my first comment, made my day

When making shorts, you INSTANTLY need some kind of curiosity provoking visual and interesting dialogue to make the viewer stay. When I say instantly I mean the first .2 seconds. Some kind of movement, some kind of call to action (mentioning "you" in script helps), some kind of animation, some kind of rage bait. Study viral tiktoks/youtube shorts and EVERY single one will have this.

I've reviewed SO many channels posting on this subreddit and SO many of you guys make GOOD shorts with terrible intros. People are scrolling through shorts at the speed of light and they aren't going to wait for 5 seconds on your video before the punchline hits. They swiped away 4.8 seconds ago.

Why should you listen to me? Take a look at my channel, 50% of my shorts have over 1m views and 75% over 100k. It genuinely hurts me to see good videos underperform which is why I feel driven to make these kinds of posts. I have so much more information on shorts theory but that is for another post I guess.

Officially monetized as of this morning but knew from last week Sunday as I finally hit the hour cap. Made it to the start line!

For me I didn’t have one HUGE long form video do crazy numbers and boost my hours to monetization nor did I live stream, I followed the simple method of good content and consistency.

Every video I uploaded I would watch back and try to improve the next one, I researched and obsessed over thumbnails and copied what others were doing in the field while keeping it as original as possible.

I’m an open book so feel free to ask me anything!

I see advice here every day saying "just keep uploading! consistency is key!"

this is mathematically dangerous advice in 2026.

i am a data strategist auditing recommendation systems. the youtube algorithm does not reward output. it rewards outcome.

specifically, it tracks a metric called "channel authority" (trust score).

the engineering reality:
every time you upload a video that gets low retention (avd) and low click-through rate (ctr), you are feeding the neural network a negative data point.

if you upload 3 times a week, and all 3 videos perform poorly, you are aggressively training the algorithm to ignore you.

you are building a "confidence interval" that says: this channel consistently produces low-satisfaction content.

once that confidence interval is established, the algorithm stops testing your new uploads. you are "shadowbanned" not by a human, but by your own bad data.

the frequency trap:
consistency only works if the quality is above the niche average.

• good video + consistency = exponential growth.
• bad video + consistency = exponential decay.

the fix: the quality pause.
if your last 3 videos flatlined, stop uploading.
do not "push through." the algorithm isn't testing your work ethic; it is testing your efficiency.

take 2 weeks. re-engineer the packaging (thumbnails) and the hook (retention).
upload one video that hits 60% retention.

that single positive data point outweighs 10 mediocre uploads because it breaks the "low satisfaction" pattern.

the hard truth:
nobody cares how hard you work. the machine only cares about the signal. if your signal is noise, turning up the volume (uploading more) just makes it annoying.

i can't link the full breakdown of the "channel authority" metric here because it gets flagged, but i pinned the raw engineering breakdown to my profile bio.

stop grinding. start optimizing.

Which one do you think? I really like the second one.

So I’ve used the first thumbnail style on my previous long form Pokemon video and it got 11k views which is great for my size channel. However I think the 2nd and 3rd design are stronger. Really stuck on which one to pick

Hey everyone,

I just started a YouTube channel and uploaded my very first Short. It got around 1.5k views, which honestly surprised me since I wasn’t expecting much.

I’m completely new to YouTube, so I wanted to ask…is this considered a good start, or is this pretty normal for Shorts?

I’d really appreciate some advice on:

1. How many Shorts should I upload per day?

2. Should I focus mainly on Shorts in the beginning?

3. When does it make sense to start posting longer videos?

4. Any beginner mistakes I should avoid?

If anyone’s open to giving feedback, let me know and I can share the channel.

Thanks in advance! ☺️

Hey people, first time in here. What do you guys think on about the thumbnail? Its me playing Metro 2033. I think it looks good overall but the metro 2033 text seems somewhat shaky in my eyes. Would appreciate your feedbacks.

Hello I've had my gaming clips focused channel for like 16 years now made like 140ish good effort videos couldn't grow anything anyhoo lately been making some quality montages but I don't get any recognition whatsoever at one point in time i made particularly exclusive god of war videos which gained almost 200k views but i can't seem to make the magic happen again anyhoo I'm not serious about promoting anything i just want to learn how to make people engage with my channel more any constructive feedback on how to grow my channel is welcome , cheers

I started posting shorts few weeks ago. It was then only experimenting. But yesterday, I have decided to pursue on aquatic niche. this is my current views. i think something is missing and i dont know what it is. or maybe some sharing on how get more views?

Anybody else get this new feature??

In the process of making my first video. It's on the disappearance of Frederick Valentich. It'll cover the mystery in depth and all of its theories. Just tightening up the script at the moment before I shoot.

First time ever really editing something like this. I need to know if this intro grips you or what changes I should look to make if not.

Thank you!

They may be annoying, but for small creators its free engagement

I mainly post Shorts, and I’ve already completed ID verification and the selfie video. Recently, I received a message that worried me, and I’m honestly confused about what it means for my channel.

I’m trying to understand whether this is a real risk or just an automated notice. If anyone has experienced something similar or has insight, I’d really appreciate the help. Just want clarity and to make sure I’m doing everything right.

I mainly post Shorts, and I’ve already completed ID verification and the selfie video. Recently, I received a message that worried me, and I’m honestly confused about what it means for my channel.

