My shorts channel used to have many viral videos. But lately, the views aren't looking good. So, I decided to take on a challenge: create a youtube short that can reach at least 1 million views. I documented the entire process and created a step-by-step guide that you can apply to your own channel.
If you want to learn how to make a viral youtube shorts, or how to edit shorts, I'm sure you're gonna get something from this one.
Hope you enjoy
If you want to learn how to make a viral youtube shorts, or how to edit shorts, I'm sure you're gonna get something from this one.
Hope you enjoy
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00My shorts channel has over 20 million views and many viral videos, but my recent shorts
00:04aren't really doing well. Most of them stuck after getting that first a few thousand views
00:08again and again and again. I need to break this cycle. So in this video, I will try to create a
00:13short completely from scratch, get at least 1 million views and show how much money I made from
00:18it. Let's dive in. What day is it? It's August 7, 2023. We need to find Isaac.
00:30At the end of this video, you will have a viral strategy to use in your next shorts and a full
00:35guide on how to make it no matter your niche or experience. It's not one of those use chat GPT
00:40and Canva to make 300 videos in 30 minutes or use this website to make clips from interviews
00:46kind of tutorial. I tried all of them and trust me, they don't work at all. You will end up getting
00:51zero views after all the effort you put in. And even if you magically get 10 million views with
00:56those AI generated shorts, you can't monetize it anyways because YouTube doesn't monetize
01:01repetitive content. And while posting 300 mass produced videos is repetitive as back to the
01:07video. So do not expect a copy paste tutorial here. You need to put in the work and learn how
01:12to make a viral short. We will go from finding the video idea to writing the script, voiceover,
01:17editing, captions, music, sound effect. And but first we need a new strategy. This is my shorts
01:22channel where I make videos about Marvel movies. And this is the viral recipe I've been using to
01:27make my shorts. It's basically a list of patterns that I saw in my high performing videos. Even
01:32though it helped me get some viral shorts before, it's not as effective anymore. You know what
01:36Einstein says? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different
01:42results. And I'm not insane yet. So we need an update. I'm going to do some research to find
01:47out what works on the shorts right now. I'll be back soon. So after three hours of serious research,
01:52here's the new spell. Now let's get to work. This was the first mistake I was making in my old
02:00videos. And if you can't make a viral short, that's probably what you're missing as well.
02:04If you have a bad video idea, you can't make it go viral no matter how good you write your script
02:09or edit. Well, how to pick a killer video idea. Just look out for trends in your niche or even
02:14better, implement a trend into your niche. Of course, taking an old topic and adding your spice
02:19may work as well, but we're trying to increase our chances to the max. A short about a new Marvel
02:24movie has a higher chance of going viral than an interview with the Spider-Man actor published six
02:29years ago. So I'm going to look to Google Trends for a new movie that fans are excited about. Well,
02:33I don't even need to look there because I'm a fan myself. I know Loki season two has a new trailer.
02:38That's the advantage of being a part of your audience. If you're passionate about your niche,
02:42you already know what's trending. Wait, you know, this guy, he's the guy from that movie.
02:46I saw his speech at the Oscars. Mom, I just won an Oscar. Very emotional. Anyways, we got the video
02:56idea. Now, when it comes to scripting a short, I always thought I should keep my scripts as
03:04short as possible, like a boxer punching his opponent and stepping back, because if everything
03:08stays the same, which video will get more views? The one with a higher retention, right? But here's
03:13the catch. Even if it has a higher retention, YouTube is more likely to promote the longer one,
03:18at least in my experience. I don't really know the reason, but it's probably because it keeps
03:22the viewer longer in the platform. And if they take retention as the main metric, people would
03:26just upload one second videos to get thousand percent retention and go viral, which is not
03:32what YouTube wants. Plus, YouTube shows longer shorts on the homepage where people are less
03:37likely to skip. Fun fact, my most viewed short got 70 percent of its views from the homepage.
03:41All right, here's the actual data by this legend that shows the duration of viral shorts. What I'm
03:47trying to say is, make your shorts longer. Take time to dive deeper into the details and make it
03:52at least this long. Another thing that will definitely help is a strong hook to make them
03:57curious and stop scrolling. For example, in Loki season two, we saw this guy as a TVA worker. The
04:02point here is Loki season two isn't released yet. So that would make viewers like, dude, you gave me
04:08heart attack. I thought Loki season two got released. That's exactly the reaction we want to
04:12get with the hook. OK, maybe that was too specific and may not work for every niche. Here's another
04:17one. Tom Holland knows more than you think. Did you see what happened there? The first line made
04:22the viewer wonder, what does he know? And the jump scare made them laugh. So they probably stayed
04:27till the end. Otherwise. If you didn't catch it, we're making a video about the story of this actor,
04:35K.E. Hui Kwan, which is a story by itself. But even though it's less than a minute, adding some
04:40kind of story to your shorts makes people watch to learn what happens at the end. I'm too lazy to do
04:45the research, so I'll ask Bing to write me the whole career of our guy. AI automation, huh? After
04:50taking useful parts and putting in a story, here's the next point. Hearing the story from only one
04:56person is OK, but we can take it to the next level by adding another speaker. Get footage of someone
05:02else to tell some parts of the story or just add memes. Remember the Oscar speech? I'm going to use
05:06it for my short. I just won an Oscar. Still very emotional, which leads us to the next key. Adding
05:14some kind of emotion. It can be laughter, fear, motivation, happiness or any emotion you can think of.
05:20Don't question my sense of humor. Now you have two options. If you have a sexy voice, just take a
05:26microphone and read through your script. But I guess most of you are interested in the second
05:30option, using AI. All right, there are tons of text-to-speech tools out there, but the one I use
05:35is called Eleven Labs. In fact, the voice you're listening to right now is made by this thing.
