Are YouTube Shorts worth it?

How to YouTube #48

I get asked a lot about Shorts.

Not my stripey Uniqlo ones (as classy as they are).

YouTube Shorts.

Should you make them? Are they worthwhile for your channel? How do you make them well?

Well, over 2 years ago, I scripted 50+ Shorts while working for Ali, which generated 30m+ views over 6 months.

And I wrote most of them around the time ChatGPT was released so I was hand-writing those bad boys.

Pure, old-fashioned scripting.

At the end of that 6 month period, I wrote a tweet about my learnings. The summary was:

1. For most YouTubers, Shorts aren’t worth it.

2. They can be a valuable way to share information.

3. Swipe through rate x average view duration = virality.

For the most part, I stand by these statements.

Despite 30m+ views and over 100,000 subscribers in 6 months directly from the Shorts, there was this feeling of “so what?”

Yes, brand awareness is always helpful, and yes, some new viewers converted to long form, but neither of these were the primary business goal.

Revenue was.

So we asked the question, is this worth the time, money and effort we’re investing?

For Ali, it was a maybe. He did have lots of money and time (because he had a team) to invest.

Still not a resounding yes though. Because every project comes with the opportunity cost of doing something else that’s more impactful for the business.

For you, I’m confident it’s a no.

In a dream world, of course we would post Shorts on our channel.

But we can’t do everything.

So we have to choose, what is worth doing?

What is the best way to invest our limited time, energy and money to hit our goal as quickly as possible?

That’s the most important question.

And if your goal is building a business around your channel, then Shorts are not high on the priority list.

• ~60%+ of Shorts viewers won’t convert to long form.

• Shorts viewers are less likely to buy products long term.

• They spend less time watching your stuff.

• They have shorter attention spans.

• They learn less than from watching long form content.

Don’t get me wrong, Shorts have their place.

But in your likely solopreneur YouTube business, there are many to-do list items that are more needle moving.

And even in a world where AI can clip up your videos into Shorts in a heartbeat, any time spent thinking, worrying and planning Shorts is time you could have spent actually building the business or improving your long form content.

Be careful out there, focus is a scarce resource.

Tintin 🫡

P.s.

I run a coaching programme helping educational YouTubers build $100k businesses around their channels.

If you’re interested in joining the next cohort, you can join the waitlist by filling out this form here.

And if you have any questions about it feel free to reply to this email :)