Youtube Shorts has clocked one year since it was introduced in Nigeria, as part of what has been described as a mission to give everyone a voice and help creators grow their audiences and be inspired by new video formats.
Since its inception, Shorts has grown a community of more than 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users globally, according to a press statement.
Following its launch, artist and creator channels uploading content in both short and long forms are said to be seeing better overall watch time and subscriber growth compared to those only uploading long-form.
The introduction of Shorts has ushered in an important new format to the YouTube repertoire. In a statement by the video-sharing platform, it said that the design of products like Shorts is to make YouTube the place for artists to connect with their fans and grow long-term, sustainable music careers.
The statement said the path to success for artists has never been more demanding than it now is, and it is to that end that they have designed products as Shorts.
“Shorts have become an essential part of the YouTube experience for our creators and viewers. Now being watched by over 1.5 billion logged-in users every month, the product is growing thanks to the creativity of our community. While we’re still at the beginning of our journey with Shorts, we look forward to continuing to innovate the product so our creators can continue to express themselves, connect with their audiences, and increase their reach and revenue opportunities on the platform,” Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer, said.
The product features have been refined, and the new video format has been incorporated into the broader YouTube experience.
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Some of the recently launched highlights include:
Video remixing: Utilizing content from the world’s largest video library, creators on YouTube can put their own spin on the content they love from YouTube using the latest video remixing features, Cut and Green Screen to Shorts on iOS (coming to Android soon).
Cut: The ability to use a 1-5 second video segment from any eligible VOD or Short in the creation of new Shorts content.
Green Screen: The ability to use up to a 60-second video segment from any eligible VOD or Short as the background for an original Short video.
Multiformat analytics: Evolving the in-depth analytics, a new design was recently rolled out for YouTube Analytics which allows creators and artists to see insights and performance data for specific content across different video formats: VOD (video on demand), Live and Shorts.
This allows for individualising and optimising content strategies more effectively to make the most of the platform for both reach and revenue opportunities.
As YouTube introduces new products, we observe the birth of a new trend unique to the platform: “the rise of the multiformat creator and artist.”
Moving seamlessly between different video formats on YouTube — from Shorts, Longform, Live and Audio — these multiformat creators and artists create an infinite flow of content combinations to maximize their creativity, reach, community connection, and revenue.
This interplay between video formats mirrors the reality of today’s viewer, who expect content to suit their active lives, varied interests, and wide-ranging attention spans.
In April 2022, Shorts containing content sampled from long-form videos generated over 100 billion views.
Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global head of music, said “Everybody knows that our mission at YouTube is to become the leading revenue generator for the music industry. Money is great, but it’s not enough. Building artist fandom is equally important. We want YouTube to be the place for artists to connect and create meaningful relationships with their fans and grow long-term, sustainable music careers; Shorts, combined with long-form video, is proving to be a critical way to do that. It’s our job to make sure that once fans find their life’s soundtrack on Shorts, they are met with prompts that encourage them to dive deeper into an artist’s repertoire. YouTube is the only platform that can bring that experience to reality and we are all in on making it happen.”
Here is the list of the top 10 trending Shorts videos in the past year in Nigeria:
