How to Captivate Audience Attention with Your YT Shorts

10 Expert Suggestions to Make Your YT Shorts Stand Out

Shanoon Cox

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

To make it easier for its audience to find crisp and entertaining content, YouTube has recently come up with a dedicated “Shorts” feature.

Ideally, any YouTube user can find the Shorts option on the app to watch interesting videos of 60 seconds or less. Though, it might take a lot of effort to make your YouTube Shorts videos appealing.

If you also want to go viral, then get to know about these YouTube Shorts tips that every content creator should follow.

YouTube Shorts Feature and Shorts Fund: Things to Know

Before we make you familiar with all kinds of YouTube Shorts tips and tricks, let’s cover some basics. Ideally, YouTube has recently come up with the Shorts feature to focus on short-length videos (and to rival Instagram Reels and TikTok).

You can now find the Shorts icon at the bottom panel on the YouTube app. Using it, you can watch or record short videos on YouTube easily. These are short-form clips of 60 seconds or less that you can create via the Shorts interface of the YouTube app.

The interface would let you record multiple videos at different intervals and add sound to your clips as well. Later, you can post these short clips on your channel to get more views on YouTube.

YouTube Shorts Fund

YouTube Shorts already hosts a massive number of more than 6 billion daily views as of now. To promote it, Google has come up with a YouTube Shorts Fund of $100M that would be rewarded to various content creators each month.

That is, a “Shorts Bonus” would be added to the account of content creators to appreciate their viral content.

Top 10 Tips for YouTube Shorts That You Must Follow

Now when we have covered all the basics, let’s get to know about some effective YouTube Shorts tricks that would help you come up with interesting content and get more audience for it.

Tip 1: Learn How to Shoot YouTube Shorts

Before you start posting videos on YouTube Shorts, you should know how the feature works. Ideally, you can find a dedicated option for Shorts from the bottom panel on the updated YouTube app. From here, you can watch Shorts or simply choose to create them as well.

You can give YouTube access to your smartphone camera before you start recording. To record anything, you can just tap and hold the red button (the recording icon) on the interface.

As you would release it, the recording would be stopped. In this way, you can seamlessly move from one scene to another without worrying about editing in post-production.

Tip 2: Stick to a Selective Niche

To have a consistent growth of audience on YouTube shorts, you should stick to a specific niche. If you search on YouTube, you can find short videos related to funny, inspirational, fitness, romantic, and all kinds of niches.

Most of the prominent content creators already apply these YouTube Shorts tips in which they first identify their target audience. Based on that, you can work on the type of content that you want to create and share to attain consistent growth on YouTube.

Tip 3: Add Appropriate Background Music to Your Short Videos

One of the best things about YouTube Shorts is that it lets us add a snippet of the music in the background, according to our content. Therefore, you must implement these tips for YouTube Shorts to make the most of this free feature of the app.

After recording your videos, you can tap on the “Sound” or the “Add Music” feature from the interface.

Now, YouTube will automatically load all kinds of trending music that you can use for free. If you want, you can enter the name of any song on the search option of YouTube shorts.

As you would select a track, it will automatically be loaded as the background music for your video. Though, you can also select a specific segment of the track and clip it accordingly to place it on your videos the way you like.

Tip 4: Insert Captions and Text Effects on Your Shorts

Apart from music, you can also add all kinds of text effects to make your YouTube Shorts videos appealing. After you have recorded a video, you can just tap on the text option from the bottom/side panel of the app.

You can now type anything and place it on the video to make it more interesting. If you want, you can also implement these YouTube Shorts tips to add subtitles or pre/post video captions without any hassle.

Tip 5: Adjust the Playback Speed of YouTube Shorts

Since a lot of content creators are coming up with YouTube Shorts, you would have to walk an extra mile to make them more appealing. In these YouTube Shorts tricks, I would recommend adjusting the playback speed of the video.

After recording the video, you can tap on the speed icon from the bottom/side panel. Here, you can make your videos play in slow motion or fast forward (in a range of 0.3x to 3x). This will add seamless speed control features to your videos without any technical issues.

Tip 6: Consider the Overall Length of Your Shorts Video

Even though the maximum length of the YouTube Shorts videos is 60 seconds, you don’t have to make it so long. If you look at most of the popular videos on YouTube Shorts, then you will find that they are of less than 30 seconds in length.

Remember, your goal is to come up with crisp and interesting content via YouTube Shorts. To implement these YouTube Shorts tips, you can consider the ideal length of 30-45 seconds and only have essential content in your videos.

Tip 7: Use the Timer Feature to Shoot Your Videos Correctly

A lot of people make the rookie mistake of shooting their videos for too long in Shorts. Therefore, if you want to implement these YouTube Shorts tips and tricks, then consider using the timer feature of the app.

Before shooting the video, you can tap on the timer button from the bottom and set up a preferred duration for it (like 10 or 15 seconds). In this way, you can be sure that you won’t go overboard and keep your videos short automatically.

