With a plethora of content available on the internet right now, content creators are all fighting for the love of the audience. For Nika Stewart, the best way to capture everyone’s ever-decreasing attention span is to harness the power of YouTube Shorts. Joining Adrienne Hill, she unveils the anatomy of a viral short video on YouTube and the positive impact it brings to your business. Nika discusses how well-made Shorts have the power to reach out even beyond your initial connections, giving you a chance to grow your following. She also explains why highlighting your imperfect perfectness can make short-form content more engaging and relatable.

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I am so excited about this training session. Short-form video is huge. We all know that. We need the short-form video specialist, rock and roll singer, and cancer thriver, Nika Stewart, because she helps show up and shine as the unique, brilliant superstars that they are. She helps us all to step into that brilliance so that they can get the recognition they deserve. She does this through social media training, consulting, and done-for-you marketing services.

Her Viral Video Intensive shows you exactly how to create Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok videos with ease. We are here to dig into everything YouTube Shorts. This is huge because for the longest time, YouTube was long-form video and this is an important trend that you're going to want to hop on if you want to be on the leading edge of this. Welcome, Nika. I'm so excited to dig into YouTube Shorts with you.

I'm competitive. I'm more excited than you.

I love the competitive nature. For all of those in the audience who are feeling competitive and excited about video, can you tell us a little bit about how you carved out this little niche for yourself of becoming the short-form video and how you became so knowledgeable about YouTube? Tell us all the things.

Thank you. I started years ago in social media so I've always loved the idea of spreading our messages in a leveraged way, in a way that there's one-to-many. Maybe many of you weren't even in business or alive before the internet but I was running a business for years without the benefit of the internet. The whole idea of being able to talk to people around the world and connect with people has always appealed to me. 

I had started a social media agency years ago and I always liked video but never felt like an expert. I always did it for fun. I had the blessing of getting diagnosed with cancer. I had decided I wanted to document my journey because it was a creative outlet for me. I was doing it. I started for myself. By accident, I went viral. Some of my videos reached millions of people. Even though that was an accident, it got me obsessed with, “What makes a video go viral? Is this repeatable? Could I help others do it? Could I do it again and then tell others how to do it?” 

I got obsessed and 2020 happened. That's when I was going through my challenges. A lot of us had a lot more time to sit at home and scroll social media. What I was doing was creating videos for myself and then realized I was inspiring other people. I was studying what is working and putting together the commonalities. What are the common things in all of these videos that are reaching millions and millions of people? What elements can we put into our videos so that we can inspire others as well? 

What I want to point out about your story that is incredible is you took what most people might view as a negative thing. You said, “I had the blessing of getting cancer.” I will tell you, hands down, I've seen this over and over. For those of you in the audience reading, the people who do the best in business, the people who stand the test of time are the people like Nika who are able to see blessings where they otherwise might not seem like a blessing. That act of positivity, abundance, and gratitude, thinking that you have, is amazing. I feel attracted to you and interested in what we're going to talk about. 

I also always say observe the situations, especially if they're emotionally charged. Observe them like a scientist. That's what you did with the video. You pieced it apart. “What exactly is working? Let's piece it apart. Let's dissect it and learn from it.” I can't wait to dig in. Thank you for having this amazing energy about you and then letting us be a part of it. That's wonderful. 

Thank you. The fact that you want to be a part of it is what fuels me. That's another thing that I discovered when I had to be alone. The world had to stay at home for quite a while and many of us felt lonely at the time. I was wondering, “What is the world going through?” I was going through something different at the same time. That feeling of other people wanting to connect with you helps us. Being able to put ourselves out there, inspire others, and then have them want more from us is the whole idea of wanting to put out videos. 

dive deep into the

YouTube Shorts: The feeling of wanting to put ourselves out there to help and inspire others is the whole idea of short-form videos.

That's why video is so powerful. On a little bit of a personal note, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. We look back at that and there are literal conversations we've had where we're like, “This is the worst thing that's ever happened to us but also the best thing that's ever happened to us.”

Isn't that odd? People don't get it. If you have gone through it, you can feel that way.

