For the first time, YouTube has revealed the number of monthly viewers of Shorts, its TikTok clone released in France last year; and it does seem that the Google subsidiary is catching up on the Chinese application.
Direct competitor of Reels and TikTok
Offering only short formats like Instagram Reels and TikTok, YouTube Shorts is viewed by 1.5 billion people per month. For comparison, TikTok hit 1 billion monthly users last September and is expected to reach 1.5 billion monthly users later this year. For its part, Reels accounts for 20% of the time people spend on Instagram, knowing that the social network has exceeded 2 billion monthly active users in 2021.
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Shorts is therefore positioned very well at the moment. According to YouTube, this format allows creators to generate more traffic, and therefore acts as a springboard to arrive at their longer videos. For example, food designer Rosanna Pansino, who has 13.4 million YouTube subscribers, said the Shorts had recently become her main source of new viewers since she started making them six years ago. month. ” The engagement is really high, I would say even more than for my normal length videos. It’s just amazing to me “, she said.
Shorts, a springboard to attract spectators
” Long-form content remains the best way for creators to engage deeply and develop long-term relationships with their audience. But the Shorts offer an exciting new way to be part of a creator’s journey and introduce themselves and their entire portfolio to a new audience. This approach yields concrete results: channels that upload short and long content see their overall viewing time and number of subscribers increase more than those that upload only one format. said Tara Walpert Levy, YouTube’s vice president for the Americas.
For creators, Shorts help attract more viewers to their longer content. Photography: Nubelson Fernandes / Unsplash
These comments demonstrate YouTube’s strategy: Shorts help attract viewers to longer and, above all, more monetizable content. As reported TechCrunch, the move is part of YouTube’s larger goal of seeking funding for TV advertising, not just digital advertising. YouTube content is now watched more on TV, with the platform accounting for more than 50% of ad-supported streaming viewing time on TV screens.
With this in mind, the Google subsidiary announced at the beginning of the year that it wanted to increase its efforts to develop television support and engagement on it, in particular by allowing users to use their telephone to read and leave comments, or even share videos with a friend while they watch YouTube on their TV.
TikTok is coming to longer formats
However, we must not forget that in February, TikTok decided to increase the maximum length of its videos from 3 to 10 minutes, and this approach has a very specific goal. Long videos are indeed much easier to monetize than short formats; moreover, TikTok struggled to generate revenue for some time precisely because of this problem, while its growth in terms of users was exponential.
With these longer formats, the Chinese application could compete more with YouTube. According to a report by eMarketer, TikTok is expected to triple its advertising revenue in 2022, surpassing that of Snapchat and Twitter combined.