We live in a world of clone products. What that means is that when one novel format takes off on social media, you can bet other platforms will follow suit with their own incarnations. See everyone's iteration of Clubhouse as a prime example.
But when it comes to the short video format, TikTok had that idea nailed from the start. Meta came along with Instagram Reels, and YouTube booted up Shorts - though the latter is often overlooked in the conversation. But the engagement rate in YouTube Shorts is nothing to sneer at.
Colin and Samir run a YouTube channel with 848k subscribers. Over on their newsletter The Publish Press, the duo detail how YouTube Shorts has been a power play in their strategy. In Q1 of 2022, Shorts were the largest subscriber growth driver, bringing in over 111,000 subscribers, accounting for 61 per cent of the quarter’s subscriber growth and 86 per cent of channel views.
Check out the full piece if you want to learn how they played around with the loops, video length and "prop alignment" to achieve these numbers.
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