How YouTube SHORTS will DESTROY Your Channel (beware) 

hey bro bcz of you I got 3k followers on Instagram in just 15 days. I just want to say thank you for your free information.

Shorts still work really great for me on my second channel. I mean, I am just small content creator and I work really hard (I also use a little bit of fame ster, but that's a necessity nowadays). I just give all my videos small initial boost, and that caused them to spread literally everywhere, bringing more and more organic views day after day

Hey so I’m gonna add in my two cents. I started my channel approx 5ish months ago and have 75k subs largely due to the success of my shorts. I feel like for many people it can be the case that they won’t experience the most insane long form growth whilst also doing shorts. That being said, shorts LAUNCHED my channel, and I mean really launched it. In fact, most of my long form views don’t even come from my subs because my shorts audience just doesn’t watch the type of videos I make and they don’t get them recommended. I have also had several thousand of my viewers go from shorts to long form and stay there, I see them in every comment section for each video quite literally. I think the point I’m trying to make here is that yes, shorts can be damaging if you’re just someone people swipe away from and forget about, but if you try to really connect with the audience you build in shorts they WILL stick around and support your longer stuff, even if it’s just a small percentage. So as someone that has had a pretty strong level is success in a niche that was supposedly dead (according to the community im in) I’d say just try and really sell YOU. You are what the viewer should come back for in one way or another. Your uniqueness, your creativity, and style is all exceptionally important and can have strong crossover if you play your cards right. I got a lot to learn especially when it comes to long form, but I know I can do it as long as I keep focused. Great video, I agree people gotta just be a little careful with shorts and act strategically.

NGL it's hella annoying cause I've gained over 1 million subscribers solely from Shorts, and the plan was always to transition solely into long-form but its kinda brutal. Literally shorts subscribers mean nothing when posting long-form content. I know I'll get there but its gonna be a grind.

We've consistently been posting Shorts for 12 months now and have seen no noticeable negative impact on our long-form content - so yes, we do practice what we preach, can't speak on behalf of the other channel's thumbnails you featured ;). It has taken us probably 100 shorts to start getting traction from that side of the content and many of those shorts now function like long-form videos with evergreen views. Yes, we were already a well-established long-form channel and it's probably a little easier to convince that audience to watch shorts as opposed to shifting shorts viewers to long-form. As always each individual channel will chart a different journey and no story, experience or peice of advice is wrong if it's backed up by data. So I don't disagree with what you say or what any other reputable educator says: it's up to the viewer to decide. Our advice: always look to experiment, a channel is not made of glass and doesn't shatter due to one failure. The skills and experience you gain along the way will make you a better creator.

I partially agree with you but I also think shorts is what RU-vid is promoting the most right now. It also TOTALLY depends on the niche. Reaction content for an example converts great from shorts to long form! You just gotta find what works for you and for some people that’s not shorts

this literally happened to me, so glad someone has addressed this

Great advice. We began posting a mix of short styles when shorts began then realized our analytics we skewed and it was impossible to understand where our viewers were watching so we stopped doing shorts and focused on 90 second content as opposed to our traditional 5 minute longs. Big mistake it almost destroyed our channel. Now we do much longer content 8-10 min to get our watch time to exceed our short time and it's helped but a lot of damage has been done that we're still recovering from because of shorts. Thank you for this video.

This is good insight. I am also small content creator with mainly some faceless content, and I started posting bunch of Shorts lately. The thing that worked best for me was giving my videos a initial dose of views and likes on fames ter. This caused them to spread everywhere literally, bringing more and more organic views day after day.

I got over 50% dislikes on one of my shorts videos while most of my long-form videos get 100% likes. Doesn't really encourage me to keep posting shorts. It looks like RU-vid pushes your shorts to people who hate them.