It's an interesting place to find yourself. I had no idea we had that in common. Go figure that. It's a fascinating thing that can unfold. As you were going through that process, it sounds like you were both connecting with yourself and your journey and being present with it but also connecting with others by sharing it. You were also smartly observing what was happening. What are some of those commonalities or trends you started to see of what makes a viral video?

There are new things that I discover all the time but there are five things I discovered a few years ago when my first video got out there and went viral. Those are remaining the same. They stand the test of time. I'm going to say this in what might sound trite and common. One of the biggest things that I see in almost every video that reaches a lot of people is the person in the video is authentic. They're being themselves. 

When I say that, I mean they're showing the hard stuff, the crap, and the imperfect perfectness that we all are. Typically, the things that we're taught to hide, when you reveal them, you connect with a lot more people. The people who we consider like, “Shouldn't you put your shirt down and not show your stomach because it's not perfect? Shouldn't you put on makeup because you have blemishes? Shouldn't you put a wig on because you lost all your hair?” 

That was me. I was like, “I'm going to go bald and show some videos.” All the things that we think we’re supposed to be ashamed of, when we reveal them, we connect with people and we inspire other people. When we are brave, we allow other people to be brave. It connects with people, motivates them, inspires them, and makes them happy.

When we are brave to reveal the things we are supposed to be ashamed of, we allow other people to be brave.

Whoever looked at a weirdly perfect plastic-looking person and was like, “You're so perfect. I can relate to your perfectness?” Nobody feels perfect. Everyone feels a hot mess underneath. We want to feel perfect. I don't know if there's any human on the face of the planet that does.

No. You see someone else being like, “I'm comfortable being who I am without the perfect this or that.” I always have trouble saying perfect. I don't know if it's from going through things, learning, and telling myself over and over again but that blemishes and things that we're supposed to be ashamed of are perfect. When I say imperfect, I want to say your imperfect perfectness or your perfect imperfectness. We're human so we're perfect and imperfect at the same time.

All the things that you want to hide, stop hiding those things. Just be.

How? Think of that. Even if you say that, I hear it and I'm like, “Do you mean I don't have to pretend?” Not only do you make great videos that reach a lot of people but you don't have to stress out so much anymore. 

You can be a hot mess and you're going to connect with people even more if you're willing to go there. 

It doesn't mean don't do your hair and put on your makeup if that makes you feel good. I'm not saying that. I love to put on makeup, fake lashes, and lipstick, and do my hair. If I don't have that, I'm still me and still myself, which is the perfect me. If I lost my eyelashes, making fun of that, laughing at it, and showing people, it inspired a lot more people than putting on fake eyelashes, trying to teach something, and trying to look perfect. Just be. The more you reveal the stuff that you think you shouldn't, the better your videos are.

If you have the time to get yourself nicely put together and have fun with the makeup and the hair, then sure, do it. If you don't have the time, still do the video.

Still share stuff that's crappy in your life, even when you put on all the makeup and look terrific.

Everyone knows the power of video, especially short-form video because it's so binge-worthy. It's incredible. If someone sees an hour-long video, they're like, “I don't have time for that.” They'll sit down and watch 1-minute videos for 1 full hour. Talk to us a little bit about why YouTube. Why is YouTube worth spending our time on when it comes to short-form videos? A lot of people might be getting lured into TikTok or Instagram Reels. They're like, “Both Facebook and Instagram have Reels. Why YouTube?”

I'm not someone who is going to say YouTube over everything else, and you should ignore everything and just do YouTube. I'll tell you why. I see YouTube great. If you haven't joined in on YouTube Shorts, you should. Let me start with saying short-form video, which started with TikTok becoming hugely popular during the pandemic when a lot of adults were like, “This is a place for my kids. Maybe I'll try it. It's so silly.” 

“I'm stuck at home. It's a pandemic. Why not?”

Many moms and mom-age people got on because we're home and we need something to do to entertain ourselves, be mindless, and take our minds off things. It got very popular and it is becoming as popular as YouTube for adults. TikTok is a place for that. All the other platforms are stealing or getting inspired by TikTok and having their versions of TikTok-type videos. 

I've been doing social media for several years. The reason why it's so great for us as experts, entrepreneurs, and people who want to share what we have is except early on in social media, we have never seen this opportunity where the platform will show your content to people who have never heard of you, strangers. Typically, if you think of putting out a Facebook post on your profile, your post may show up in the newsfeed of the people you're connected with and there's no guarantee. If I'm not connected with you, your post is not going to show up in my Facebook Feed.

