According to a report released by Digiday, YouTube Shorts with the most views are mostly routine videos, right after tutorial videos. Routine videos refer to daily or night-time routines, skincare routines, and more.
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YouTube Shorts is growing
Short-form video content is the most popular and effective social media content format for this year and the years to come. Just take a look at TikTok, the pioneer of the short-form video content movement. The application is the fastest-growing social media platform, having generated over 1.6 billion users since its inception seven years ago.
YouTube has over 2 billion active users on its website and application, which spreads to its Short shelf. According to Google, YouTube Shorts crossed 50 billion daily views in February 2023.
Heather Clark, YouTube’s luxury lead in the U.K., said “Fifty-nine percent of Gen Z — already the world’s largest generation — use short-form video apps to discover things that they then watch longer versions of,” Clark said. “Therefore, Shorts can help fuel a virtuous cycle of engagement between brands [and consumers].”
Like TikTok, Shorts allows users to create and watch videos up to 60 seconds long. They are designed to be quick and easy to create, and they can be shared directly on YouTube. But what kind of content is most watched on the application? What is it that viewers are responding to, and interacting with?
Highest performing Shorts are routine videos
YouTube advises its users to “think audience, not algorithm” and “the audience is the algorithm”, especially since the Shorts algorithm is different from the regular YouTube feed as it is an entirely different format, with different consumption behaviors.
The algorithm aims to display content that users enjoy by considering their viewing habits, including watch time and re-watches. In addition, it takes into account likes, shares, and comments. This means creators should make more high-quality videos that do well.
Digiday reports that the highest-performing Shorts were routine or tutorial videos. According to their research, “On average, routine videos received over 428,000 views per video. Tutorials were a close second, averaging over 385,000 views per video.” This means routine videos are getting the most views, and are getting creators noticed.
Additionally, creators are receiving more comments on their YouTube Shorts about their routines. However, on average, tutorial videos receive more likes. As stated by Digiday “On average, tutorials earned about 21,000 likes versus approximately 16,000 likes for routine videos.”
But, what does this mean for creators?
Since routine videos are viewed on average more than 400,000 times, creators can incorporate them into their content more often. Additionally, since tutorials also perform better than other types of Shorts, including ‘GRWM’s, it is best for content creators to create more educational content. Brands like Neutrogena are doing it, too.
This type of educational content performs the best for viewers who want to incorporate a new product or a health and beauty routine into their lives, and according to Digiday, there are many of them.
YouTube Shorts will continue to grow in the future. Creators should utilize it as much as possible, as posting consistently can help get more views quickly and grow their platform.
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