If you do nothing else today, please use this simple YouTube Shorts strategy to grow your channel. It’ll literally take a minute and it works.
As a small YouTube creator, you’ve probably been there: you spend hours crafting a long form video, perfecting the thumbnail, scripting, and editing—only for it to just kinda… sit there, not getting the views to justify the work, and not getting you any closer to your monetization goals.
Meanwhile, a short, fun clip you tossed together in 15 minutes seems to be racking up the views. It’s frustrating and can make us feel like we’re taking shots in the dark, cursing The Algorithm, never quite understanding what’s going on.
There is a simple strategy that all creators can use to turn Shorts views into views of your long form content, which is always the goal.
It only takes three clicks. It works for us, it works for many small and big creators on YouTube, it’ll work for you too.
All you need to do is connect your Short(s) videos to your long form videos. If you’re already sold on the idea and you just want the instructions (what is this, a recipe blog? We don’t need the life story, just get to the ingredients and instructions already), we got you: skip ahead to see the steps to take to implement this winning YouTube Shorts strategy to grow your channel.
Why YouTube Shorts Matter for Small Channels
For the rest of us, let’s first talk about why YouTube Shorts are so powerful. These bite-sized videos are easy for viewers to consume and YouTube promotes them heavily. That means that even small channels have a chance to go “viral” in their niche. But Shorts views don’t do much for our channels on their own. For one, Shorts pay peanuts but this YouTube Shorts strategy can be your secret weapon for driving traffic to longer videos. If a Short starts getting views, you can use this simple method to push viewers directly to your other content.
So, how do you do that? Let’s break it down.
How to Use Shorts to Boost Long Form Videos in 3 Simple Steps
Step 1: Upload a YouTube Short
The first thing you need to enact this YouTube Shorts strategy is… a Short. It can be anything—either a new Short you create or a clip taken from one of your existing long form videos. Keep it fun, engaging, and under 60 seconds to maximize its chances of getting picked up by YouTube’s algorithm. If you don’t know what to make, TubeBuddy YouTube Suggested Shorts feature can help.
💡 Tip: Use Shorts to highlight a teaser or an exciting moment from a longer video to create intrigue and push viewers to watch the full version.
Step 2: Link the Short to a Long Form Video
Once your Short is uploaded, head into YouTube Studio. Go to the Details section of the Short, and follow these steps to link it to a related long form video:
- Open the Short in Studio and find the Add a related video.
- Select the long form video you want to promote. This should be a video that could benefit from the extra traffic.
- Click Save.
Now, anyone who watches your Short will see a small prompt at the bottom, encouraging them to watch the long form video. It’s a simple but powerful way to direct traffic.
Step 3: Watch Your Views (and Subscribers) Grow
Once this setup is in place, you’ll notice a flow of viewers moving from your Short to your long form video. This method works particularly well if your Short goes viral, bringing a flood of new eyes to your channel. But virality is not required; smaller bursts of views can make a huge difference for small channels.
Plus, this strategy doesn’t just increase views—it can boost your watch time and attract new subscribers too, both of which are crucial for growing your channel and reaching monetization faster.
Advanced Techniques for Maximizing YouTube Growth
If you want to take things a step further, here are two bonus techniques that successful creators are using to supercharge this method, as outlined by the one and only Jon Youshaei:
The Flood Method
The idea here is to link all of your Shorts to the same long form video, even if they’re not related to that video. This method “floods” traffic to one video, concentrating views and engagement on a single piece of content. You can change the link later to drive traffic to a new long form video whenever you publish one.
The Short-to-Short Method
This method involves linking your Shorts to other Shorts instead of long form content. It’s especially effective if your Shorts are part of a series, keeping viewers engaged with multiple videos. By connecting related Shorts, you keep viewers on your channel longer, building stronger engagement and higher chances of gaining subscribers.
Both methods are simple but can significantly boost your channel’s growth with very little extra effort.
Use This YouTube Shorts Strategy to Grow Your Channel
Using YouTube Shorts to funnel traffic to your long form videos is a game-changing strategy, especially for small channels. At its simplest, it takes just three clicks to turn a Short’s viral momentum into a steady stream of long form views, more watch time, and new subscribers. With the Flood and Short-to-Short methods, it’ll take a few more clicks but the results will be worth it.