On TikTok though, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, and YouTube Shorts, if you put out a video, and let's say I'm going on YouTube, YouTube will say, “Let me think who might enjoy this video. Nika likes this type of content or has engaged with a video like this before. We're going to show it to her.” What the platforms do with these short-form videos is you post and they give you a chance by showing it to random people who they think will be interested in your content. That is brilliant. That's such a great way to get in front of new people and grow your following.

You put out content and TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube’s algorithm will go, “Let's see who might like this. I'm going to show it to 100 people.” If many of those people like the video, meaning they watch a high percentage of it, click like, comment, share it, save it, and follow you, any of those things give the algorithm a hint that people like your video. If a lot of people in that random group of people like your video, they'll show it to more people. That goes on and on. That's how a video goes viral. Even if I have 100 followers, my video can reach 1 million people. Strangers see it and then they like it. More and more strangers get to see it. 

Short-form video uniquely has the ability to go beyond your initial followers, connections, and friends.

That's why it's the time before they change majorly because the algorithms change all the time. It's slowly changing over the years. Jump in. The reason I love YouTube is because YouTube is the newest of these three platforms, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. YouTube just came out with Shorts. When a platform comes out with something new, it prioritizes it. They want to push out your content. They want you to use the new thing that they came out with. They're going to prioritize it and show your video. If you jump into anything early, you're typically going to get the best results. It's still fairly new but TikTok is older, Instagram Reels are older, and Facebook Reels are good and new. YouTube is the fastest growing so jump into YouTube Shorts.

Since it's the newest, you're able to ride the front of the wave versus the tail end or middle of the wave. If you want to jump into the short-form video, why not jump on the YouTube short-form video because it's the newest and you'll be at the front of the wave? 

YouTube is like TikTok and Instagram Reels. You could sit on your phone, click Shorts, and scroll through. I see 1 hour-long video or even a 10-minute video. I don't have an attention span. An hour later, I realized I was watching 30-second videos. That's what we do. This is the way our minds work. I read that we have an attention span of less than a goldfish. It used to be that was an insult to say to someone, “They have the attention span of a goldfish.” That's now a compliment. 

It's not true of all humans. 

Even if the video is 30 seconds, the best ones have quick cuts because even 30 seconds might be too long to watch. If it's a few seconds and then it changes scenes and then it says something else and then there's a flash of light or words coming up, that's always helpful in your short videos.

I'm more familiar with YouTube's longer-form video. I have a show there. I'm curious if this translates over to Shorts. What I noticed is on YouTube, if you watch two or more of a person's longer-form videos, YouTube will follow you around and be like, “Do you want to follow them? Do you want to watch their stuff? Do you want more of this?” Will they stalk you if you're binging short-form videos and try to encourage you to subscribe to that person's channel equally?

Yes. It's a little different in how you see things on your phone or the computer screen depending on where you're watching. On the phone, even if you're scrolling through and seeing the long-form videos of people, they're like, “You watch this. Let's show you some more.” They have a little section of Shorts and some of their short videos will show up there too. If you're on the Shorts shelf, you're looking at Shorts, you watch someone, and you like them, you can then go look at all of their Shorts. If you start watching them and you don't follow them, YouTube will still give you more of theirs because they think you'll like it. They want to keep you on the platform. 

They're going to show you more of what you seem to like.

Another cool thing is if you mix Shorts with long-form videos, the Shorts are being shown to random new people who hopefully will like your stuff and then follow you and then get to see your long-form videos where you can dive deep into the content you want to share.

YouTube Shorts: With your Shorts being shown to new people, you can hope that they will like your stuff and follow you.

This way, they get to see your long-form videos and take them to a deep dive into your content.

They call these Shelves. The longer form video and the shorter form video, they're like shelves within the platform. 

I've heard about this shelf called the Shorts Shelf. I haven't heard about the Long-form Shelf but I assume if one is a shelf, maybe the other is a shelf too.

It all lives within the platform. It is newer in terms of short-form video. I'm not as familiar with YouTube Shorts myself. I'm guessing that for a lot of the audience, it might be new to them too. Is it pretty much exactly like a TikTok or a Reel? With the controls the way that you create the video, is it different? What are the key differences?

