YouTube introduces TikTok-rival ‘Shorts’ in over a 100 countries

#1 LAUNCH OF YOUTUBE SHORTS IN THE NETHERLANDS

After the great success of the social media platform TikTok, YouTube added the concept Shorts to their platform. These Shorts videos are very similar to the so-called ‘TikToks’; they are short videos of up to 1 minute where users can put music and effects over their video footage.

Until recently, the Shorts videos could be seen on the platform via a separate row on the YouTube homepage and a tab in the YouTube apps, but Dutch users could not create these Shorts videos themselves with their smartphones. However, since July 12, the YouTube mobile app now has the option to create a Shorts video in the Netherlands. To do this, simply click on the icon to upload a new video and then click on “Create a Short.

What does this mean for you? The fact that TikTok has been a huge success shows that these types of short videos that automatically replay themselves are well liked, especially by younger audiences. Therefore, this new feature can help bring your YouTube channel and videos to the attention of a completely new audience. YouTube Shorts thus offer a new way of creating content on YouTube, which offers many new opportunities for brands. Especially since, according to YouTube, these short videos are already getting about 6.5 billion views per day.

#2 PERFORMANCE OF COMMUNITY POSTS NOW VISIBLE IN YOUTUBE ANALYTICS

In order to gain more engagement with your audience, it is highly recommended to make good use of community posts. Unfortunately, up until now it was not possible to gain concrete insight into the performance of these community posts. However, YouTube has recently changed this.

All channels with more than 1,000 subscribers can now gain insight into the impressions and engagement of community posts in YouTube Analytics. This allows you to see exactly how often your post has been shown and how your audience responds to it.

To find these metrics in YouTube Analytics go to the ‘Engagement’ tab and there you will see an overview labeled as ‘Top Posts’. This overview shows the best performing posts on your channel. To see even more detailed information click on ‘See more’.

What does this mean for you? This new feature in YouTube Analytics provides valuable insights into the type of community posts that are performing good or bad within your target audience. For example, if a community post gets a lot of impressions but relatively little engagement in the form of likes or comments, this could be a reason to adjust the format of the post in the future or to stop using it entirely. With these insights you can thereby design your community post strategy so that it generates maximum engagement with your target audience.

#3 ADD MULTIPLE IMAGES TO COMMUNITY POSTS

Another new YouTube feature also helps to optimize your community post strategy on YouTube. You now have the option to add multiple images to one community post. Until now you could only add one image to a community post. Unfortunately, this feature is currently only available on Android, but according to YouTube it will soon be implemented on iOS and desktop as well.

What does this mean for you? Multiple images make community posts more dynamic, interactive and informative. As a result, this expands the possibilities when creating and devising community posts and you can thus ensure that your community posts gain optimal engagement.

#4 REVENUE CHANGES DUE TO DIFFERENCES IN CPM PER COUNTRY

With the display of ads you can earn money on YouTube. However, this revenue can often fluctuate and YouTube now comes with a new feature that helps you to get more insight into the cause of these changes. One of the possible causes is a shift in the geographic background of the audience.

Per country the CPM amount (cost per thousand impressions) differs. When your revenue decreases or increases this can thus be caused by a shift in viewers from one country to a country with a significantly higher or lower CPM. If this is the case, YouTube will from now on indicate this as an explanation in the monthly revenue analysis in YouTube Analytics.

What does this mean for you? We recommend always having insight into the geographic information of your audience, so you can adjust your content and channel settings accordingly. If certain countries have a higher or lower CPM and this has significant effects on the revenue you generate with your channel, you can take this into account when selecting and focusing on certain audiences.

#5 OPTIMIZE VIDEOS AS THEY UPLOAD

Until recently, YouTube Studio did not allow you to insert elements such as ads, end cards, information cards and manual subtitles while a video was uploading. YouTube has recently changed this, so you can now make these adjustments while uploading a video.

What does this mean for you? This change from YouTube makes it even easier for you to optimize your videos. You no longer have to wait until your video is fully uploaded before you can adjust and optimize it. This means that you can publish your videos even faster and more efficiently.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT YOUTUBE CAN MEAN FOR YOUR BRAND?

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