What Are YouTube Shorts And Why You Should Create Them NOW

Welcome, welcome. Just got to get my camera. Am I here? Here I am. Welcome to YouTube Shorts training today on why you should know about them and why you should create them. Uh, just kind of figure out what's going on with the camera. So here, give me one second and we'll make sure that we're on our video. Logitech, here we go. There we go. I think I just didn't do that in advance. Welcome, welcome. Glad to have you here. So that's proof right there that things don't always go 100% smoothly. I know a lot of you course creators, content, aspiring content producers, coaches and consultants get really caught up in your sense of perfectionism when it comes to creating content. Listen, I think we all want things to go 100% smoothly all the time, and it doesn't always happen that way. And it's okay. So there you go. There's some proof. For you today. So let's get started. I want to talk about YouTube Shorts, and let me tell you a little story first before we get into this. As of 4 days ago, I didn't even know about Shorts. I had no idea what Shorts were. And so it's been a bit of an education for me, and I feel like my responsibility as a video strategist and someone who I hope you would come to for advice on how to grow your business online with video I feel like my responsibility is to, to dig into these things on your behalf, and then what I learn, I bring to you. And that's really what today's training is all about— what I've learned so far. I'm continuing to learn. I think we should all be lifelong learners. And what I've learned, I'm going to share with you today, and we're going to work through this together. I think this is a massive opportunity for you to get more subscribers, to grow your audience, and to be able to really build your tribe. So today we're going to talk about what are YouTube Shorts, why you should really think about creating them. Welcome if you're watching live on YouTube. If you're watching on LinkedIn Live, glad to have you here. If you're watching on Facebook or Periscope, I'm using Restream today to broadcast and multistream this training out to all of those platforms at the same time. And if you're interested to know more about Restream and start your own Restream, you can use the link that I'm going to put in the chat here and below this video. So be, you know, certainly give that a try if you are interested to know more about Restream and how this is all happening at the same time. So great to have you here. My name is Sheryl Plouffe. I am a video strategist, former national TV broadcaster based in Canada, and I have done, get this, over 20,000 hours of live TV broadcasting over the course of my career. But now What I'm doing is helping you, the entrepreneur, the small business owner, to get the visibility and the exposure that you need in order to grow your business. I do this through coaching and training. We also do virtual video production, and we have a host of free resources that we can offer you. And so if you're interested to know more about how we help people and you just want to know, it's like, hey, I've never heard of you before, I'd love to know more about what it is that, that you do. You can certainly email our team at community@sherylplouffe.com and just say, hey, I saw Sheryl talking about YouTube Shorts. What are the other resources that you have? And then our community manager will be able to direct you to the proper free resources because we have a lot of them. We do a lot of different things every week, including free weekly trainings on Wednesdays at 3 PM. I do a free weekly training on a different tactic or resource or strategy. Zoom.cashinoncamera.com is where you can go to register for that. I suspect we're going to have more discussion about YouTube Shorts in the coming weeks and months, likely. So be sure to register for that. It's absolutely free. Every single week on Wednesday, I dedicate time to helping you with a different tool demonstration, tactic, strategy, and it's also Q&A. So do take advantage of those different resources. So let's get into today's topic. We're talking about YouTube Shorts, you know. So what are YouTube Shorts? Uh, in essence, what it is is these are short— hence the name YouTube Shorts— are short. They're 60 seconds long max. It cannot be more than 60 seconds long. And here's what's interesting about YouTube Shorts, and I'll tell you my theory of, look, why this is all happening and the opportunity for you as well. They're short videos, 60 seconds or less, and they're vertical. I know, right? Vertical. How many times— and those of you who have been like looking at YouTube video channels or trying to grow your channel or thinking of growing a channel, you know that we've all been always talked about YouTube as being landscape format video. We don't want to see the black bars on the side. You've heard me say that over the last many years as well. But now things are changing. Why? Why would YouTube say, yeah, sure, upload vertical and square, by the way, square or vertical videos to our platform, which has traditionally always been landscape? Here's why. And let me know if you have questions, please let me know in the chat. Happy to answer your questions today. The reason why is because platforms like TikTok have taken a lion's share of a pie that they don't want to give up. Instagram Reels has also given a little bit of a run for the money too, right? These are mobile vertical video platforms that are taking too much of the pie. So I think