I’m so glad people are starting to make this observation and share their experience. It’s so clear that these are two totally different audiences. My shorts feed has nothing to do with my long form feed on my browse page because I watch different styles of content from each location. I’ve stayed away from posting shorts on my channel for all the reasons you outlined. I don’t see the bridge being formed between the two audiences for some time.

You are absolutely correct. When you say that when other RU-vidrs that push RU-vid shorts, don’t have shorts on their channel. There is a reason and you nailed it. I have two channels, and when I started posting RU-vid shorts on my primary channel initially I pulled in subscribers however, it did not translate into long form content viewers. I have a secondary channel that is commentary-based and from here on out, I do not post RU-vid shorts. They ruined both of my channels and I’m struggling to get them back up to where they were. The only thing that I could recommend is to have a channel dedicated to shorts and a channel dedicated to longform, because you are absolutely correct. The two do not perform well when they’re mixed together.

This makes sense. It's best to keep them both separate. However, if you are considering incorporating Shorts on your main channel, just make sure they align with your brand and themes of your content.

A hack some channels use is to create a separate channel for shorts only. This might help the discoverability, so should not be your main focus if you're trying to do the long-form.

bro it is really hard to understand how this platform works

Definitely could relate to your story man! I’ve been doing RU-vid for the past 7 years uploading relatively consistent longform videos and have had some solid success from that with videos reaching millions of views. I got up to about 50k subs from longform before shorts were even a thing. Recently I had done a stunt at my graduation for a longform youtube vlog and ended up posting the clip of it to tiktok and it went crazy. I obviously posted it to shorts after and it did even better going mega viral getting over 219 million views. I gained a few hundred thousand subscribers from that and my channel exploded in growth. But of course I experienced the same problem you did with most of that audience not really being interested in my other content and my newer stuff not doing as well. I never uploaded the full length vlog of that clip due to the time passing and excessive comments about me posting it too much but still think it might be a smart move to help convert the audience. Regardless, I’m testing out the new feature to link longform videos to shorts and i’ve already seen an increase in views by a bit on some of the linked videos. Curious to see how this feature helps bridge the gap between shorts and longform! Definitely going to focus on making more longform and any shorts I do make, will be somewhat of an ad for the longform videos to drive traffic there possibly! I’m definitely open to suggestions tho!

The answer to this problem is to see your audience as two different sets of people. Shorts viewers and longform viewers. If you get a million subs from your shorts, and then start uploading longforms, you will get lower views on the longforms because you don't have a subscriber base built up from them yet. In your advanced analytics you can see how many people have subbed from longform and from shortform to get an idea where you are at. In short, you have to build your long form and short form subscribers independently even if its on the same channel. Longform people generally watch long, and short generally watch short.

Hey, shorts RU-vidr here, even though most people don't watch my long form videos, I tried to get their attention by making long compilation videos of all my shorts, so that way my shorts viewers can binge and not have to scroll short after short, and they seem to be performing quite well with high average view duration! It even got me some new viewers to my new long form videos that aren't shorts as well!

I believe RU-vid team is aware of this issue, and hopefully they will come up with a solution.

It just feels weird that RU-vid would use only your subscribers as a way to know if the video is good or not. I know many channels that do both shorts and long form and it works amazing for them. Shorts are really working for me so I guess I'll see how it goes

Definitely notice the bit about watch time not being great. After posting shorts daily for a month I can't really see any growth caused by it to my long form videos. I have more Subs because of it but people who watch the shorts clearly are not interested in my long form videos.

If truth be told, the vast majority of people I speak to still feel like Shorts are intrusive and feel out of place on RU-vid. It’s not intuitive to this platform because it was introduced solely as a business decision to compete with Tiktok and not as an organic evolution to the platform or its viewership. I wish RU-vid would just have some conviction and pitch themselves as the long form alternative to TikTok and not just try to compete with every societal update. Just because everyone’s attention span is getting shorter, doesn’t mean every platform should be trying to further accelerate that. Sometimes it’s not about making more money, it’s about doing the right thing and being faithful to a greater vision. RU-vid should be the world leader on long form content. Period. Love your insightful, data driven observations and felt you framed the picture around shorts extremely well.

