For a while now, YouTube has been an important platform for news publishers as well as viewers. This includes publishing daily news, breaking news, interviews, discussions, and a lot more in the form of long videos. But in recent years, a new format has emerged – and exploded – to such an extent that massive changes are underway.

The short video format of TikTok has taken over the world and in that process, most other tech giants have followed suit with their iteration of the format. Instagram has its Reels and YouTube has YouTube Shorts.

It is becoming evident that news media has to embrace the short video format wholeheartedly to be able to reach new and younger audiences. Recently, Nicolette Scott, a strategic partner manager at YouTube News, held a workshop for the 2023 Online News Association conference and delved into how newsrooms use YouTube Shorts, how Shorts are built into their media strategy, and what formats and features fetch new audiences.

We picked key insights to bring you a playbook on navigating YouTube News Shorts.

YouTube Shorts and newsrooms

YouTube Shorts provides a lot of tools to the news channels to successfully build and navigate a community of viewers. There are channel customisation tools that help you organise your homepage by different shelves – playlists, featured videos, and Shorts. There are content filters that can help in sorting the content by type (membership only, live etc.). And finally, there are targeted notifications that are provided only to subscribers who have watched the channel’s Shorts.

Then, comes the content. YouTube Shorts has introduced new ways to play around with content. Nicolette Scott highlights that there are three features of YouTube Shorts:

Broad-based content: YouTube Shorts is a way to reach a broader audience. Newsrooms can create Shorts on various topics and in different styles to serve the interests of various groups of people.

Experimental content: With video editing tools, ideas, and styles, Shorts can be quite helpful in experimenting with different styles of video. Unlike longer videos, Shorts typically don’t involve heavy production costs. There is a feature that allows creators to cut uploaded, long videos into Shorts and add attribution for an original video.
Mini clips: Cutting footage and picking up the most interesting moments from a video can help with virality amongst a larger base of audiences. Short samples are a considerably good way to get people to watch the longer version of videos.

Long-form vs. short-form video

Both long and short videos serve different purposes. News channels usually upload everyday broadcast news, interviews, live streams of political discussions, and more in long-form content. This kind of content is not always compelling to younger audiences. In times of on-the-go content consumption, the audience isn’t too keen and attentive towards long-form videos. Instead, news media need short and snackable content to attract viewers. That way, short-form videos serve the need for bite-sized entertainment, while longer videos are more suitable for in-depth content that requires quality time to be spent by the user. Long-form also requires more production, staff, effort, and as a result, money.

While Nicolette Scott notes that channels that have both short- and long-form content perform better, newsrooms can create a separate channel for Shorts. It all depends on the specifics of the content (similar or different in style, topics, and tone) and the audience that the newsroom wants to target. For instance, The Washington Post has two channels – one is for Shorts and the other is the main channel for long-form content.

*The Washington Post’s YouTube Short about the case where a man and woman got arrested for damaging The Great Wall (source: The Washington Post’s YouTube channel)*

The Washington Post’s Shorts usually involve humour, video sketches, and graphics and are much more informal than traditional, long videos. These are easy-to-understand, current, and target younger audiences. The publisher’s main channel has Shorts too, but those include clips from interviews and broadcasts.

Monetisation

There are two ways for media organisations to monetise Shorts directly on the platform:

Fan Funding: Fan Funding is a YouTube feature where viewers can support the creators with their contributions. In return, sponsors get access to special features: member-only videos, super chat with unique stickers during a live stream, and a feature called Super Thanks, where members can buy one-time animations and send personalised colourful comments that stand out.
Ad-based revenue: In February 2023, YouTube Shorts Fund was discontinued by the company. Now, Shorts creators earn their money from advertising through the YouTube Partnership Program. In the earlier fund, the revenue earned by creators only depended on their performance compared to other creators. The new setup enables them to make money by inserting ads between Shorts. A creator needs to gain 1,000 subscribers and 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days or 4,000 public watch hours in the last 12 months to get into the Program.

You also need to follow some rules to earn ad-based revenue:

Avoid using unedited clips from TV shows if you don’t have official rights to them;
Don’t upload another creator’s content without adding something new;
Don’t pay for automated or fake views.

Discoverability and recommendation system

Shorts have also changed the consumption and discoverability of content in many ways. One of the essential aspects of this format is that YouTube doesn’t recommend Shorts as soon as the video is uploaded. During the workshop, Nicolette Scott explained that recommendations driven by audience signals help the platform understand what Shorts they will enjoy: personalisation, performance, and external factors.

It’s necessary to provide a proper context for each Short that can violate the rules of YouTube. If the purpose of the video meets EDSA (Educational, Documentary, Scientific, and Artistic), then it will be displayed in the recommendations and won’t be blocked. The context should be in the title, description, audio as well as imagery.

Free-driven discovery: YouTube Shorts are different from long-form videos and are discovered through the feed. People who watch Shorts consume more videos, which leads to higher discoverability of media content.

Trends-fueled creation: The algorithm analyses and then considers Shorts as trendy. For instance, videos with sounds that are a trend at the moment will be recommended by YouTube to people who have shown interest in content with that sound.

Analysing performance

YouTube Analytics offers detailed data for Shorts now. You can look at the level of performance, traffic sources, and a lot more to see what the audience likes the most. Nicolette Scott highlighted that there are a few things to keep in mind while analysing such data:

Zoom out: Expand the date range from 28 to 90 days to see overall changes in your recent performance;
Consider outliers: When the video goes viral, you are often looking for what’s unique about that Short that made it popular. But sometimes it is based on external factors and themes. In that context, newsrooms should avoid judging their new videos using the older video virality lens.
Take scale into account: You shouldn’t compare Shorts to long-form videos while reviewing data. As noted before , YouTube Shorts are distinct from long videos: they typically serve different audiences, cover different topics, and require fewer resources. It is more efficient to compare the performance of one short-form video to another.

Newsrooms should rather pay attention to metrics that show the channel’s performance:

Audience retention: It is important to hold the audience’s attention until the end of the video;
Remix data: Take a look at your Shorts that were remixed by other channels. When your Shorts content resonates with other creators to the extent that they remix their videos with yours, that usually means that your content is catchy;
Likes and comments. One of the most common ways to understand content performance is from the reaction of the audience, likes as well as comments. The more the number of likes and comments, the more engaging the material.

What makes a Short successful?

Here’s a look at some of the more successful types of Shorts:

Broadcast clips: A broadcast clip is a short trailer for an existing video. For such Shorts, you can pick up the most notable moments in the long-form material that would possibly appeal to the audiences. This is low-lift content creation and one of the easiest ways to fill up the channel’s Shorts page.

Source: Sky News’ YouTube channel

For instance, Sky News used this format and posted footage of Boris Johnson saying “hasta la vista, baby” in his final Prime Minister’s Questions. The video is only a few seconds long, but this clip was enough to catch the audience’s interest.

Interview soundbites: An interview soundbite involves choosing one moment from someone’s speech or interview that could be compelling for the audience. Usually, this is the information that could “bite” the viewers for reaction.

Source: ABC News’ YouTube channel

For instance, ABC News posted a moment from the interview with Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska when she spoke about some of her concerns. It’s a clip with a certain message, and cutting it for Shorts was a way to get audiences to watch the full interview.

Condensed stories: These are 60-second-long Shorts with an abstract of the story. The main task of this format is to help the audience quickly catch up on a particular issue.

For instance, Ukrainian media Toronto TV is regularly conducting journalistic investigations on revealing the true identity of Russian war criminals and useful information about their traces in Ukraine. It creates Shorts with condensed information about a subject of the investigation. Between 30-40 seconds long, these Shorts usually get 100,000 to 1.7 million views.

Explainers: With hot topics, people are usually looking for brief explanations to get the context. Explainer Shorts serve that interest and get the audiences to understand the latest issues quickly

Vox is a publisher that focuses on explainers – from politics to science. On its YouTube channel, it has both long and short videos. For example, it released a short video that explains why Republicans want to raise the voting age in America after a statement by Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the party’s presidential candidates. Vox gives a brief but comprehensive explanation of what exactly this statement means, the reasons why the Republicans want this, and shows statistics that prove this claim is not a coincidence, in just 60 seconds. That’s one of Vox’s most popular recent Shorts with 3.7 million views.

Recast popular series: If the media publication has a popular series like an investigation on a particular subject, it can re-use existing episodes “to capture something unique that might resonate as a Short”, as Nicolette Scott mentioned. It is a way to leverage resources that the media has already put into a project and, once again, attract attention to an old series.

Podcast clips: This format is for podcasters who upload their episodes with video footage on YouTube. In this case, cutting the highlights of a podcast for Shorts would encourage people to look at the full version.

Raw footage clips: Raw footage clips are good for highlighting exclusive content. If reporters get access to some footage (for instance, something from the battlefield or some aerial footage or an inside look), then publishing it via Shorts is a great way to draw the attention of new audiences.

This format is useful for those who cover wars and armed conflicts. For example, Ukrainian media UNITED24 posted raw footage of the destruction of Russian tanks by Ukrainian artillery.

Repurposing archival content: News media publications often have archival content that has not been used for a long time. This style doesn’t only give new life to the archives but also provides a chance to experiment with what resonates with the audience.

Soft news: YouTube Shorts is perfect for soft news – light stories and topics such as sports, cultural events, entertainment, lifestyle, arts, and the lives of celebrities.

For example, BBC News posted a Short with footage from the annual La Tomatina festival (Buñol, Spain). It is light content that is meant for entertainment and spreading information about a different culture in a few seconds.

Tips and top practices

YouTube Shorts provides a lot of space for imagination, creativity, and experiments but some practices can add significantly to their efficiency. During the workshop at the 2023 Online News Association conference Nicolette Scott talked about a few of them:

Include dates: Even though it is short-form content, news media should provide proper context of the event the video covers. It helps curb misinformation and misunderstanding and maintains the audience’s trust in the media.
Text over video: Unlike long-form content, for Shorts it’s more important to add text over the video footage. Viewers might watch Shorts without any sound (for instance, in public places). So if there is text that flows with the video, it makes the content a lot more viewer-friendly.
A catchy title and intriguing information in the beginning: Titles play a significant role in reaching an audience. A memorable, catchy title can engage the audience and make them click on the video. Another factor is intriguing information in the beginning. Content makers have only a couple of seconds to catch and hold the attention of the viewers.
Lean into trends: It’s essential to follow trends if you want to draw younger audiences’ attention. For instance, hot topics can be shown through trending video memes, filters, sounds, animation, and graphics.
Be pithy: Newsrooms should keep in mind that the audience gets distracted and bored easily. The key to Shorts is to get right to the point of the topic without sacrificing proper context.

Source of the cover photo: https://www.flickr.com/

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