How to use YouTube Shorts

After months of testing its TikTok competitor in India and a limited beta rollout in the states, YouTube is finally launching YouTube Shorts for everyone in the U.S. and the UK. So now you might be asking yourself…what is YouTube Shorts in the first place? And how do I use it? It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it, and it offers yet another way for you to connect with your favorite creators.

Allow us to break it all down for you.

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What is YouTube Shorts?

YouTube Shorts is basically the platform’s attempt to take on TikTok, the hugely popular short-form video app. However, unlike TikTok, YouTube Shorts is not a standalone service. You won’t find the app in the App Store or on Google Play. YouTube Shorts instead lives within the service’s main mobile app. To use it, just open up the YouTube app you already have on your smartphone. Scroll down slightly, and you’ll see a “Shorts” section.

You’ll also notice that a “Shorts” button has replaced the “Explore” tab at the bottom of the screen, alongside “Home,” “Subscriptions,” “Library,” and the create button. (If YouTube Shorts isn’t currently in your menu at the bottom, it will be there soon.) The “Explore” tab has moved up to the list of options at the top of the app’s screen.

There are two main features that it brings to your mobile app: a platform to watch short-form video and a tool to create your own short-form videos.

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How to watch YouTube Shorts

Once you’ve found the YouTube Shorts section on the app’s homepage, you’ll see a selection of thumbnails for popular Shorts. Clicking on any of those videos brings you into the vertical video player, where you can watch the clip. You can like or dislike the video while it’s playing by tapping the thumbs up or thumbs down icon.

You can also share the Short or comment on it from within the player, although that will pause the video. At the bottom of the clip, you can subscribe to the Short creator’s channel. You can also click on their channel name to see all of that creator’s YouTube Shorts.

If the clip uses a song or sound from another creator, a waveform button will appear on the right-hand side of the screen. Tapping that button will show the original source video for the audio and all the other Shorts that use that song or sound in their clip.

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YouTube Shorts for creators

Creators looking to get started making YouTube Shorts for their channel should head on over to their YouTube app and click the middle button (also known as the create tab) on the menu at the bottom of the screen. Clicking that tab will offer a number of options, but the one you’re looking for is “Create a Short.” This will take you to the Shorts creator tool.

At first glance, it’s basically like every other camera tool that allows you to record video and upload media. However, there are also features to slow down or speed up a recording, set a countdown timer for hands-free recording, and a slew of basic color correction filters.

Creators can make videos up to 60 seconds long, the maximum length of a YouTube Short video. Unlike most other camera tools, though, the YouTube Shorts creator allows users to add music from 250 music labels and publishers. That way, they can make lip-sync and dance videos just like some of the viral clips on TikTok. However, videos that use third-party music can only be up to 15 seconds in length.

The tool also allows creators to use audio from other YouTube videos in their YouTube Shorts clips. One way to add music to your video is right in the YouTube Shorts creator tool camera. A tap of the Add Music tab will bring users to a library of songs from popular artists that they can use. The page also displays what songs are being used the most in Shorts videos. Users can also take inspiration from the music used in other Shorts videos.

As mentioned earlier, users can tap on the waveform icon on the bottom right-hand side of the screen when watching a video to see other Shorts featuring the same audio. Creators can just tap “Use This Sound” at the bottom of that screen and be taken to the Shorts creator tool with the chosen audio ready to go. The creator would just need to cue up what part of the song to use and record their video.

Once the video is uploaded or recorded, creators can edit their YouTube Shorts video on a timeline and make any changes. After giving the video a title, their video is ready to upload. Fans can easily find these videos, as they live right on the home screen of the creator’s channel page under a new “Shorts” section.

Creators might notice that many of those who were creating Shorts videos during the beta period tagged their clips with the hashtag “#shorts.” YouTubers did this in order to make sure that their short-form video was discoverable under the Shorts section of the platform.

However, YouTube had previously said that this hashtag is not required. YouTube will automatically detect any video content that’s 60 seconds or less and include it under Shorts. Creators with monetized channels should also be aware that at the time this piece was published, YouTube Shorts videos were currently not monetizable.

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Still a work in progress

Over the past year or so, TikTok has exploded into the mainstream. The viral video app revived short-form video in a way that hasn’t been seen since Vine closed up shop in early 2017. Other social media platforms, like Facebook, have tried to replicate TikTok’s appeal with little success.

Right now, YouTube Shorts is in its infancy. It’s missing a lot of the special editing and effects features that are extremely popular on TikTok. But, if anyone can go toe-to-toe with TikTok, the reigning king of short online video, it’s the internet’s reigning video behemoth, YouTube.