The path to a promising, fun-filled, and rewarding experience as a content creator on YouTube can be much more fulfilling and doable when you are equipped with the right tools and information. At the recent Creator Community Summit, YouTube experts and inspiring creators share some best practices to succeed on the platform including on Shorts.
Though YouTube is still mainly known for long-form videos, Shorts now has billions of people watching this version every month. Because Shorts videos are best to “hook” in viewers into something that they need to know right away, brands prefer tapping this format to deliver hype for new campaigns. A creator who is at their best creating compelling Shorts—and has a large enough viewership—has a bigger chance of being noticed by a brand.
“Brands want you to tell their stories in three ways,” said Tammy Nadela, Partnerships and Sponsorships Lead at Google Philippines. “One is that you tell their story in such a way that viewers get to know their brand; second is so that they can engage better with their audience; and third is that they want you to help incite action in your audience.”
The first ask, awareness, requires that creators drive home the key message fast, catchy, and in a straightforward manner, so that the viewer immediately understands it. The second ask of engagement requires the creator to foster a sense of relatability among the audience, enough to make them realize a need for the brand. The third, action, just needs a true sense of urgency and a call to clear action on the part of the viewer.
And now that you know the different purposes that partnering brands may ask you to serve, it’s on you to deliver the most compelling and attention-grabbing Shorts content out there. There are some tried-and-tested videography and content creation techniques you can always fall back on, but there are also AI-powered solutions that are worth embracing.
YouTube Shorts is rolling out generative AI-enabled creation tools on YouTube Create, a new video editing app coming soon. There’s the Dream Screen, which generates AI-created visuals to make your video pop or help you visualize anything you want to bring to life. AI can also find the right audio vibes for your video with Assistive Search in Creator Music. There’s also Aloud, which opens up your content to the rest of the world by automatically dubbing it in supported foreign languages.
“How do you make the most of all these opportunities? How do you get a piece of the action? Embrace every new format that YouTube makes available, and embrace every new tool and opportunity that is already available to all of you,” said Ajay Vidyasagar, Managing Director for India, Southeast Asia & Emerging Markets at YouTube, during his remarks at the Creator Community Summit.
And lastly, one can never discount the power of a solid network of support. Local creators already know the benefits of working together with their peers, and the more they link up with like-minded people, the more they’ll learn from each other and push each other up.
If you want to get started on this journey, don’t be afraid of taking up some space—on YouTube, there’s always a spot for you and your particular niche.
“YouTube doesn’t just cater to mainstream or one type of content, now it caters to everyone,” said Education Creator Lyqa Maravilla of Team Lyqa (2M+ subs on YouTube), who shared that she never dreamed that her type of content would be big on the platform. She would get invited to socials and mixers with other creators in years past and would feel shy; now she knows that she absolutely belongs because she kept believing in herself.
So for those who want to get started on the road to a rewarding content creation journey, it’s never too late to take the first step. Browse and scroll through Shorts content for inspiration on YouTube, and start creating your own Shorts now using the YouTube mobile app.