was a way on YT to filter out shorts. Don’t watch them but my feed is swamped with them.

[@YinTeing1]

Yes, Shorts hurt my channel too. Initially views on long form were up but after a few weeks the views on long form start to drop drastically. There are some channels that amass huge number of subscribers thru shorts, who would move to their long form. These are mostly entertaiment channels. I found a couple of dog skits channels via Shorts. And I will always watch their long form content ...their long form content usually consist of a vertical video but more than 1 minute. Often less than 2 minutes. I thought this is genius. However education channels, I usually would skip thru their Shorts if it appears in my feed but would watch only their long form videos.

[@M.A.D.C.J]

Yes I have a friend who got to 20K because of shorts and now is doing good long form, but that’s all he was doing for a while, it defs shoots you up there, but for us who maybe have multiple niches I think it hurts us

[@YinTeing1]

@@M.A.D.C.J yep I can say from experience it is bad idea to have multiple niches (especially not related to one another) in a single channel...it would be hard to grow even on long form alone. But then, the content is to mainly compliment my multiple blogs so I am okay with it.

[@jongho.finance_made_easy]

what would you advise for people who already tried to experiment with shorts and now is looking to focus more on long form content? Start new or just delete all of the shorts on the channel? Or just keep posting long form content and stop posting shorts on the channel? Curious to hear what you think

[@bestyonko]

I deleted all my shorts, reply to me after 2 weeks if you want to know the results

[@OnlineMoneyGoals]

​@@bestyonkowhat happened after deleting?

[@fafcast]

This is terrible.. a channel with almost a million subs is getting 10k views after a week... kinda hits home his point

[@jackhmchang]

Thanks Jeven for sharing these insights!

[@sang-media]

I love that video giving us more insight into shorts and if it is beneficial to implement. I think it comes down to what stage or phase you are in in your youtube career. For my channel, I am very much in the infancy period under 1000 subscribers. I've been trying to focus on long form understanding that the monetization is in the long form. My plan is to tackle the short form content to focus more on the growth and once I've hit X amount of audience member then focus on long form. I will still be trying to do both.

[@AnandaGarden]

I hate shorts, not because of the content but the format - it sucks! Vertical videos, hectic pace, and above all the way KZbin has chosen to uglify my subscription page with those horizontal layouts of ugly vertical videos. When I scroll past the lineup of shorts the page jumps weirdly, and I hate the lack of controls and the hidden comment threads. I subscribe to 135+ channels, and there is just one of them whose short content I will watch - she's a spiritual teacher whose words ring with truth. I would watch more shorts if they were in horizontal format and laid out with the rest of the vids in my feed.

[@md168]

Very nice sharing.. learned a lot from you! Now I might change something to focus on my main channel and not the shorts mixed up so much ! Thank you…

[@AdventuresInDirt]

Interesting ... I know a lot of KZbinrs in the same place with the same questions... did your long form impressions stay the same as shorts vanity metrics increased and long form views dropped or did the impressions drop also?

[@tobias-steinert]

I'm also unsure about Shorts. I tried it now on 2 channels. I think it really depends on the niche. Some long form niches will just die and you have to adapt or your channel will die.

[@shonvibes]

You are GREAT. The breakdown of this info is so on point. Thank you.

[@BabylonBaller]

I can attest to the fact that posting shorts will kill your long-form content channel. I've noticed this several times on my DJ music channel that gets over 2 million views per month. The moment I tried posting shorts it was as if I posted a horribly performing long form video. The algorithm stops pushing almost all of the good performing videos on my entire channel. It was nearly instant and very noticeable. That's when it became clear that shorts are absolute poison if most of your channel was built on long-form content.

[@stlalexrussi]

I have also heard mixed results bout doing shorts/longs on the same channel. Have yet to put out a single short but might try uploading 2-3 soon to see how they do.

[@VictorandMJ]

Thank you for a great information! We've tried shorts for 30days and thanks God that nothing really took off, so we gave up on them. Back to long term videos!😀

[@understandablepodcast]

Thanks for sharing that! Super on spot.

[@Lethandro1]

Could it make sense to create a second channel where from the long videos from the main channel, recycle unique shorts are published? This way you would keep the channels separate, where each channel has its own algorithm and the statistics don't mix. But still has the same style and theme.

[@MarkusSenior]

Interesting analysis. Thanks for sharing. Cheers from LA.