what's happening is that YouTube is saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, let's reel it back. What can we do to gain that back? We don't want our people on YouTube— their job— YouTube wants to bring people to YouTube and keep them there. And creators who are doing that successfully to help YouTube do that are being rewarded by getting more reach and getting their videos in front of more people, hence the algorithm. So That's what YouTube wants to do is bring people to the platform and keep them there. When they see all the people, billions of people using Instagram Reels and TikTok, they get a little nervous. So that's why they're implementing this. So here's the thing. As of the recording of this video, it is in beta mode, meaning they're testing this. They've been testing this and actually this platform has been launched and been— I don't know the details of this, but it's been in India. For a while. Now it's starting to creep into this marketplace, and it's in beta mode. So what's going to happen eventually is that YouTube is going to release, um, a content creator camera, uh, just like, like an interface, just like you see— well, not just like, but similar to what you see on TikTok and Instagram, where you have these 15-second blocks, you know, and that you can create, actually create the content through their their creator app or camera. That isn't the case just yet. So what YouTube is saying is, hey creators, create 60-second or less videos. And there's some indication— I've heard people say that 58 seconds is ideal, just to give a little bit of a buffer. 60-second or less videos, create them and upload them to your channel, but put the hashtag #shorts in the title. And that's what— that's how our um, algorithm— not algorithm, but the, um, the system will be able to identify that that's a Short. I think they already know by virtue of the fact that the video is short, but if you put the hashtag #Shorts in the title of the video— and there's some indication that if you do it both in the title and in the description, that you're really covering all of your bases to let YouTube know this is a Short, this is a Short— because they're treating them differently. They're They're testing it. It's in beta mode, right? So that's— I've created 2 so far. I have to admit that I haven't created a ton of them yet. I've created 2 and I'll share with you the results that I've gotten from them so far. I've created 2. I've also created a video that I did and I'll link to it here in the cards on this video of 10 ideas, different YouTube Shorts ideas that you can use for business. So be sure to check that video out after, after today's training as well. So it's in beta mode, 60 seconds or less. Vertical or square uploads, and you upload them just like you would any normal— any other type of video on your channel. One thing that I think could be helpful if you have an existing channel is to potentially create a playlist that will house only your Shorts. It will help people to go if they want to just watch that short-form, 1-minute content in a playlist format. That would be a way to categorize that to the benefit of your subscribers. So that's something to think about as well. So what it is, is if you want to see an example of Shorts, um, I don't think I have my phone nearby here. If you want to see an example of Shorts, what you'll do is you'll get your phone and you'll go to— it doesn't matter, any, any video on YouTube. Just go into watch a video on YouTube, and in the mobile platform, if you scroll down a little bit, you'll see that there's a little carousel of vertical videos in a line, like in a carousel, one after the other. And it will say on the top whether it's YouTube Stories, not to be confused with YouTube Shorts. YouTube Stories are a completely separate thing. YouTube Shorts are their own little carousel, and when you click it, that's when you're in the YouTube Shorts world. And you can start to— just like TikTok, just like Instagram Reels, you, you swipe up and you can watch a variety of different YouTube Shorts. You're in that carousel and you can see some examples of that. Let me give you an example. I think I can share my screen here. Um, let's just show you an ex— oh, actually, hang on a second. I'll show you an example. I think if I go like this, application window, Chrome tab, there we go. So here's an example of one. This is Ali Abdal and He created a playlist. Obviously, you know, it's newer to him, at least the playlist is. Ali has, I don't know how many subscribers. In fact, let's just go check that out. Oh, 1.28 million subscribers he has. So if we go over to our playlists, you can see that he's created a Shorts playlist. So we're going to go here and, and the video, it's called Upgrading My Productivity Desk Setup 2020. Let's just click on it. You can see it's 56 seconds long and it's in vertical format. So let's take a look. He uploaded this on November 25th and it has 184,000, almost 185,000 views so far. This is 56 seconds long. It's a good little video. It shows a time lapse in this case. I think this follows suit with the behind the scenes actions, like I was saying in my video of the 10 different ideas that you can use for business. And it's a great little video and it shows a productivity desk setup. Now mind you, he has over a million subscribers, so that's going to definitely help the views in and of itself, but it's just an example of, of what, you know, is possible and what you can do. This is just one example. When you get into, um, here, let