A short-form video is a short-form video. That's what is on TikTok Reels and YouTube Shorts. That is a vertical video. It's the shape of your phone when you're looking at it vertically. Each platform has its limits but when you say short-form video, it's under 60 seconds. YouTube is still under 60 seconds. Instagram has 90 seconds. In TikTok, you can record up to three minutes. You can even upload up to ten minutes. That's not short-form anymore. 

A short-form video, what you mean is 60 seconds or under. They may change it at any moment but on YouTube, it's 60 seconds or under and it's vertical. That's what a short-form video is. Also, how it looks, like the TikTok feeling and culture with words popping up and music in the background translates to all of the different platforms. 

Do YouTube Shorts also reuse audio in different creative ways like people are doing on Reels and TikToks?

You can either create the video, open up YouTube, go to Shorts, and click to create a Short. Use their editor to record something and then add popup texts and choose the music or sounds they have in the background. You can see a Short and say, “I'm going to use the sound that they have and put that behind my video.” You can edit. On YouTube, you can even use sounds from long-form videos. There's a connection between the long-form and the short-form. You can also create a video with your phone by recording yourself and then upload that to YouTube to the Shorts. Either it's complete and done and you click to publish or then you can add using their editor, the text, the sounds, and music.

They're all similar, TikTok, Reels, YouTube. However, each one has its little features. Some people like want one more than the other. I admit, even though I love YouTube Shorts, posting on YouTube, and watching YouTube, I don't love their editor so much. Probably because it's the newest so they haven't caught up with all the features. I love the TikTok editors. I like to create videos on TikTok, download them, and put them on YouTube. That's a little secret.

That's a smart repurposing strategy. I love repurposing anything you can do to create leverage in your business as long as you have an app that takes off the TikTok watermark logo. 

Do you know what's strange? This is a tip for me even because I like to say it out loud. Sometimes not following the rules and doing things spontaneously gets you the best results if you're prepared for things to happen. When YouTube came out with these Shorts, I had been posting a lot on TikTok and there was a media that said, “Can we see your videos? We're doing a story on people going through hard times.” 

I downloaded all my TikToks without removing the logo for myself. I put all of my TikTok videos in a folder. I created a playlist for all to share with a few people. A few people were asking so I needed all my videos in one place. It was harder to tell them where to go on TikTok but YouTube was very easy. “Here's the link. Go watch my videos.” That's what I put them there for. They have the TikTok logos on them. They have almost 200 million views. 

As much as people say, “Make sure you take out the logos,” and you should because, at this point, the platforms look for that, I did it to put them in one place. It worked. They follow all of the elements of viral videos being real, having fun, and the right length of time thing. Being relatable is important. They happen to have the TikTok logo and it didn't stop them from reaching a lot of people. 

Probably because you were on the leading edge of the leading edge at the time. 

Sometimes you think, “You got lucky, you got in early. It's too late.” It's not true. They're still getting. They're growing by millions. Not every one of my videos is getting millions. Some are getting thousands but that's great. 

Who doesn't want thousands of views? We’ll take it. One of the things that makes YouTube so unique is that it's connected to this massive SEO. Does the SEO translate over to the short-form video?

Yes. This is what's so exciting. The Shorts go immediately out to lots of people but then they stay forever in the search engines. Use good keywords in your titles and descriptions. They are there like all the long-form videos. YouTube is one of the biggest search engines. Why not put your stuff there? You get the benefit of both, an instant burst of people seeing it, and then they're forever in the search engines. 

Shorts are immediately seen by a lot of people and they stay forever in search engines. Be sure to use good keywords in your titles and descriptions.

The SEO does come into play. To me, that would be a huge driver for me if I was going to take the time to make short-form videos. If I knew that one platform wasn't SEO optimized and one platform was, you better believe I'm going to be putting my videos on the SEO optimized one.

Another plus for YouTube. I love Instagram Reels and TikTok but not as easy to find things so people are not finding you.

I want to make sure I understand the shelf thing. If someone is binging your Shorts and they like a bunch of your stuff and they follow you, they're following your full channel, not just your Shorts.

