Had to pick between weekly shorts and long-form videos for my small channel

I chose shorts because they were faster to make, but after 3 weeks of 50 views max and zero subs, I'm wondering if I should've stuck with the 15-minute deep dives that at least got me some loyal commenters. Has anyone else regretted chasing the algorithm like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

uma_williams1mo ago

The algorithm is a fickle beast" - yeah, did the same thing with my music reaction channel. Total waste of time.

murphy.mason1mo ago

So my buddy Dave went all in on shorts for his cooking channel, spent like a month pumping out 30 second clips of egg frying and knife skills. He got a couple hundred views on one video about flipping pancakes but ended up with like 12 subscribers and zero comments. Then he went back to his 20 minute recipe breakdowns and within two weeks his regulars were back and he actually got a patreon request from one of them. The algorithm is a fickle beast, man.

margareto261mo ago

That "algorithm is a fickle beast" line hits home. I've seen the same thing happen to a buddy who runs a woodworking channel, he chased the shorts trend for a month and got nothing but crickets. Soon as he dropped a 45 minute table build video, his regulars chimed in and actually offered to buy plans from him. Sometimes chasing what's hot just breaks what you already had going.