Whichever approach you take, the key is to connect your Shorts strategically and then sit back and watch as your channel’s numbers grow.
Looking for even more inspiration? Head over to this comprehensive guide on growing your small YouTube channel here.
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How Small Channels Can Get More Views in 3 Clicks: Video Transcript
yo so there are a few taps that you can make that will almost instantly make a huge difference in the amount of views your videos are getting let me show you something. All right so recently I started helping out on this small Channel and I want to show you something very interesting inside a YouTube Studio here so down here at the bottom we have in the gray that’s barely visible the typical performance of the videos on this channel frankly the typical videos haven’t been performing that much well however this video that we just uploaded
is this blue line here and as you can see it has completely taken off it has done miles better than the other videos on the channel we’ve gotten over 5,000 views 85 hours of watch time some subscribers and a little bit of money not a lot but once again this is a smaller channel so all of these numbers are really good things to see and it’s all because we click three buttons inside a YouTube Studio I understand the work that it takes takes to publish a long form Video hours of editing hours of filming hours
of scripting coming up with the idea coming up with the title the thumbnail all of that goes into making a successful long form video but then sometimes you publish it and it just doesn’t get any views but then you publish this quick fun short that took you absolutely no time and then views start pouring in it’s nice but it’s also a little bit frustrating but there’s something we can do to take advantage of this problem if your YouTube shorts are getting views doesn’t matter how many views if they’re getting
any type of viewership at all you have hidden potential on your Channel all right so if we dive back into this video we can go here into analytics and see some interesting things that give us an understanding of why the performance of the video did so much better so starting off we can see that over the last 48 hours the top traffic source is related shorts all right so where exactly are all of these views coming from well they’re coming from from this short right here as you can see this short has done really well over the last 7 days
it’s gotten almost 20,000 views over the last 48 hours it’s gotten over 4,000 views so what we did was we took advantage of the performance of this video and here in details we can see that we linked to that long form video that performed super well from this short so now when a viewer is on YouTube and they see this short they’ll also see this little button down here at the bottom that they can then click and then be taken to that long form video that we uploaded helping to take a lot of those viewers from shorts over to long form
all right quick pause I want to tell you about vidsummit it’s happening September 3rd through the 5th in Dallas Texas it is a incredible event if you want to network with the top YouTubers around the world learn how to grow your channel faster or just hang out and have a ton of fun then you need to check out the link pinned in the comments below so you can join us in person or online and if it’s too late there’s always the replays all right back to the video okay so I’m going to show you exactly how to do this
inside a YouTube Studio then I’m going to show you this message from a YouTube employee on how they use this and it’s just it’s so good first you’re going to need a YouTube short it can be a clip from a video that’s already out on your Channel or something that you just made for this purpose and if you have that short up upload it you can go to details and now I’m going to show you how to do this in just three clicks all you’re going to do is come down here to related video that’s one click find a video that
you want to connect to that short the the video that you want to promote using that short so for us we’re going to choose this one right here actually and then that’s click number two and then up here at the top hit save three clicks that simple and you’re done now this is just a random example but you can be really creative on how you do this Mark Manson took this clip from his long form video and turned it into this short this Channel created a short out of one of the most engaging parts of their long
form video and then linked it back to the full thing Ryan tryand ended this short form video directing viewers to watch this longer one creators find very interesting ways to utilize this feature but this ex YouTube employee explained it in a way that I never heard before before I think nearly everyone is oversimplifying YouTube’s recent update which lets you link your shorts to other videos because there’s so much more you can do with it so here’s two ideas which I like to call the flood method and the
short to short method the flood method means you take every single one of your shorts and have them linked to your most recent long form YouTube video even if it’s unrelated meaning you flood one long form with your shorts and then when you put out another long form video you change all the links on your shorts to flood to that one so the second method is the short short which is exactly what it sounds like because most people use this tool this new linking tool only to link their short clips to the respective
long form that they came from but what most people don’t realize is that you can also link your short to another short which I would do with every single short on your channel especially if your shorts are part of a series it’s that simple it’s that powerful and it freaking works so I want you to give it a try and if you want to know five YouTube settings that can help you get monetized faster as a small Channel then click this video right here and I’ll see you over there keep creating
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