Project: Shorts channel

Hey guys,

I'm new to the forum. Hope you guys can help me out give me advice, maybe find a better way of pushing my channel.

So I've started a youtube shorts channel 3 days ago. The channel is from January 2013, had no videos and 8 subcribers.
I think I found a good niche and I am proud to have these results in less than 3 days.





What is bothering me are the engagement stats.
The algorythm pushed almost every video to 1k but no further. Also they don't get picked up after, not getting a single view. Which I think is normal at this point in my project.
The next short, which I am going to release at 11 pm (UTC) is going to be shorter (15 seconds).
My first three shorts got 13-16 seconds watch time. (vids where from 20-23 seconds long)


You can clearly see that the algo is pushing the vid every time from 1 am to 6am. (UTC)
More than half of my audience is located in the US.

I produce english content.

My shorts keep getting better and better with each one released, the watch time is kind of worrying me.
I guess the quality is not good enough to be watched through the whole short.
The last video was cut differently, with more visuals and scene changes.
The upcoming one is shorter and has about the same amount of visuals and scene changes, with massive change in style of the scenes to keep the audience hooked.

Let's see how the next one is going to perform. This weekend I am going to produce all vids for the next week.
My plan is to post every day one short for a month and see how it turns out.

What do you think? Do you have any advice?

Sorry for any spelling mistakes. English is not my native language.

Thanks for the advice.
I think I'm slowly getting there:


Last two shorts both about 16 seconds. Still not enough engagement. I will stick with 15-17 seconds shorts and try to improve the scenes, sounds and effects.
In my last two videos I changed the cutting style and lenght a bit, algorythm pushed it more, but got less engaged viewers.
I have a mix of GPT 5 generated pictures and live footage.
I think I need to wait a few days to get better analytics data. At this point I can't figure out why my retention is so low.


I have a strong hook at the beginning of every short, 2-3 seconds and get right into content, with matching scenes and fast scene changing.
Also I have calls to comment between main content. (by asking a question related to topic) At the end I have a call to like and subscribe with loop to the beginning.
Tried different thumbnail design, think I found one working, will stick to it as klicks from the youtube search increased.
Style is kind of revealing and dramatic with one or two words.

Also I plan to make long format videos, but I've heard that it kind of kills the channel if you do it right at the beginning. So I'm going to wait with that. I'm planning to make videos 8-15 min
and link them in my shorts. The format will be the same but presenting it more detailed.
So the shorts will be a teaser.

I'm struggling to which niche I should stick. One turned out to have good retention, but it is hard to find good topics. The last two shorts where different niches, both perfomed about the same.
The one that performed better, had more scene changes. But retention was really low. Some I'm kind of unsure what to do next. What would you do?
The channel is too young, to have valuable analytics data...

Solid start for just a few days! Keep riding the trends and post consistently. Make sure your content grabs attention fast and encourages viewers to stick around. Engage with any comments to build community. Growth takes time, so stay patient and keep pushing.

Postet two shorts: one 4 hours earlier than usual, just to test. Didn't turn out good, got about 40 views. Algo picked it up today again, got 15 more views.
Second short got little above 1k.
I'm also not sure how much i should post daily. Whats the max I should post daily?

i think right now just keep pushing everything Keep trying out different content just because one video does good doesn't mean the category is good or bad could have just been a lucky video. Will be following along to see how far you can take this. The early results are looking good so far keep it up.

YouTube pushes videos further when engagement exceeds certain ratios (views, watch time, likes, comments).


Try to make the beginning of your video more catchy so viewers stay longer.

Until you don't have a rocket you are going to be trapped in the 1k barrier

Study your competitors and look for what it worked for them in the last week and do the same video with your own tools and visuals

Warm up the account subscribing, liking and commenting on videos on your niche

Just keep being consistent, the fact is you just don't know which one will blow up. Also, don't stop learning, try and check other creators in the same niche as you and see how they are scaling fast

Nice work getting traction fast. With an older channel, Shorts can help you reactivate it quickly. Stay consistent, watch which videos perform best, and focus on that style. Engage with comments to build loyalty. Don’t ignore titles and descriptions use clear, relevant keywords to improve discoverability. Keep testing and adapting; growth comes from learning what sticks.