The Ultimate Hack to Use YouTube Shorts
YouTube shorts are a great tool for content creators. With billions of views happening each day, shorts give you the chance to grow your channel faster than ever.
However, YouTube Shorts aren’t just about posting any random video under 60 seconds from your camera roll. It’s about capturing attention and keeping viewers engaged using techniques like the ones we’ll cover in this article, ending with a tip that’ll change how you make shorts forever.
Let's get to it!
1 - A Powerful Hook
In YouTube Shorts, the first two seconds are incredibly important. If you don’t catch your viewer's attention immediately, they'll more than likely scroll right to the next video without a second thought.
One strategy is to start with a question that creates some sort of curiosity gap, for example, "Did you know you’ve been brushing your teeth wrong your whole life?" This creates a curiosity gap, meaning you're leaving a question in the audience's mind that hooks them and keeps them watching until they get their question answered.
Another way to hook viewers is by starting with an unexpected action. For example, smashing a watermelon can instantly grab their attention, making them curious to see why you did it.
You can also create a sense of urgency with a phrase like, "Watch until the end to see what happens next." This keeps viewers invested in watching the whole video. If you don’t grab the veiwers attention right from the start, you'll more than likely see a retention graph that looks something like this:
This means your viewers click off before you even get to the good part of your Short. In the long run, this leads to your video no longer being shown to others on YouTube because the viewers who watch your YouTube Short leave immediately. This signals to the algorithm that the video isn’t good, even if it is.
2 - Re-hook Your Viewers Every 3-5 Seconds
Think we’re done talking about hooking? Not yet! With YouTube Shorts, you need to be constantly grabbing and re-grabbing your audience’s attention. Ideally, you should engage viewers every 3 to 5 seconds to keep them from getting bored and swiping away.
I call this the investment scale. When you invest your time and money into buying a ticket, driving to the theater, and getting popcorn, you're more likely to stay and watch the movie even if the intro isn’t great—because you’ve already committed so much. But with YouTube Shorts, the investment is almost nothing, right? Since they’re only 60 seconds, it doesn’t take much for viewers to get distracted or click away. A small mistake or a slow start can make them move on to another video almost instantly.
Again, it’s all about the visuals, words, and actions you use. Simple video editing tricks like pop-up captions or even explosive visuals, depending on your type of content, can make a big difference in keeping viewers engaged in your Short.
3 - Learn from the Competition
One of the best ways to level up your YouTube Shorts is by learning from content that is already successful. This doesn’t mean copying it, all that means is to study what's worked and figure out how to apply similar strategies to your own Shorts.
Now, instead of searching through popular Shorts one by one on YouTube without any way of filtering, you can head to 1of10.com. Just click to search through Shorts, set your filter, and scroll through the best videos in your niche.
4 - Use Shorts to Grow Views of Your Longer Videos
A feature that was released a while back but flew under the radar is the ability to link between Shorts and long-form content.
Once the link is added, it shows up in the Short’s description with a play button that lets viewers tap through to the video you linked.
When they click the button, the viewer is redirected to the linked video, allowing them to watch more of your content. Now, you don't want to link just any video. Link a video that's related to, or even better, a video that the short was directly taken from. That way, the viewer gets exactly what they came for.
5 - The Endless Loop
Want to know how to get an average view duration of over 100% on your Shorts (how long viewers watched)?
It’s a simple but powerful method: perfecting the loop. The loop is when the beginning and end of a Short flow smoothly into each other, making the video feel like it never really ends. When you nail this, viewers are more likely to rewatch the video, sometimes without even noticing, which helps increase your average view duration and overall engagement.
Just like how a low AVD can tell the algorithm is good, a good AVD tells the algorithm your video is really good and recommends it to more people.
The hard part, though, is getting viewers to stay hooked until the end to see the loop. That’s why all these tips fit together so well. On their own, they might not be as effective, but when combined, they work perfectly to keep viewers engaged.
And if you're looking to get an even greater edge on the competition, use 1of10 to find inspiration for high-quality ideas!