YouTube shorts between 16 to 60 seconds duration garner maximum engagement: Report

Offering a comprehensive understanding of the best practices in the short video space, The Good Creator Co released a trend report on YouTube Shorts.

Considering the surge in content creation, consumption and platforms in India, the report analysed the performance of YT Shorts from the point of view of content creators and brands in the last calendar year, i.e. January 2022 – December 2022.

The analysis is focused on information available to the public and is present in Vidooly’s database. The findings reveal numbers useful for key stakeholders in the digital video industry.

According to the report, the Hindi language dominates the YT shorts space with viewership, engagement and upload share of 71.88%, 75.81% & 59.50% respectively.

The Good Creator Co. is an Influencer marketing and commerce (IMC) company working with influencers to help them learn, earn and collaborate.

Sachin Bhatia, CEO, The Good Creator Co., said, “The evolution of content creation is at its peak, and we believe that the trend can act as a significant catalyst for economic development. The report on Short Format Video Content details the increased monetisation rollout on YT shorts that will help YouTube attract more first-time creators. We are actively associated with content creators active on YT Shorts and other short video platforms and engage with them as per the requirement of the brands. The numbers are encouraging and we believe with time more brands would dive into YT shorts.”

Key Highlights:

• YouTube shorts with a duration of more than 15 seconds get the maximum share of viewership and uploads.
• Month On Month there has been a +ve growth in the share of uploads with Dec’22 seeing a 55% increase when compared to the number of YouTube shorts uploaded in Jan’22.
• 98% of the YouTube shorts uploaded were by content creators, which shows clear dominance by content creators.
• The entertainment genre has the maximum share of viewership, engagements and uploads.

The average number of new content creators has more than doubled since the initial global deployment of YouTube Shorts in July 2021 and the introduction of YouTube Shorts in India in September 2020.

Viewership share of YouTube shorts vs Video On Demand (VOD) (Jan’22 – Dec’22):

Key takeaways:

• Around 98% of YouTube short videos uploaded in the analysis duration were by content creators.
• The trend is clearly visible in the numbers with YouTube shorts getting 19.25% of viewership share vs VOD within 2 years of global rollout during the analysis period of Jan’22- Dec’22.
• YouTube shorts between the duration of 16 seconds – 60 seconds garnered the maximum engagement.
• Dec’22 saw the maximum uploads of YouTube short videos, majorly by content creators, witnessing a jump of 19% from Jan’22.
• More than 50% of YouTube shorts were uploaded between July’22 – Oct’22.

Top Genres witnessed:

Key takeaways:

• The top 3 genres (Entertainment, Comedy and Infotainment) garnered more than 55% views and engagement with less than 1/3rd of uploads share.
• In terms of total viewership and engagement, the "Entertainment" genre accounts for about 1/3rd and 1/4th of the total respectively whereas the acting sub-genre has the maximum share of uploads i.e 37.38%.
• Out of all genres, just five genres (Entertainment, Gaming, News & Politics, Comedy & Infotainment) covered 50% of total uploads.
• Mysterious and amazing facts completely dominate the Infotainment genre with 96.94% in terms of viewership, 97.36% in terms of engagement and 96.94% uploads.
• Daily family vlog completely dominates the vlogging genre with 83.72% viewership, 77.87% engagement and  70%  uploads where the average views garnered by YouTube shorts is the highest in Tours and travels i.e 727.30K.

How did brands leverage YouTube shorts?:

Key Takeaways:

• YouTube shorts of duration of more than 15 seconds have the maximum share of uploads, 82.25%.
• June’22 saw the maximum YouTube shorts uploads by brands, a jump of 59.67% from Jan’22.
• FMCG tops in the share of uploads i.e 9.76%.
• Sports has the maximum share of engagement i.e 29.43%.

According to the data gathered, Hindi language dominates the YouTube shorts space in terms of viewership which accounts for 71.88%  followed by Malayalam (48.80%), Tamil (37.10%) and Telugu (33.56%).