Thanks a lot for this video! I am starting to reflect and analyze. I got to a point where I got addicted making shorts, to compensate the days I don't upload long form just so my channel get engagement and views while I am busy working on new long form videos. It turns out I might actually developing a bad strategy and habit that could hurt my small channel.

completely agree, i tested this on multiple channels for my own case study, and this effect is especially detrimental to small channels and can kill them fast, even if you do nothing different and have a channel where you upload duplicate cookie cutter content and then suddenly upload shorts, it can essentially prevent you from getting any traction in that previous way, especially if you start out that channel with only shorts then move into longer content, yes it depends on the niche and many other factors, but at the very least in the gaming side of yt content that effect had literally proved itself to me, and it seems making a new channel is the best way to escape the hole that it puts you in.

Yeah I feel You but some content creators do both and it works so I don't know what to personally do now.

Great insights here. Sounds to me like getting into shorts should be a separate channel so I don't mix my audiences. Thanks for saving me some grief down the line!

This is the real info us smaller but earnest channels need to hear from a voice of experience. Thanks for being that voice.

I am starting to realize that my shorts are starting to be a problem. For sake of time, I would create more of them to feed the channel, but my long forms took a step back even if my channel’s purpose is more in the long form realm. Great video.

3:35 You gave me the answer I was looking for.. You are right

This is true, when I started getting 40%+ AVD, my channel started getting alot of videos

Please also talk about how you make your videos. Like what resources/softwares you use to make such videos. I highly appreciate the efforts you are putting in. It's really helpful.

Darn, I created a new youtube channel, uploaded long videos and views are like 3 to 20, while the shorts are like thousands. I was wondering if there's a cons on shorts, this opened my eyes. Thanks for the free info!

So true 👏🏻

This is exactly my problem. 90% of my subscribers never watch my long videos. Hence my ctr from initial impressions is low. And watch % is low and my long vids just stagnate. So I’m launching a new channel today. Just for long content. Thank you.

Finally seeing the alternative like this. I was wondering about this a couple of weeks ago and stopped about 99% of my shorts. I was able to grow to 500 subscribers but my long form content is what I want my channel to be known for. This video reenforced my thought process but also makes me a little disappointed that I may have taken my channel two steps back. Oh well, not starting over just learning. Nice information and video. New sub for sure!

Thanks for this video. Shorts did the same to my channel. I built up a decent amount of followers from shorts and then when I switched back to long form it hurt my channel hard. I’ve heard this happening to a lot of other channels. People get addicted to the subscriber growth and don’t think about actually building a proper fan base. I know I did. You live you learn I guess.

Positive side effect is I found a lot of channels on the shorts and I subscribed. I wouldn’t have found them otherwise because RU-vid only suggests the same 10 channels over and over. That’s why I stopped using Facebook. I only saw the same 3 people and they were the same 3 people who saw my posts out of hundreds of friends and even more followers.

broo you are so acurate. this is actually what happened with my youtube channels and i was looking the reason on internet and i found your video. Stay blessed.

My Shorts Are Clips From My Long Form, Do You Think That Makes A Difference!? 🤔Thanks for This information 🙏🏾

This explains why a lot of the big channels have opted for a separate shorts channel....

Very true, I wish I knew this before I started.

This is the exact problem am kinda facing right now, me and my friends started channels together but the difference between me and them is that they have so much views on their shorts and that made me think that shorts are good for gaining subscriptions,but that comes with a twist that you said in the video so that's why am gonna probably stop posting RU-vid shorts and focus on the important full length content am planning on making the future

The title got me so depressed but after watching the video I feel okay.. I did the same thing I can heavily relate but my niche is gaming which I don’t think will effect my channel in bad way. Thanks for making this informative video. Slowly but surely we all are unveiling RU-vid algorithm. Can’t wait to see where my journey and RU-vid’s journey goes. Cheers 🥂

Itotally agree with what you say, the algorithm is killing youtube channels.