Tip 8: Set a Preferred Target Audience for YouTube Shorts

Great! Now when you have recorded and edited your video by applying these tips for YouTube Shorts, you are ready to post them. While posting your videos, you would be asked whether the video is targeted at kids or not. If the video is made for kids, then you should select the relevant prompt, as YouTube would improve the overall visibility of your videos in this case.

Though, if your videos are targeted at adults, then you should go with the second option instead. This would help you reach out to your target audience on YouTube easily.

Tip 9: Post Your YouTube Shorts the Right Way

Apart from setting the audience preferences of your YouTube Shorts videos, you should also take care of a couple of other things. For instance, you can consider making the visibility of your final video “Public” so that anyone on YouTube can watch it.

Besides that, it is also recommended to have the keyword “#Shorts” in the title of the video. You can also make the title of the video attractive and can even add a short description that would make your audience click on your YouTube video for sure.

Tip 10: Promote Your YouTube Shorts Video on Other Places

Lastly, posting the YouTube Shorts video is not enough, as you should also promote it to get more views. One of the best YouTube Shorts tips for promotion would be posting the snippet of the video as your Stories on YouTube.

You can also post your YouTube Shorts on other popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. by sharing their link. In this way, you can easily redirect your audience from other platforms and increase the visibility of your video.

Bonus Tip: Use a Professional Editor for Your YouTube Shorts Videos

As you can see after going through these YouTube Shorts tricks that the native tool of the app has limited editing options. Therefore, if you want to come up with better videos, then consider using a professional tool like Wondershare Filmora.

The desktop video editing tool has hundreds of filters, transitions, captions, stickers, and other effects to elevate the overall visual appeal of your videos. You can also access numerous AI-integrated features in Filmora and can directly export your videos in YouTube-compatible formats.

Conclusion

That’s a wrap, everyone! I’m sure that after following these expert YouTube Shorts tips and tricks, you can make the most of this newly added YouTube feature. You can consider following the above-listed YouTube Shorts tips to record your videos and make them interesting by adding sound and caption effects.

Though, if you want to make your videos even more appealing, then consider using a reliable and smart video editor like Wondershare Filmora.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

From Sound to Words: A FREE Guide to YouTube Transcribing Mastery

How to Transcribe a YouTube Video for FREE

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

If you want to transcribe your videos to make the dialogs and speeches available in text format, you can use YouTube Transcribe feature that the streaming site offers for free. In this article, I’ll share with you a couple of methods to transcribe a YouTube video for free.

• Part 1: Transcribe YouTube Video Automatically for Free [2 Ways]
• Part 2: Transcribe YouTube Video to Text Online with Third-Party Service
• Part 3: Benefits of Transcribing YouTube Videos
• Part 4: YouTube Video Transcription FAQs

Part 1: How to Transcribe YouTube Video Automatically for Free [2 Ways]

Besides the basic video editing features on the YouTube platform, you can now quickly transcribe YouTube videos to the text as well. The good thing is, you can either use the automatic transcription feature that YouTube offers, or upload it manually while adjusting the timing as you go further.

Below are the two methods to transcribe your YouTube videos for free:

Method 1: Use the Automated Transcription Service on YouTube

As the name suggests, YouTube automatic transcription service works automatically. This means you don’t even have to click the ‘Transcribe’ button anymore to transcribe a YouTube video, and the website takes care of it on its own. All you need to do is, choose English as the language of the video when setting up subtitles. You can follow the instructions given below to do so:

Step 1 Upload a Video

Sign in to your YouTube account, click your profile picture from the top-right corner, and click YouTube Studio from the menu. Next, click CREATE from the upper-right corner, click Upload videos from the menu, and drag and drop a video from your computer to the Upload videos box that appears next.

Step 2 Select Transcription Language

On the Details page of the next box that appears, scroll down and click MORE OPTIONS, and select English in the Video language drop-down list under the Language, subtitles, and closed captions (CC) section.

Step 3 Publish the Video

Follow the on-screen instructions from this point to publish the video, and wait while YouTube automatically transcribes and adds the close captions to it.

Note: Depending on the duration of the clip, the time YouTube would take to transcribe may vary.

After YouTube has transcribed the video, you can download the transcription file in your preferred format. The instructions are given below explain how you can do so:

1. Get to the Subtitles Window

While on the YouTube Studio page, click Subtitles from the left pane to go to the Channel subtitles page. And then click the video you want to modify.

1. Get to Classic Studio

In the video subtitle page of the target video, hover mouse on the Published Automatic status under the Subtitles column, click the Options icon (with three vertical dots) that appears, and click Edit on Classic Studio.

1. Download Transcription File

Click and open the Actions drop-down list from the top-left corner of the left pane, click your preferred transcription format including .vtt, .srt and .sbv from the list, and save the file on your local hard disk.

Method 2: Get YouTube Transcription when Watching

In addition, if you are watching any other video, you can make YouTube transcribe that for you as well. You can follow the instructions given below to get the YouTube video to text transcription:

Step 1: Play the Video

Go to the video on YouTube and start playing it. Make sure NOT to get to full-screen mode as doing so would hide the option to transcribe the clip.