me just go here. When you get into your mobile device and you start looking— let me just make sure I pause that so it doesn't Distract, close that window out. There we go. Um, when you start going through, you'll see examples of that. So just take a look, you know, what are some people doing, and get some, get some, some ideas for yourself. So, so Shorts, um, the shelf is a mobile thing. This is not something that you see on desktop. If you want to see short examples of YouTube Shorts examples on, on your desktop, you'd be doing it similar to what I'm doing here, right? So let's just go and take a look at one more example. I'm going to go over here to this Chrome tab here, and this is a, a creator. His name is Rishi Draws, and he has 161,000 subscribers on this channel. You can see that he's created a, uh, Shorts tutorials, you know, like a list, a playlist, and he has a variety of different ones as opposed to Ali, who had the one in the playlist, he's got a whole bunch of them and some of them are great. Like, I just love it. There's one in particular, this one here, which I saw in my feed. We'll have to just watch this after the ad, but you can see it has over 1.5 million views so far. It was only uploaded less than a month ago. So, and here you see an example of it. So he's giving a quick tip, you know, What I love about how he did this is that he's recording the iPad. So he has the iPad down. It's nice and stable in this case. I think that's great. And he's just going through and showing a little bit of a tip. Now, one thing I would say about these types of videos is that you want to be careful that you're not doing long-form tutorials. Long-form tutorials don't work on YouTube Shorts because they're short. So you do want to be careful. Of that. But I think these quick tips and tools of the trade type of things definitely do work in the YouTube Shorts format. Like I said, I have, you know, 9 other ideas that you can use as a business owner and how you might utilize YouTube Shorts. So just a reminder, if you are interested and want to know more about our trainings, you know, we have a variety of different— hello, I see all your comments here. I'm going to go back. Hi from Newfoundland. Hi, Andre, nice to see you. So helpful. Dr. Liddy, how are you? Great to have you. This is different. Yes, it is. It's also different for me to do it on a Saturday, henceforth the hair. Uh, cool information. Can we SEO keyword these videos to show up only to people in my city within YouTube? Um, not that I, I don't know that you can run ads necessarily and target that way with YouTube Shorts. I don't think I know enough about it yet to be able to, to really truthfully answer that question. What I'm really looking at is more from the perspective of you know, as a, as a creator, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, should you be really looking at this tool as this form of content as a way to get more subscribers? And so like, this dovetails perfectly into this part of the conversation. If you want more resources to grow your business, just email community@sherylplouffe.com and we'll be able to sort out, you know, what business are you in, what stage are you at, here's a great free resource. We'll kind of set you up with what you need there, just so you know. And also, if you are interested just to out and out, register for our free trainings. Go to zoom.cashingoncamera.com. We have free weekly live trainings there, different tools and tactics. Many of them come from you, so I would love to see you there. So just so you know. Okay, so what I'm going to, um, to share with you is— let's, let's talk about money. You know, there it is, Cash In On Camera. See, I will see Cash In On Camera. So how does this make you money, you might be asking You're like, okay, great, YouTube Shorts sounds like a cool idea, but how does it help me make money? It's all about expanding your reach and building your audience and getting subscribers, people who are putting their hand up and saying, I'm interested in you, your topic, your value proposition, I'm interested in your channel. What's great about the YouTube shelf, when you go on the mobile and you look at those carousels and you see all of the different videos, when you see them, you'll see that there's a subscribe button right on the bottom of the video. And so it's really helping to drive those subscriberships. If people see— your audience sees a short minute video that's providing a ton of value. And by the way, these YouTube Shorts need to be standalone content. These are not teasers, these are not promos, these are not selling anything. These are value-driven standalone pieces of content. And if they like what they see and hear, then they're likely going to hit subscribe. The subscribe button is overtly right there. And so that's where I think the benefit of this is for you as the business owner, right? This isn't, I think, at this stage, a monetization thing. This is more of an audience-building activity that you can be using. And, and, and I think that it's— that's, that's the benefit of it. So right now, what's cool is that YouTube is introducing this to creators. It's opportunity for you to get more subscribers. And like I said, not long-form tutorials, but you can do quick tips and some other things. And again, I'll link to it, to the video that I did in the cards here. So let's talk about why you should create them. Why should you even consider creating these, these YouTube Shorts? Like, what would be the— what's the point of doing