Rising Creators Forum

I keep going back and forth on whether I should be posting youtube shorts or not. everyone says shorts get way more views but then i also hear people say shorts subscribers don't watch long form content so they're useless

I make commentary videos that are usually 8-12 minutes long. Would making 30-60 second shorts help my channel grow or would it just mess up my analytics with a bunch of subscribers who never watch my actual content?

Has anyone actually grown their long form channel using shorts or is it just a waste of time?

I’m going to give an unpopular opinion here. I think shorts are a distraction for most creators

I tried doing shorts for 2 months and yeah I got more subscribers but my channel analytics became completely useless. couldn't tell what content was actually working for my core audience anymore because shorts were skewing everything

Also the time I spent making shorts could've been used to make my long form content better. and in the long run, having really good long form content is what's gonna build a sustainable channel

if you're already consistent with long form and have extra time, then sure add shorts. but don't sacrifice your main content to chase shorts views because those views don't really translate to watch time or revenue

My channel grew slower without shorts but the subscribers I did get were way more engaged.

I tested this for 3 months so i can give you real data

I posted 40 shorts over 3 months while continuing my normal long form content (1 video per week). the shorts got WAY more views - like 50k-200k views each compared to my long form getting 2k-5k views

Subscriber growth went from about 200 per month to 600 per month. BUT my average views per long form video actually went DOWN slightly because a lot of those new subscribers never watched my regular content

However, even if only 10% of shorts subscribers watch long form, that's still 60 extra viewers per video which helped my regular content perform better in the algorithm

So yes shorts help growth but it's not as direct as you'd hope. Think of shorts as a top of funnel strategy to get discovered, but you still need good long form content to keep people engaged