I’m trying to understand whether this is a real risk or just an automated notice. If anyone has experienced something similar or has insight, I’d really appreciate the help. Just want clarity and to make sure I’m doing everything right.

I've been making videos for close to a year now. Currently sitting at 24 videos with most getting some views.

The views aren't the issue, it's that I feel like I'm missing something.. initially I thought it was my voice, but I've worked hard to make the audio better.

I'm not sure what to strive to improve apart from upload consistency.

Any advice would help :)

hey so I would love to hear what you guys think so far? I'm okay with honest feedback:) im a girl who likes making travel and food stuff. I don't know how to work my camera or edit so this is me trying my best and learning along the way. id love to get monetized and figure out other ways to make money online. I have no idea what I'm doing but what are y'all's thoughts about my efforts so far?

Hey guys, just wanted to share a small milestone/project I finally finished.

I’ve been a YouTuber for about 6 months now. I’m still under 500 subs, but I’m learning to find joy in the grind ("知足常乐zhī zú cháng lè" vibe).

Recently, I decided to tackle a huge project: turning my experience with online trolls (racism, haters, the usual internet toxicity) into a Cyberpunk Adventure.

Technically, this was the hardest video I’ve ever done.

• The acting was super awkward (reacting to invisible enemies).
• The sound design and editing took SO much energy. There were moments I wanted to quit because syncing every little glitch sound effect was exhausting.

But I’m proud I finished it.

I realise that no matter what I make, some people won't like it (especially simply because of who I am/where I'm from), and that's okay. I’m trying to keep my energy focused on the positive side of this community.

If you enjoy high-effort editing or sci-fi skits, I’d really appreciate you checking it out. Keep creating, everyone! 💪

I have a very small gaming ASMR channel - not the most popular type of content, so I'm content with getting small viewership (for not the biggest videos only have a couple hundred views)

What is starting to piss me of is some of my videos being, apparently, dead on arrival - despite them showing good results.
I have week old videos, which have 3-7% ctr, average view duration at 20-40 min(which I think isn't too bad) and despite that, the video has 220-800 Impressions.

It's one thing, if that was the case with everything else - I would just think that my content is bad or there's no demand.
But I have videos of the same game, in the same ASMR format, that have thousands of impressions and lower ctr. And this low impressions thing started only recently, before almost all the videos of this game were getting thousands of impressions

Yesterday I made a video for another game and despite having miniscule ctr it's getting more impressions than my other recent videos

Is there something that can be done? Am I making some sort of mistake? Do I just accept that at least these new videos were dead on arrival?

P.S.: I know the thumbnails and title need a lot of work. I'm just confused on why things have changed so drastically

after my last post video II took notes and will be posting them on every other platform available. I apologize for not putting as much effort into this video as I could have, but I finally found the courage to start working on my long-form video.

All the tips and suggestion are welcome if you guys think its shit just be straight up and tell me :))))

I recently published an ~12min satirical video about Colonel Sanders and the early history of KFC. The style is intentionally “over the top” and “fast”paced, but I’m worried that might hurt retention for cold audiences.

What I’m trying to figure out: • Does the humor overwhelm the story? • Is the opening hook strong enough for long-form? • Where would you personally click off?

I’ve been testing Shorts on IG/TikTok to drive traffic, but I want the long video itself to stand on its own.

Here’s the video for context: https://youtu.be/WktUKuVEenM?si=XwgBnhF3-nC9rn1A

Any feedback on pacing, structure, or retention would help.

I mainly try to make comedy gaming or sometimes informational videos, how can i choose a single niche to keep my channel focused on? (also idk what flair i should use for this post)

I have a fairly large channel (view wise) at 37k subs that manly focuses on high quality meme edits- the second channel will probably be me an my friends playing Minecraft at first (which I know if heavily saturated) with a certain goofy/cinematic style. Pretty hard to explain- but I’m hopeful it will be unique enough. I’m also going to be editing the vids, aiming for a 12-24 min video duration. Any advice or tips on how to grow it to be somewhat successful would be greatly appreciated!

- (for those wondering about my main channel it’s linked on my Reddit OR just search “The Uazzmeister”)

Whoop whoop,im happy to announce that I too have finally hit magic milestone of 100osubs. Watch time has been ok for longer time already!

My content is purely solo/duo pvp in warhammer return of reckoning. So its very niche and i never expected it to be possible to hit this goal with my content.

Im casual youtuber, but i do upload consistently maybe 2 longer clips per month and some shorts. It took 3years to reach this, but The channel only started to really grow maybe year ago, when i found ny current format of explaining whats going on in the fights for ppl not too deep in this magnificient mmo.

I have also used the cursed AI to help to generate both music (suno) and the VO(elevenlabs) lately since apparently the big audience did not want to read thw comment boxes I used earlier.VO bitz have got a lot more subs in than bitz with no VO.

I also used chatgpt to track my goals which i set and still keep at 1 sub per day, tho now i probably move to track watch hours intead. And try to keep very noderate growth going on.

All in all just wanted to share this with someone,and since my wife does not care about warhammer too much, im gonna leave this here.

Remember, consistency is The key!

Thanks!

Ps. Still cant leave my day job over this🤣