They're following you and they're subscribing to your channel. I've heard even some of the bigger gurus who are amazing on YouTube and have tons of followers. Many of them were saying, “You don't want to do Shorts because they're not going to help you grow your following.” That's how I grew my following. It’s incorrect. I beg to differ. My short-form videos are the ones that are getting me subscribers to my channel. It does work.

It works great. Growing a YouTube channel can be extremely lucrative, especially if you then start placing ads on your content. There are benefits there that are unique versus other platforms.

One of the challenges is to monetize on YouTube. The idea of monetization to me as an entrepreneur has always been to put out good content and then follow up with the people who like your videos. They're raising their hand, and they comment and share. You see you have to follow up with them. When you follow up, you turn them into leads and then eventually down to paying customers. There are also ways to have a monetization where YouTube pays you. There are certain qualifications for that. One of the qualifications is 4,000 watch hours but Shorts don't count. 

They don't count towards the watch hours but they could get you towards the subscribers, which I believe is 1,000 subscribers. 

You could get to the thousand subscribers quicker by having great Shorts but you then need people to watch your long-form videos to get the 4,000 watch hours.

YouTube Shorts: You could get to a thousand subscribers by having great Shorts, but you need people to watch your

long-form videos too to get to 4,000 watch hours.

I suspect that your Shorts were teasing and you said, “If you want to watch the full video, head over. You can find the full video on my channel.”

You have to be strategic.

What other quick tips do you have around if someone is realizing, “I've been thinking about short-form video but honestly, I'm going to start on YouTube because this is the newest?” Do you have any tips on how to grow the fastest, get more viable content, and make the most of it?

One thing is to realize that you need to get to the point quickly. Even though under 60 seconds sounds short to a lot of us, it's not short. If you can get to the point a lot quicker, get to the point. In the first moment of your video, the first split second has to be stop-the-scroll worthy because we're all going like this. Looking at the Shorts shelf, you're seeing all these videos. On TikTok, we're going like this. The first second has to make me go, “What is this?” After you make your video, go back to the beginning, get strategic, maybe edit out a pause, breathe in, start with the word, or move towards the camera. 

Even though Shorts are only 60 seconds long, it is not short. Get to the point as quickly as you can. The first split second of your content must stop viewers from scrolling.

There has to be a super juicy hook immediately.

If you think you're going and saying in your hook that breathing in is too late, I scrolled by. Cut out the breath in and get right to the point. 

Getting to the point, being messy, not being perfect, sharing imperfect moments, being vulnerable, and relatable, any other top tips for us? 

Have fun. In other words, don't stress out about everything. This is not like, “I need to make sure that.” Even though there are all these elements, the most important thing is to have fun, whatever that means to you. Relax and do it. Put out a lot of content. My final tip is you need to see what's working for you and do more of that. People say, “What is the best time to post? What is the best topic?” 

It depends. You'll only know that for you and your audience by doing enough and then going back and seeing. You do have to put out lots of content for a few weeks, even a few months. Go back and say, “Which one of these connects with my audience the most? What's the topic? What's the length of time? What's the background music? What is the location?” Do more of what is working. 

People are doing that and they're like, “I'm going to do two full months creating YouTube Shorts. I'm going to get it out there and see what's working.” For long-form video, which is what I'm more familiar with, their analytics are mind-blowingly amazing. Do they have equally good analytics on the Shorts side or are they still building that out?

They're building it out. It's interesting, I look at only certain numbers. I happen to be someone who is not an analytics file. I don't love it but I know how important it is. For me and my students, when I teach Analytics, I say, “Even if you don't love it, here are the only things you need to look at to help you.” There's a lot more. If you love analytics and metrics, you dive deep and you're going to get incredible thoughts on where people are coming from and what videos sent them there. There is that on YouTube. I tend to look at the views, likes, and comments, and then go back to look at the length of time posted, hashtags, or keywords that are used and see where you're getting the best results from that. I have found that copying what's getting the best results with those things tends to get you more of the same.

People are like, “I love this one. I want to see more like this.” The more you can duplicate what people are enjoying, the better.

The analytics you're getting, where do people come from? What words were they searching for? What other videos were they looking at first? That gives you an idea of keywords and topics that people are looking at. 

They show you that level of detail. They found your video after searching for this key phrase.