RU-vid Shorts are so weird. There was a point in time they seemed to be working like magic, our content was really getting pushed. Views were higher than ever (probably low to many, but high for my group's channel), and we actually gained subs. For a time. It also seemed like there exact windows of time that a video would succeed. Like 6:08pm, was a really good time to release content. But the time would switch. Now, it's drying up entirely. Our channel is just now returning to long form.

This is very interesting. I have been noticing reduced watch times and traffic on my channel as I start to post shorts. I was searching RU-vid and found your video on the same topic. Amazing

I truly appreciate your candor on this matter, you are insightful and helpful with your thoughtful analytics of how things work behind the scenes, You are valued, I wish you only the greatest of success and happiness for the time and effort you put into publishing the content that you do.

I was thinking about starting shorts, but when I saw this video I decided to stick with normal videos. Thank you for sharing this!

I am agree youtube shorts will kill long video, but I don't agree with the reason. In reality, you upload shorts or don't upload shorts at all, your long videos won't get lots of views. I have lots of friends who have million of subscribers, never upload shorts video, their long videos no longer getting million views. Before shorts exist, it's really easy for them to get 1 million few in few days, now their long videos still not getting 1 million views after few months that video being uploaded. For my case, RU-vid shorts really destroyed my youtube income. i have more than 775,000 subscribers but my income is only 1/7 from what i get when i have 100.000 subscribers. Since RU-vid launched Shorts, youtube no longer push your long video like they used to. You like it or not that's the fact. That's why lots of youtubers now start to move to Facebook.

Honestly really insightful... i've been posting shorts lately and they've been getting a few thousand views, but you might be right about my long form content hurting because of it... thanks for the warning!

Hope this info helps for those of you trying to grow on youtube (and are using shorts)! Subscribe for more coming soon :)

Its really discouraging working so hard on both shorts and long form videos just to have that effort work against you, RU-vid please update your Algorithm to make sense

I’m glad I saw this now. I just started a channel and was using shorts to get used to shooting video and editing smaller projects. I guess I will reduce the shorts on this channel and put more time into long form since my goal is to build a channel to answer questions about building service based businesses like I have been running myself

Thanks for this. I had the same plan as you did; use shorts til I get monetised, then change to long form videos. I will now stick with shorts on that channel.

i was actually thinking about doing youtube shorts, but after seeing this video, im actually just going to make a youtube channel made for shorts so my main channel doesent get pushed down in the pits of videos youtube does not push out to other people because of the small amount of people who have long attention spans and watch shorts, but be dragged down by the people who have short attention spans

Wow, I had no idea Shorts could have such a big impact on channel growth. Thanks for breaking it down so clearly. Definitely re-evaluating my content plan.

How can you know your CPM if you are not monetized? 😕😕

I was trying to improve my latest shorts with those amazing attractive subtitles and even used a tool to clean up the audio. I was so excited to see if it makes a difference. It got 27 views.

Let’s keep on growing together!

Yep RU-vid shorts is basically changing the way viewers watch Content. Once they lose that attention span they won't watch long form again. RU-vid shorts should be on a different app altogether

I totally agree with what you say, the algorithm is killing youtube channels.

Brother best thing about you is that you are telling the thing which you are not doing, other critisizing shorts and still uploading on there channel. That's why before watching your video i checked about your uploads.

THIS. MAKES. SENSE! I was focusing more on RU-vid shorts on my channel, because that’s what everyone was saying was the new focus, but what you said in this video makes sense. This makes me reevaluate the long term plan I have for my channel. Appreciate this! 🫡

Bro where do you get these stock footages ?

This video is really good, but if your retention rate for your other channel is 20% that means that content is not very good. I wouldn't blame it on the audience. I made videos that had 19% retention rate and videos that had 62% for the very same audience.