that? Well, it can get more subscribers more quickly. In my opinion. And the other thing is that these YouTube Shorts are driven by the algorithm. There isn't— it's not like on TikTok where you can be strategic about the hashtags you use, and with the only exception of the hashtag #shorts right now, especially in the beta mode. But it's— this isn't a strategy around if I use the right hashtags, I'll be able to get— it's more the algorithm makes those decisions and decides which ones they're going to bring to the forefront. Um, I have two that I've done so far, and neither of them have done gangbusters yet, but I'm patient. So I think that's where you have to be, is you have to be thinking about this is like a long-term, you know, commitment. It's, it's like, maybe I'm gonna try this for like a month, two months, three months, and let's see what happens. But there is evidence of videos that blow up. The algorithm says, yep, let's push this. And all this— or sometimes you see in the analytics it'll be flat, flat, flat for 2 weeks, and then it goes like that. So there are instances where that's happening. So it's a way to get more subscribers quickly, especially for you new creators, uh, those of you who just came through my Cash In On YouTube course to get you to your first 1,000 subscribers. You know, you have newer channels. This is a great strategy to increase that and get to your first 1,000 subscribers as quickly as possible. Um, it's about expert positioning as well. It's also about visibility and exposure and getting in front of more people, right? It's just like that visibility factor. Getting in front of more people is the name of the game. We live in the attention economy and content is the currency, right? So you want to get in front of more people, um, and more visibility, more exposure, but also taking advantage of the fact that we're in the early adopter stage of this. This is early stage. That's why I'm doing this almost as an urgent training as opposed to waiting a week. I'm like, I can't wait a week, I have to let you know ASAP what this is all about, right? Um, it doesn't also have to be fancy necessarily. It doesn't have to be fancy. So you can do these with your phone, you can produce these with your phone, you can produce these with apps. You certainly can produce vertical videos on your desktop as well, but I think that in order to be the most efficient, having— doing this on your phone would be great, um, with, with the apps that I use and recommend. Again, you know, get in touch with community@sherylplouffe.com if you're— any of this is interest— of interest to you. You're like, oh, wait a minute, I didn't know you had a course, or what. We can have conversations and see if that's the right fit for you, by the way. But, um, what's interesting too is that you may, may want to think about creating YouTube Shorts and maybe even repurposing them to TikTok or to Instagram Reels. That could be a strategy that you might also want to think about. So welcome to those of you who are watching, by the way. If you're new to me, my name is Sheryl Plouffe. I'm a video strategist and I help offline authorities build their business online with video. If you want to know more about me, you can just go to SherylPlouffe.com. Where are we here? Go to SherylPlouffe.com and you'll be able to find out more about me, or you can just email community@sherylplouffe.com and we'll set you up and get you where you need to be. I'm also on Facebook and, you know, Instagram and all of that. So you can certainly find me in all of those different places. So it doesn't have to be fancy, and you can even think about repurposing. The thing that I would say though, in terms of repurposing from TikTok, and we're seeing a lot of that right now where people are taking their TikTok videos and repurposing them to YouTube Shorts. I'm not as fond of that strategy because I think that the YouTube algorithm, especially the YouTube Shorts algorithm, is way likely already way too smart, and it will be able to, if not now, soon, recognize when videos are being repurposed from TikTok to YouTube. And I think that could be like a no-no. So I, I would say that taking the approach of creating original content for YouTube Shorts And if there is a repurposing play in here, it might be from YouTube Shorts to TikTok or to Reels in that order, as opposed to the other way around. So I'm gonna come into the chat. Let's talk about the questions that you have. Okay. So, and I'd love to know, is, are with a yes or a no, do you see yourself creating Shorts or don't you see yourself creating Shorts? Do you see value in it? Type yes. If you don't see value in it, type no. Cool information. Okay, yes, Saturday is different, especially at 6 PM in London, England. Great to have you here. Excellent advice. I had to film numerous YouTube Shorts. Thank you. Good afternoon. Happy Saturday. Great to see you, Dee. I see a yes. I'm going to take some water while you type in. If you see value in this, type yes. If you don't see value in this, type no. I'm going to start some questions and answers. And tell you that I've created 2 of them so far. I do plan to create more. I do plan to take my own advice and do my full list of 10. So, you know, Tools of the Trade, Mythbusting, BTS, um, watch the video and I go through 10 different ones. But I'm planning to do that. I'm actually thinking of taking a group of you along with me for the ride. So if you're interested and want to know you know, how we can do that and help each other, just email