They do have that on YouTube.

One of the things I've always been impressed with is YouTube analytics. They are wonderful. They go deep arguably more so than other platforms. I was curious about the analytics on the Shorts side. It sounds like they're doing a pretty good job there as well. 

I feel like they are. Certainly, enough for me to see the results that I want to see and then more so because I started on TikTok and they have decent analytics if you dive into it. You're right. On YouTube, you can get even more information.

I love short-form videos. I watch it anywhere it shows up. I'm realizing that I need to pay way more attention to YouTube Shorts and probably jump on that leading wave. Do you have favorite apps? When you do have time to remove a watermark, is there a certain app that you to use for that?

My favorite that I've been using is Repurpose. It's a monthly charge that you pay for and connect all of the apps that you use. You can connect TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. I think Pinterest too. I haven't used it for Pinterest. 

It does all types of short-form videos and repurposes all from one place? 

Yes. Instagram wouldn't let the API anyone connect with Reels but now, they do. You can post a TikTok, a YouTube Shorts, or an Instagram Reel and have it show up without the branding and the logos anywhere else. 

Before, you had to create it on one platform, download it, remove the watermark, and upload it everywhere else. You're saying in this one platform, you put it up once. 

You can automatically have it or go in and say, “Okay.” It saves it all for you and you can post it elsewhere by clicking buttons and have it posted for you. I have it automatically download every TikTok video without the logo into a Google Drive so then I could have them all and post them anywhere else that I want or automatically post it for me.

What was that one called again? 

It's called Repurpose. I have an affiliate coupon that gives you a 20% off. If you want, I can share that. That's fantastic. It’s real. It is life-changing to save you time. If you're posting in one place, it doesn't work only for short-form videos, which is amazing because for a few dollars a month, you are getting a virtual assistant to post everywhere, the leverage and repurpose for you.

We all need a little bit more leverage and a little help. If you don't have a VA, this is the next best thing. I love that. I know that you have a nice free gift for our audience if they're realizing, “I need to get on this bandwagon. I want to be on the leading edge of this wave, make the most of this, and use this cool new tool. You have a gift that can help people get started. Not just get started but get started and go viral. Do you want to tell us about that?

What someone said to me was, “Why don't you put together all of your viral videos and then let people steal all the ideas?” I thought, “That is so great. It's my most popular thing that I share with people.” Everyone seemed to want it because I took my top ten videos and shared them. Not just, “Here's the video,” but, “Here is why it's working and why it went viral and reached so many people so that you can take the ideas and create your videos using those ideas.” 

For each one, you’re like, “Here are the principles that made this go viral. Take these principles and put them on your video.” I love it.

Steal my ideas and go viral yourself.

Let's be honest, for all those reading, we all want to steal Nika's ideas and go viral. Let's make sure we grab that gift. That's a smart and super helpful gift. Thank you for offering that and for the discount code. That's amazing. 

Thank you.

Be sure to scoop up her gift. Honestly, every time a new platform launches a new feature, I guarantee you the platform isn't like, “Let's make sure this one bombs.” They want it to go big and thrive. They're going to reward anyone who jumps on. It could be you. 

Why not? It should be you.

Especially if you're already making use of short-form videos on TikTok or any of the reels on Facebook or Instagram. Why not?

It's a no-brainer. 

My favorite part about it, in addition to all of that, is you're leveraging the SEO that YouTube brings to the table that no one else can match. Why not get some of that going on? Thank you so much, Nika. I'm feeling so inspired. I can't wait to run off and do all the short-form video things. 

Important Links

• Nika Stewart

• Viral Video Intensive

• Repurpose

• https://www.Facebook.com/NikaStewart

• Top 10 Viral Videos - Nika’s free gift for you 

• Freebie Audience Explosion

• https://www.Facebook.com/groups/6.Figure.Strategy

About Nika Stewart

Short-form video specialist, rock and roll singer, and cancer thriver, Nika Stewart helps experts show up and shine as the unique, brilliant superstars they are, so they can get the recognition they deserve. She does this through social media trainings, consulting, and done-for-you marketing services. Her Viral Video Intensive shows you exactly how to create Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok videos with EASE (no more tech confusion!), so you can leverage this VERY important trend for your business right NOW.