Great info, makes sense breaking down the psychology behind shortform vs longform & each audience’s attention spans. Unfortunate that longform has to suffer as a result of leaning too heavily on audience acquisition based heavily on shorts

Thanks for allowing us to share our channel names below, mine is AME WILLIAMS although poor views i thinks if people commented i will know were or what am goning wrong in my channel. Thanks again DIP ❤❤

I think this is only true for information-based channels and doesn't (necessarily) apply for entertainment channels. When you are doing informative shorts, you are attracting people with short attention spans, yes. But looking deeper, more specifically you are attracting people who are looking to go the quick and easy route. Someone who is willing to watch an 8+ minute video on a topic is more committed to learning, finding a solution, etc. than someone who is "learning" and consuming through bite-sized pieces of information found on shorts. The former know that things take time and are committed to the process, the latter are the "I want everything right now" crowd. When you are doing an entertainment-based channel, whether that is gaming, comedy, music or something else, things are different. Whether you are doing short or long-form content, you are attracting an audience that just wants to be entertained. It's not about finding solutions or learning or improving, so it doesn't matter whether the person can commit to the process. Entertainment, in all lengths, is a form of instant gratification. You are being entertained in the here and now. As long as it is consistently entertaining from start to finish, it doesn't really matter how long it is. People who scroll through shorts still watch TV shows and movies and play video games for hours on end.

if i post shorts and long on same channels, i do not make actual shorts, i jus take out a piece from my main video, and link it in the short, and add mostly nothing, is this good and not going to hurt my channel?

Another thing no one talks about is how destructive shorts are to the human mind . It’s literally destroying the next generation . Personally I love long form content , you really get to know the creator and you’re not constantly hunting for the next hit .

My shorts channel, is (this one) the one im commenting using, and i 100% get you bro, its so annoying knowing, the effort that goes in but the views stay slim. but shorts kinda blow up...... ty for making me realise it earlier.... YOU EARNED a SUB!

It's true that Shorts can be a powerful tool for creators, but it's equally important to use them strategically to avoid any negative impacts on our channels. Your tips on balancing Shorts with regular content and maintaining quality are spot on. It's all about finding that sweet spot between virality and maintaining a strong, loyal audience. Keep up the great work!"

Thanks for this video, I have benefited from shorts to grow on subscribers count and gained access to YPP. I still believe there is a way for both long form and shorts to coexist and complement each other. There are enough successful channels to prove that. It boils down to the Audience that you have gathered with the contents u post. Long form takes a lot more effort in story telling, having a good thumbnail, catchy title and editing while shorts is all about catching the viewers' attention span for that 15-30secs. They are different beast altogether and acknowledging that fact somehow makes the journey a little easier to recognise what needed to be done - if my long form isn't matching up with all the competition out there, people simply won't watch them.

this was absolutely great advice, i have grown a lot after knowing this. thank you

Thank you so much! You have just earned yourself a sub because I want to become a youtuber (mainly long form videos) and maybe post a few shorts. Now I know that if I post too many shorts on a channel I want to make long form instead of short form my channel will flop.

My plan is to make RU-vid shorts editing scenes from shows and movies, and make mashup songs on long form videos.

Thank you so much for this! My art shorts have gone crazy viral, but my long form videos aren't performing as well. It's crazy how close your thought process was to mine. I've been researching for weeks to see why this is happening. I have a few ideas now, like creating a second channel solely for long form content. This helped so much and I appreciate you for helping us content creators out.

Shorts *boosted* my channel's growth. But I appreciate the warnings (as well as AMAZING editing work here!). Maybe, it's also because my niche (dance game) works better with shorts.

My own experiment is making short form content, but each video is made twice. Once in widescreen and once in portrait for shorts. The shorts that do bad tend to be because YT picks a bad thumbnail for them.