05:39There's a link in the description if you want to check it out. Now, all you need to do is choose a
05:43voice or a description of the voice you're listening to. I'm going to use the voice of
05:47a man. All you need to do is choose a voice or generate a custom one and paste your script to
05:52generate the voiceover. In Loki season 2, we saw this guy as a TVA worker. It's fine, but we can
05:58take it to the next level. Use commas, exclamation marks and capital letters to get different tones
06:03and generating it a few times also helps to get the best result. I will show this part in Premiere
06:11Pro, but you can do the same in every editing software. First, to make sure we're on the same
06:16To get a similar setup, it should look like this at the end or use whatever setup works for you.
06:22Take the voiceover you generated and import it to your project, then drag it to the timeline.
06:27Take the razor tool and cut all the pauses. Now, overlap the clips to get a faster pacing.
06:32Listen to see if it sounds natural or not and repeat this for the whole voiceover.
06:37Nice job! Now, we need footage to add on top. For videos, go to YouTube, search for things related
06:42to your topic and download them with a random website. If you need more stock videos and images,
06:47use Pexels. Then, take all that footage and import to Premiere. Cover all your voiceover
06:51with related clips. Don't forget to add one or two interaction clips to keep the viewers engaged.
06:56Look at that, you just made a rough cut for your video. Now, the fun part begins.
07:00First, resize all your clips to fit the screen. Use keyframes to add zoom ins,
07:05zoom outs and camera movements. To make them smoother, click this button,
07:09click a keyframe and drag these handles closer to each other. Basically,
07:13it makes the movement start slowly, go faster and then slow down again. Looks better!
07:20This guy says adding some graphics like circles and arrows increases the engagement.
07:25Actually, the short I created in the video now has over 38 million views.
07:29Wow! So, I added a bunch of things here and there and used keyframes again to track points.
07:34You can't find a single short without this one. It's a magical element that is stupidly simple
07:39yet increases the retention so much. This part is based on personal preference and branding of
07:44your channel. But to give you a reference, I use yellow text on a black box in two sizes.
07:49One small for regular captions and one big for highlighting important points. Here are the
07:54settings that I use if you want to replicate a similar style. But as I said, it's nice to make
07:58a custom one for yourself. That way, people can easily see what you're doing.
08:03That way, people can immediately recognize it's your video and stop scrolling. That's not the
08:08case if you're using an automatic caption app or something. Because everyone else is using it too.
08:12That doesn't make your channel special, does it? So, play around, make different variations,
08:17sizes, colors. And once you're happy with the look, choose all the effects and make a preset
08:22for each style to use it next time. Now, hold ALT, drag it for each new text and change the words.
08:28Done. But something is still missing.
08:33Sound effects is a different video topic by itself. But if you have never used them before
08:37and don't know where to start, a free pack from YouTube would do the job. If you need more,
08:42search on YouTube like tension sound effect, whoosh sound effect, cinematic sound effect,
08:46laugh sound effect. You got the point. Once you added enough of those and adjusted the volume,
08:51the final touch is adding some music. Using a trending song would be a nice choice. But I like
08:58to go through the songs I personally listen to and choose the one that fits in the video. Just
09:02be careful and don't make it too loud. Otherwise, you may get comments like...
09:11It looks too dark and pale. The solution is creating an adjustment layer. It basically
09:15affects everything underneath. To play with the colors of the whole video, cover the entire
09:20timeline. Go to the effects panel and search for Lumetri color. Drag it to the adjustment layer.
09:24Now, make it bright and colorful. Maybe not that much. Increase the exposure if it's too dark.
09:29Give a bit of saturation, contrast and play around to find what works for you. Just don't
09:34get too extreme. Before finishing, I like to add this light effect on top of everything.
09:39I don't know why. Finally, we can export the final video.
09:42It's been 24 hours since I released the short and it got 5,000 views. What? All that effort was for
09:49this? 5,000 views? People are right. It's just luck. There's no formula for success in shorts.
09:56Maybe I should have chosen a better topic. The editing wasn't good enough. Why would anyone
09:59even watch this piece of shit? Having said that, I'm going to show you the final video.
10:12I know. Don't be sad, mate. It's been only 24 hours. Rome wasn't built in a day.
10:20Look at your old videos. Which one went viral on the first day?
10:25None of them. Just give it a bit more time before losing your hope.
10:31And don't just sit and wait there for the result. Putting all your hope on a single
10:35video is insanity. And you're not insane, right? Einstein? Yeah, but that's not the point. Look,
10:41you've got a solid formula. Keep making more videos. You'll improve your skills with each one.
10:47Okay. I don't know who you are, but thanks, man. I needed to hear that.
10:52You're welcome, my man. Remember, it's a journey, not a destination.
10:57It's been 30 days since I published that short. And while waiting, I made five more videos with
11:02the same formula. So, did it get 1 million views? No, it didn't. Because it got 2 million.
11:09After all that research, scripting, and editing, the formula actually worked. But that's not all.
11:15Remember what I said about choosing trendy topics? A short about a new Marvel movie has a higher
11:20chance of going viral than an interview with the Spider-Man actor, Pepper.
11:23Well, I was wrong. I made a short about that interview, and it got 7 million views. It's now the highest viewed video on the entire channel.
11:30So, we got 10 million views in less than a month, earned five times more revenue than the channel's
11:35entire history, and brought the channel back on track. So, here's the recipe and everything I used,
11:41packed in a single video. Just adjust them for your niche, and make your own list. However,
11:46the last short I published was one month ago. Viewers, I'm sorry, but I can't do this anymore.
11:51The last short I published was one month ago. Views are going down again. The channel is losing traction. I need to break this cycle.
11:58But I guess, this time I'm not alone. So, let's do it one last time.