As demand for highly engaging and quickly consumable short-form content surges, YouTube Shorts are now practically required to grow a YouTube channel. The YouTube algorithm prioritizes Shorts, making them more discoverable, and their engaging nature makes them more likely to be shared among users. All in all, this gets more eyeballs on your long-form content, leading to more subscribers for your channel. Here, we'll cover five ways to use Shorts to grow your channel.

Tip #1 - Leverage trending content from TikTok and Instagram

Content trends such as challenges, hashtags, formats, styles, and music usually originate on TikTok, then move to Instagram in a few weeks, and finally begin to appear on YouTube one or two weeks after that. Instead of waiting for the trend to move to YouTube, adopt the trends from platforms emerging on short-form content first ahead of the masses for a much higher chance of going viral.

Tip #2 - Find highly searched topics with YouTube Studio Analytics 

If you need help finding the subject for your next YouTube video, look no further. All you have to do is head over to YouTube Studio, go to analytics, and then tap on the new Research tab. Here, you'll see content recommendations that are performing well and have the option to search for other ideas in Explore Topics. For example, if you searched the term "video editing," you would see it has a good search volume, but if you narrowed things down and selected "best video editing apps," you would see its search volume is even better. Explore Topics is a great place to start when researching new content ideas.

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Tip #3 - Optimize your video titles and thumbnails for search

While you can't create thumbnails for YouTube Shorts on desktop, you can select your own frames if you upload them on mobile. Choosing the best thumbnail lets your Short stand out to viewers who are searching and is a much better option than letting YouTube decide for you. Titles on Shorts are allowed 100 characters max, so it's best to keep them short and punchy. You also want to use keywords that people are searching for in your titles. A Short with an eye-catching thumbnail and a punchy headline that uses a top keyword has a much higher chance of being discovered.

Tip #4 - Post consistently and at the right time

The more regularly you post, the better. If you're new to YouTube and have a backlog of content from TikTok and Instagram, it's recommended that you post two, three, or even five times a day to get your content out there. If you don't have a backlog of shorts, consider using a tool like Opus Clip, which uses AI curation, auto-reframing, and AI B-roll to create viral clips from long-form content like podcasts, interviews, and webinars. Once you're posting consistently, you want to pay attention to your analytics and post when your audience is most active. TubeBuddy is a great tool; it can give you the specific times you should post each day and explain why those times are recommended. Lastly, don't forget that YouTube has a scheduling feature that saves time and ensures your posts go out on time. Posting consistently when your audience is active on YouTube maximizes your content's chances of reaching your followers.

Tip # 5 - Add captions to your videos

Everyone doesn't watch shorts with sound on, whether someone is commuting on public transportation or in a very loud or quiet environment; captions allow them to watch your content no matter where they are. Captions also make content more visually engaging, and since it's the norm on TikTok, viewers have begun to expect it on YouTube Shorts, too. YouTube does have an auto-captioning feature, but it's not very accurate or visually appealing. Instead, you can use OpusClip to add dynamic captions to your videos for free. You can upload your video, select the caption style, hit the get captions button, and have your captions in minutes.

Conclusion

Growing your YouTube channel is not easy. You have to create the content people want to see and ensure that they are able to actually see it. With these tips, #1 leverage trending content from TikTok, #2 Find topics that are highly searched on YouTube, #3 optimize your videos for search, #4 post consistently and at the right time, and #5 add captions to your videos, your videos will be more appealing to a wider range of audiences and will be seen by more people. More appealing videos seen by more people will increase engagement and viewership and help grow your YouTube channel faster than before!

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