Step 2: Enable Transcription

Click the More icon (with three horizontal dots) from under the bottom-right corner of the video player, and click Open transcript to see the video transcription in the Transcript pane that appears in the right.

Step 3: Manage Timestamps

Click the Options icon (with three vertical dots) from the top-right corner of the Transcript pane, and click Toggle timestamp to enable or disable the timestamps in the video transcription.

Limitations of Using YouTube Transcribe

Although YouTube’s automatic transcription is a decent feature that saves you a lot of time, since Google uses machine learning algorithms to convert the speech to text, the level of accuracy may vary depending on the accent of the speaker, and the clarity of the audio the video has. Also, even sometime you may not be satisfied with the end-results.

Alternatively, you can use Kapwing to transcribe a YouTube video and download the transcription file with the below step-by-step instructions:

Step 1: Add YouTube Video

Copy the URL of YouTube video you want to transcribe, go to https://www.kapwing.com/subtitles , paste the URL in the Paste a URL field, wait while Kapwing fetches the content of the video, and opens the Add subtitles to Video page.

Step 2: Transcribe the Video

Click Auto-generate from the right window, and follow the on-screen instructions to transcribe YouTube video to text.

Step 3: Download the Transcription File

Click Download SRT from the left pane, and follow the instructions from there to download the transcription file in *.srt format.

Pros

• Kapwing is free to use
• The auto-transcription process is quick and less tedious
• Kapwing also allows manual transcription and uploading of an existing *.srt file

Cons

• The auto-transcribed text might lack accuracy as the task is done by the speech-to-text tools that work in the background

You can follow the step-by-step instructions to transcribe a YouTube video and download the transcription file using Kapwing:

Step 1: Add YouTube Video

Copy the URL of YouTube video you want to transcribe, go to https://www.kapwing.com/subtitles , paste the URL in the Paste a URL field, wait while Kapwing fetches the content of the video, and opens the Add subtitles to Video page.

Step 2: Transcribe the Video

Click Auto-generate from the right window, and follow the on-screen instructions to transcribe YouTube video to text.

Step 3: Download the Transcription File

Click Download SRT from the left pane, and follow the instructions from there to download the transcription file in *.srt format.

Pros

• Kapwing is free to use
• The auto-transcription process is quick and less tedious
• Kapwing also allows manual transcription and uploading of an existing *.srt file

Cons

• The auto-transcribed text might lack accuracy as the task is done by the speech-to-text tools that work in the background

Part 3: Benefits of Transcribing YouTube Videos

You may need video transcriptions for several reasons, such as analyzing the summary of the entire speech in the video, extracting a single phrase or quote that was spoken in the clip, or making the video helpful even for those suffering from hearing impairment. When you transcribe a YouTube video, the transcript can be useful in many ways. Some of the most common benefits of transcribing a video include:

• Search Engine Optimization

When you add subtitles, the text can appear in Google search results when someone types a similar phrase in the search box. This helps get more views to your videos, thus giving your channel popularity, and you, monetary gains in the long run.

• Accent

If the speaker in the video is from a different region and is using an accent that you are not much comfortable with, you can turn on the subtitles and read the dialogs along with the video.

• Repurposing on Blogs

If you own a blog that you have embedded your video to, the transcription could be used to add text to it so the target audience can get a fair idea of what the video is all about. This is useful because many people prefer reading over watching.

YouTube Video Transcription FAQs

1. How to Transcribe YouTube Video to Text

Usually the transcription files have *.srt extension that are globally accepted and supported by almost all media players. However, there might be instances when you want to have the subtitles in plain text.

That said, to convert an SRT file to TXT, you can:

• Right-click the SRT file
• Go to Rename
• Replace srt with txt and press Enter
• Click OK on the confirmation box that appears next to convert SRT to TXT

After this, you can simply double-click the file, and read and modify the transcribed content as needed.

2. How to Edit and Upload Edited Transcript to YouTube

If you made any modifications to the transcript that was automatically generated by YouTube or any other third-party transcription tool, you can follow the steps given below to upload the new file to the YouTube video:

• Go to YouTube Studio and then to the Channel subtitles page as explained earlier
• Expand the Languages column of the target video
• Click the Options icon that appears under the Subtitles column when you hover mouse on to it
• Click Edit on Classic Studio
• On the next page, click Edit from the top-right corner

• Click to open the Actions drop-down list from the upper-left corner
• Click Upload a file
  • Follow the on-screen instructions from there to upload the modified transcription file
  • Click Save Changes from the top-right corner of the page when done

Conclusion

If you are looking for a quick and easy way of adding subtitles to your videos, letting YouTube transcribe for you could be a good approach. However, because these auto-generated transcriptions are created by machine learning algorithms, their accuracy cannot be counted on. Therefore, the best way to get the job done accurately is, let YouTube auto-transcribe your video, download the transcription file, make the necessary changes to it, and then upload the file back to the video.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett