My Journey - Figuring Out YouTube Shorts

Hello everyone,

Today I am starting my YouTube shorts journey. The goal is to create an income stream before the end of 2024. For those of you who don`t know, to monetize shorts you need to have at least 10million views on your videos in the last 90days. The money made from this journey will be used to fuel the start of my offline business.

I have a couple of ideas for different methods to create videos, which I will be testing on multiple channels. Nothing new, basically I will be doing commentary over videos like @SEGARU just with little twists here and there. I want to automate this method as much as possible, without producing junk content.

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What I did today:
- Created a new YouTube channel
- Learned how to somewhat use adobe premier pro
- Edited 2 videos and published them

Areas for improvement:
- The channel was created on a brand new gmail account - this may have not been the smartest thing.

What I am going to do tomorrow:
- Create a second channel using an old gmail account.
- Publish 4 shorts in total (2 and 2)

good luck with this journey and keep making content

I am following your journey mate. Good luck

Way to go man! Good luck with your journey

best way to see fast result is to buy an old channel no matter how much subscriber because new channel created even with old gmail doesnt perform will ,im saving you time

Thanks everyone for the support!

DAY 2

When I woke up today, I had some new views from 1st video on my channel. I even got a subscriber. The second video got 0 views.



I edited some videos and then created the second channel. It is a little different in terms of content, but I like the concept of it more. The format of the videos is longer (around 40 seconds) and I can write a script that will help me nicely with content creation. We will see if the idea catches on.

psycho36path said:

best way to see fast result is to buy an old channel no matter how much subscriber because new channel created even with old gmail doesnt perform will ,im saving you time

Click to expand...

I think I agree with you. I saw a guy who bought an already monetized (yet very small) channel and he started making money right away. I will look into this and if an interesting account pops up, I will buy it.

What I did today:
- Created a second YouTube channel on my old gmail account
- Created and posted 4 shorts in total (2 and 2)
- Learned how to optimize shorts a little better
- Learned some new editing tricks

Areas for improvement:
- My workflow is very chaotic and I am switching between 2 laptops.

What I am going to do tomorrow:
- Create 8 shorts (4 and 4) - publish 2 on each channel, schedule the rest
- Search for an older account for sale, preferably one that is already monetized (This will be my last account since I don`t think I can effectively manage more than 3 for now)

Good Luck
I am going to follow you.

koccc said:

Thanks everyone for the support!

DAY 2

When I woke up today, I had some new views from 1st video on my channel. I even got a subscriber. The second video got 0 views.

View attachment 380255

I edited some videos and then created the second channel. It is a little different in terms of content, but I like the concept of it more. The format of the videos is longer (around 40 seconds) and I can write a script that will help me nicely with content creation. We will see if the idea catches on.


I think I agree with you. I saw a guy who bought an already monetized (yet very small) channel and he started making money right away. I will look into this and if an interesting account pops up, I will buy it.

What I did today:
- Created a second YouTube channel on my old gmail account
- Created and posted 4 shorts in total (2 and 2)
- Learned how to optimize shorts a little better
- Learned some new editing tricks

Areas for improvement:
- My workflow is very chaotic and I am switching between 2 laptops.

What I am going to do tomorrow:
- Create 8 shorts (4 and 4) - publish 2 on each channel, schedule the rest
- Search for an older account for sale, preferably one that is already monetized (This will be my last account since I don`t think I can effectively manage more than 3 for now)

Click to expand...

good job , i will give you an advice if you wanna start from scratsh
dont upload more than 1 video in your first month (because if you upload more than one maybe youtube consider you as spammer)
dont peek a niche you will struggle in future (look for a niche fluid so you can always get new idea new video)
dont miss a day (so youtube know that your serious and you will upload new content )
start spying on successful channels with the same niche as you look what they do and ad your unique twist
try to keep your viewrs tell the end of the video and ad a call to action at the end (like if you agree with this like if you dont comment why)
youtube will send you small traffic at first but if you keep your upload daily it will increase your traffic
good luck

DAY 3

The views on channel #1 are basically the same as yesterday with no views on newer videos:



Channel #2 looks like this (again, only one video was pushed by the algorithm):

psycho36path said:

good job , i will give you an advice if you wanna start from scratsh
dont upload more than 1 video in your first month (because if you upload more than one maybe youtube consider you as spammer)
dont peek a niche you will struggle in future (look for a niche fluid so you can always get new idea new video)
dont miss a day (so youtube know that your serious and you will upload new content )
start spying on successful channels with the same niche as you look what they do and ad your unique twist
try to keep your viewrs tell the end of the video and ad a call to action at the end (like if you agree with this like if you dont comment why)
youtube will send you small traffic at first but if you keep your upload daily it will increase your traffic
good luck

Click to expand...

Thank you for the advice. I will reduce my uploads to 1 short a day. And yes, I am starting to think about hooks in my content more - like having a catchy first 5 seconds so the user won`t swipe away. I am also prompting users to comment.

What I did today:
- Created 8 shorts (4 for each channel)
- Published 3 of them
- Found an older channel for sale. I am negotiating the price right now.
- Organized my workflow

Areas for improvement:
- I want to create a template for the first few frames which could be used as a short thumbnail
- I can see lots of mistakes even on shorts I made yesterday

What I am going to do tomorrow:
- Do some research on how to keep viewers more hooked
- Create a template for "thumbnails"
- Create 2 shorts (1 for each channel)

Question:
What do you guys think about hashtags? How many should I have, and how important are they for the algorithm? Right now I am using 50 hashtags in description (60 is max I heard). However, I have not put much thought to them, they are generated by AI based on my video description - is this a mistake?

koccc said:

Question:
What do you guys think about hashtags? How many should I have, and how important are they for the algorithm? Right now I am using 50 hashtags in description (60 is max I heard). However, I have not put much thought to them, they are generated by AI based on my video description - is this a mistake?

Click to expand...

I am not the biggest expert, but I don't think hashtags are all that powerful as some may make it out to be.

I've seen channels with just the video and basic title go viral. It's all about content. There's a channel I know about that helps with YT Shorts, and it might be of good use to you. Don't know if I am allowed to share it on the forum in public but I will DM it if I am not allowed to.

The most important thing is to just stay consistent I hear with shorts (but this is just good advice in general).

Indescribable said:

I am not the biggest expert, but I don't think hashtags are all that powerful as some may make it out to be.

I've seen channels with just the video and basic title go viral. It's all about content. There's a channel I know about that helps with YT Shorts, and it might be of good use to you. Don't know if I am allowed to share it on the forum in public but I will DM it if I am not allowed to.

The most important thing is to just stay consistent I hear with shorts (but this is just good advice in general).

Click to expand...

I browsed the feed for viral videos today and you are right, most creators have not put much effort into hashtags or just description in general. DM me please the name of the channel, thank you

DAY 4

Not much has happened today in terms of views.

Channel #1:



Channel #2:



What I did today:
- Spent about 6 hours just browsing YouTube, searching and studying channels that consistently generate viral shorts with millions of views
- Found 2 very interesting niches. I will later pick one and copy the style of the viral videos for my upcoming channel #3
- Published 1 short on each channel

What I am going to do tomorrow:
- Finish the template for "thumbnails"
- Create 2 shorts (1 for each channel)
- More research

Good luck, mate! I saw that @SEGARU got some very impressive results. Keep going, and don't give up!

Consistency is key. I wish you all the best with your journey.

thegamerhero said:

best of luck on youtube, youtube is all about consistency and good content

Click to expand...

tharakamts said:

Good luck, mate! I saw that @SEGARU got some very impressive results. Keep going, and don't give up!

Click to expand...

Rtsulfie said:

Consistency is key. I wish you all the best with your journey.

Click to expand...

Thank you!

Update - DAY 8

So in the past couple of days I have spent a lot of time analyzing viral shorts and mainly fresh channels that went viral (millions of views on ~3 month old channels....). I found one very interesting example in which a channel that was created in august 2024 already had 50+ millions of views with about 20 shorts posted. And it all looked organic. I found many other examples but this one was extreme. Therefore I realized it is possible to dominate shorts even without having an aged account. I also realized my two existing channels were sh#t. The content I posted in the beginning was very bad. When I was posting it I thought it was good, but i was wrong and learned quickly

The stats on my videos only proved this. The channels still sits at around 500 views from the FIRST posted video, every video after that has 0 views. Why? Well the shorts are not good. No hook no nothing. About 60% swipe away rate and about 20 second average view duration. So lets think about it from the algorithm`s point of view. If a first video from a new channel was BAD, why would the second one be better? Why promote it? Makes no sense.

