6 Things You Should Know Before Starting a YouTube Shorts Channel
#2: YouTube Shorts watching hours won’t get you into the Partner Program
Just over a year has passed since YouTube launched the beta version of Shorts on September 14, 2020, in India.
YouTube Shorts are videos under 60 seconds that fall into a specific section of YouTube separated from regular videos.
They are vertical videos, 9:16 ratio, ideally shooted with the phone camera and posted right away on the platform.
You don’t need to create a separate channel to start uploading short videos, but if you do, be aware of the following tips!
17 seconds is the sweet spot
While Shorts can be up to 60 seconds, it has been noticed that people usually watch short videos only for 15–20 seconds.
I did some research, and several YouTubers confirmed this theory. My shorts channel stats proved that the average duration of the views is 17 seconds.
Shorts watching ours don’t count to reach the minimum 4,000 watch hours to apply for monetization.
You read it right. Go to the monetization section of your account and, placing the mouse cursor on the little “i” icon, you will see that short videos and ad campaigns watch hours won’t count to reach the minimum of 4,000 hours to be eligible for monetization.
It makes sense considering that Shorts can be watched one after the other simply scrolling on mobile and that some ads can be longer than Shorts videos themselves.
That’s probably why YouTube created the Shorts Fund.
YouTube Shorts Fund
YouTube Shorts Fund is a long-term project YouTube decided to build to pay creators who focus on Shorts.
It consists of a $100M fund distributed between 2021 and 2022 to support creators and, while there’s no specific performance threshold to qualify for a bonus, there’s no clue how much you will get paid either.
Well, YouTube says that if you are eligible, you can get paid between $100 and $10,000, but…