That's golden. Luckily I encountered this video before I re-started to create shorts & long form content in the same place. Thank you for sharing this!

This explains our channel to the T! Wish we knew this beforehand. We enjoy making YT shorts on our channel but we also REALLY enjoy showing our long form gameplays. Unfortunately the long form vids don't get as much love. Would you recommend a second channel just for the long form and keep shorts on the other?

Finally a clear view about the algo. Thanks! Other Ytubers dont' give a fu about the consequences, they are only interested in views and CPM.

Thank you for the information!! This is EXACTLY what happened to me. I had a short go viral and got me over 3000 subs. That absolutely killed my long form because those subs have no interest in my long form..none!! Now, some long forms get 20 views, even though I have almost 5k subs. I still do shorts, because at this point, not sure how else to handle. Your video is spot on!!!

So if I’m making a long form channel should I even post tiktok or reels? And what do you think about making a different channel with your long form channel name and then “shorts” and only post shorts on there but promote your long form channel with a link

My kids channel was doing so well, got monetised, was still doing well… then decided to try something different and uploaded two shorts - completely killed my channel. Now trying to figure out how to pick it up again 😥 So frustrating after all the effort that was put in!

But man youtube doesnt really reccomend my long form content, when it reccomend it reccomend onto wrong audience😢😢😢

I’m in a band called War On Gravity. It think it makes sense to post short form content there, because our longest videos will be music videos. Right?

I post Shorts everyday, Live stream twice a week, and a video here and there. I can see what you mean at times with shorts. Not really sure if the 3 to 7 hour streams balance that out at all with leaving it as a VOD and public visibility, not unlisted, so it's still a searchable video. But the last two videos I've done have performed fairly well for my small VR gaming channel.

oh my freaking god, I was gonna use the same plan as you. Literally the same. Im so glad that I now understand the problem. On the other hand, I don't know whether I should make shorts or long videos🤣

I think a very smart move is to make two different channels and making two different types of content, shorts, and long span content, that way you get to make both types of content.

Hey, you are absolutely correct, shorts actually damage does your channel. Happened with me recently.

Great video on youtube shorts. This is true, I only focus shorts and don't do long format content

I noticed that you unlisted this video, im glad you listed it back.

some big youtuber advised to turn off “notify subs” on a new video that you’re uploading and I personally got around 5x more impressions when I did that!! (I have 1000 subs from shorts and 240 from long videos and as it seems not notifying dead subs is great for some channels )

I can tell you for sure I started posting shorts to get my subscriber count up which it will but as the months went by my long form views dropped and I stopped the shorts I hope in time to recover

Thank You For Sharing Your Experience With Us, This Just Made Me Realize To Just Focus On Short Form Conent On This Account!

This video finally explains what happened to my channel . Thank you this is priceless !!!

I have a long form and I deleted all of my shorts and I just started using shorts but I'm using them very strategically now too. Nice content!

Yea, youtube shorts content and your long form content will only have maybe a 5% crossover. What you are effectively having to do is build two separate audiences. A larger % of your total subs will always be for shorts, your long form will have a much smaller portion and the subs that consume both will be even smaller. If you use that new feature to link a short to a longform video, you are gonna get quite a bit of traffic to your longform video, but the view duration is gonna be like 1.5 minutes. That seems to be the max attention span of the average shorts viewer. Your channel isnt ruined, you just have to pivot your strategy, adjust your expectations and keep building.

Hey! Just throwing in my opinion here... I have had a channel with ~150k and when i was posting shorts i would get consistent views on long form from that short audience. In my experience its just about whether you have generic shorts where people care about the content or if you have something special where the viewers get to know you as a creator. If you form a bond with your audience over shorts it can carry to long form, it just needs a little more personality than subtitles over b roll of whoever you're talking about. If you talk to your audience, have funny things, and connect with fans it doesnt matter whether its shorts or long form, it just matters how you talk to your audience.