And that is why I decided to "kill" these two channels. They are just my first two attempts. I might get to them later but not right now. HOWEVER, I created channel #3 (no longer interested in buying an aged one), and things are a bit different now.

I took what I learned and created proper videos. Duration of 55s and longer, good hook, engaging, hiding Easter eggs and so on... The secret sauce is - take ideas from your competition! First short was posted on 1st of October, with 3 shorts posted in total.
These are the stats from the first video:





As you can see, the stats are promising. Short number 2 has similar viewed to swiped ratio and also similar AVD. And around 2k views. I just recently posted the third short on this channel so no stats from that one as of yet.

So, from now on I am focusing only on this channel. I think it has potential because it started of on the right foot. The downside is that the content I am posting is impossible to recreate in such quality with a python script, so future automation is not possible. But I will figure something out.

TO-DO:
- Prepare shorts for the whole October in advance (26 left to create)
- Unlock "Advanced Features" from the channel settings

koccc said:

Hello everyone,

Today I am starting my YouTube shorts journey. The goal is to create an income stream before the end of 2024. For those of you who don`t know, to monetize shorts you need to have at least 10million views on your videos in the last 90days. The money made from this journey will be used to fuel the start of my offline business.

I have a couple of ideas for different methods to create videos, which I will be testing on multiple channels. Nothing new, basically I will be doing commentary over videos like @SEGARU just with little twists here and there. I want to automate this method as much as possible, without producing junk content.

----------

What I did today:
- Created a new YouTube channel
- Learned how to somewhat use adobe premier pro
- Edited 2 videos and published them

Areas for improvement:
- The channel was created on a brand new gmail account - this may have not been the smartest thing.

What I am going to do tomorrow:
- Create a second channel using an old gmail account.
- Publish 4 shorts in total (2 and 2)

Click to expand...

Great progress so far man. Hope to hear some updates soon! Best of luck!

Which offline business you want to start with the money earned from this journey? Will you be able to manage both in future?

I am following your journey mate. Thanks

I am following your journey mate. Good luck

Erica Roob said:

Great progress so far man. Hope to hear some updates soon! Best of luck!

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nibanella4 said:

Good luck to you. I will follow you.

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Stevenh777 said:

I am following your journey mate. Thanks

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ralavamo said:

I am following your journey mate. Good luck

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Thank you!

lotsofmoney said:

Which offline business you want to start with the money earned from this journey? Will you be able to manage both in future?

Click to expand...

Private gym, and yes the YouTube can be handled by a VA in the future.

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Time for an update! - DAY 12 of this journey
As I mentioned in my previous update, I have been only focusing on channel #3 - which is now 8 days old. There are 6 shorts posted on this channel so far. This is how it looks right now:
Channel analytics:


AVD:


All of my videos are 60 second long. The average VVS for the channel is 80%. I am quite pleased with that, however YouTube has been testing me a lot....

As you can see, the last short I posted (which was yesterday) did not even get to the shorts feed and I have no idea why. The only 23 views on it are from channel pages....

Also, the short I posted a day before that was doing super well, and then got throttled hard:



Right now I am just going to keep posting and hope this throttle will end soon. If you guys have any suggestions, let me know!

Some other good news:
- My channel was unlocked and now I have access to all advanced features.
- From 15th of October, YouTube shorts can be up to 3 minutes long! (I plan to take advantage of this).
- I have created good quality videos for 5 days ahead. This was actually harder than I thought.. However I am getting faster at creating the videos.

Next moves:
- I am going to have shorts for the whole October created before the end of this week.
- I need to buy a separate phone and a US proxy. I want to take advantage of TikTok creator program. I am not from the US, however I do have US SSN so this might be super doable.
- I am toying with an idea of POD merch store.

nice consistency !!!