community@sherylplouffe.com, and we'd be happy to, uh, to set you up with that training if we get that pulled together, which is our intent. So just go to community@sherylplouffe.com and say, hey, if Sheryl's doing a half-day training on how to create these YouTube Shorts, let me know because I'm interested in taking part in that. Community@sherylplouffe.com, and we'll make a note of that and get you set up. Okay, all right, so let's go back to the chat. Watching from Canada. Awesome. Are there stickers and embellishments? Well, here's the thing. There are, there are. Who asked this question? Mona. Hi, Mona. Right now, because it's in beta mode, you as the creator are being charged to create the video yourself. Okay, and so yes, if you're using an app like InShot as an example, they've got beautiful stickers. So that would be a great way to, to do that. I think that would be a lot of fun actually. So I think that depending on the apps that you choose to use, if you go that route, if you're going to produce it on your phone, you can definitely use apps to create that type of effect. Once it gets to the point where Um, once it gets to the point where YouTube releases their own app to create the videos like, like TikTok and like Instagram, my suspicion is that there will be. Because not only me, but other, other, um, marketers and video people believe that this is obviously going to be like a full-on play, like game on against TikTok and Instagram Reels. And if you look at what that format is, it does involve stickers and all of that. So I suspect the content creator, once it comes out to everyone, will have that. So great question. Um, watching from Canada. Who sees these Shorts? Is it random? So it's based on the algorithm. Is my understanding is that there's a separate algorithm for Shorts, okay? And the algorithm is looking at, you know, what the content is. Here's the thing, the those algorithms are so smart. They can identify, you know, there's AI, artificial intelligence, built in. It's able to identify what these videos are and, and be able to make determination of like where are we putting it and to whom, right? So yes, in the sense random, uh, in that you don't really have control over who sees those Shorts. It's not a kind of thing where you can say I want this to be seen by this type of person in this location and not in another. That's not where it's at right now. Um, yes, short sounds like a capital idea. I love that. Um, I did your, uh, shorts yesterday, YouTube. Okay, great. So, so this is an exciting opportunity to get out there and create short-form content. Another advantage of creating short-form content, and I will say this is not necessarily easy. Even though they're short, what this allows you to do is potentially create maybe more content in the same amount of time. But creating short videos isn't necessarily easier, and, and it does need to be strategic from a production perspective and also from a topic perspective. So I think there's a lot to be said for creating effective 1-minute videos. You know, I, again, when I'm thinking about entrepreneurship, small business, what are the types of videos? I'll link to the video, um, in this, in this, um, in the cards and also in the description to watch that, because I think that there are certain styles of videos, 1-minute videos, that might not do as well for business owners. And I talk about that at the end of the video as well, you know. So joined late. How long are the Shorts? So Mona, they are less than 60 seconds. Vertical or square format, not landscape, which is contrary to what we've learned and have been accustomed to all these years on YouTube. So that's what's interesting. And if you missed the beginning of it, it's because they're going toe-to-toe with TikTok and they want to get that market share back. And I think that YouTube is going to do everything in its power, and here's the— to, to do that. And here's where it comes into play for us as creators. We can use this opportunity to, to be able to, you know, create this type of content and increase our subscribership in a very, very fast way. I'm going to be working on this myself full bore, working on this over the next 2-3 months at least, just to kind of gauge and see where things are at. I will be looking for a small group of people who want to join me in that journey. So if you're interested to know more about what that looks like, or you're like, hey, I want to join you when you do it, Email community@sherylplouffe.com and just say, hey, I heard Sheryl said she might be bringing a group of people together to create these Shorts and take advantage of this opportunity, and I want in on that. Just tell her that and she will be able to make a note. All right. So I hope that's helpful. This is, again, like I said, an opportunity to really increase, especially if you're a newer creator, you are an aspiring creator, an aspiring YouTube channel creator. You have a small channel right now and you need to get those subscribers up to 1,000 fast, this would be a great place to put some effort and put some energy into creating these Shorts and take advantage of the new opportunity that's happening on YouTube. So thank you so much for being here with me today. Make sure that you watch the next video in the series, which is 10 YouTube Shorts Ideas for Business. I thank you so much for being here today, and I will see you in the next one, maybe even on the Wednesday trainings. So be sure to register for that as well. The links are below. Have a great day. Bye for now.