Who Likes Short Shorts? Three Minute YouTube Shorts Explained

YouTube Shorts have quickly become one of the most popular ways to create and consume content, offering bite-sized videos that capture attention instantly. Now, YouTube is giving creators even more room to showcase their creativity with the introduction of three-minute YouTube Shorts.

This new format opens up exciting possibilities, allowing you to dive deeper into your content while still keeping things concise and engaging. Whether you’re telling a story, sharing a tutorial, or simply having fun, three-minute YouTube Shorts offer more flexibility to connect with your audience.
In this guide, we’ll explore why this change matters, how it can boost your channel, and the best ways to make the most of YouTube short-form videos.

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What’s New with Three-Minute YouTube Shorts?

The biggest change here is the video length—YouTube Shorts can now be up to three minutes long.

But it’s not just about the length; format plays a crucial role in what qualifies as a YouTube short-form video. Any vertical (portrait) video under three minutes can now be classified as a YouTube Short, while horizontal (landscape) videos will still be considered standard YouTube videos, regardless of length.

This update doesn’t affect past content. Any vertical videos that are between 60 seconds and three minutes long will remain as long-form videos unless they are re-uploaded as YouTube Shorts.

The response from the community has been mixed. Some creators are excited about the opportunity for longer storytelling, while others are uncertain about how this will affect their discoverability and monetization strategies.

Are three-minute YouTube Shorts a good thing? It all depends on how you look at it—whether you see the extra time as a chance to get creative or a shift that could change the game for discoverability.

How Three Minute YouTube Shorts Impact Music Usage

The introduction of the up to three minute YouTube Shorts has a knock-on effect when it comes to music.

For Shorts videos up to 60 seconds long, the same music usage rules apply; creators can use popular songs from the Shorts audio library in their videos. However, for YouTube Shorts over 60 seconds, using popular songs is not an option and if you choose to include copyright audio, your video will not be recommended, and it won’t be eligible for monetization.

Creators can still grab royalty-free music from YouTube’s audio library and use it in their up to three minute YouTube Shorts.

To access YouTube’s royalty-free audio library, just go to the Audio library section in YouTube Studio. which can be accessed in the YouTube Studio under the audio library section. You won’t find the latest trending commercial music but you will find a bunch of great options.

Three Minute YouTube Shorts: Impact on Search and Discoverability

One of the major concerns among creators is how this update will affect their ability to be discovered. YouTube has stated that the Shorts discovery system will remain unchanged. Longer Shorts will still appear in the home feed, watch next suggestions, and the Shorts tab.

In other words, there isn’t a distinct advantage or a distinct disadvantage to making longer Shorts; audience engagement will ultimately determine Shorts performance, regardless of video length.

Whether up to three minute YouTube Shorts are 👍 or 👎 depends on your perspective:

Glass Half Full 🥃

With the new three minute YouTube Shorts limit, creators have more room to tell engaging stories. This could be just what long form YouTube creators may have struggled to make sense of the sub-60-second YouTube Shorts format need.

Better content generally leads to more views and discoverability, allowing creators to connect with their audience on a deeper level. The option to slow it down a bit could help YouTube Shorts feel less frenetic and less like a desperate attempt to get attention.

Glass Half Empty 🥃

By tripling the upper limit for YouTube Shorts, viewers could conceivably watch three times fewer videos which would harm discovery.

In addition, longer form Shorts will be competing for attention with the often in-your-face style of sub 60-second YouTube Shorts that act on our lizard brains to keep viewers swiping. In this case, longer form Shorts could have a significant disadvantage.

Three Minute YouTube Shorts and Monetization

It might be reasonable to expect changes to YouTube Shorts monetization to accompany such a big change. Given how little YouTube Shorts pay, we were hopeful. However, nothing has changed.

The monetization structure for Shorts remains effectivel the same. Longer Shorts will earn the same ad revenue as their shorter counterparts. In other words, a three minute YouTube Short will pay creators the same as an under 60 second Short with the same number of views.

So, the big advantage of the new three minute YouTube Shorts limit minute limit is that creators have the freedom to create the kind of content they want to create without feeling rushed. But creators who make longer YouTube Shorts are still competing with more “bite-sized” content on the platform.

In other words, using Shorts to push viewers to your long form videos is probably still the best YouTube Shorts strategy for most creators.

Tips for Creating Engaging Three-Minute Shorts

The new three-minute YouTube Shorts format gives you more time to engage your audience and create compelling content. Here are some YouTube Shorts tips to help you make the most of it:

1. Tell a Complete Story

Use the extra time to craft a complete narrative. Whether it’s a tutorial or a quick skit, you can now fully develop your content and provide a satisfying ending that keeps viewers engaged and helps your channel grow with YouTube Shorts.

2. Build Suspense or Anticipation

Take advantage of the longer format to create suspense. Tease your audience in the beginning, and build anticipation to keep them hooked until the end.

3. Prioritize Quality Content

Focus on delivering value rather than just filling time. Each second should offer something meaningful, whether it’s educational or entertaining.

5. Show Your Personality

Use the additional time to connect with your audience. Share personal stories or just be yourself. Authenticity helps build a stronger connection with viewers.

TubeBuddy Tools to Optimize Your YouTube Shorts

If you want to make the most of your YouTube Shorts, TubeBuddy has the perfect tools to help you improve visibility, boost engagement, and streamline your workflow. Here’s how you can use TubeBuddy to optimize your Shorts and get the best results.

Suggested Shorts

TubeBuddy’s AI-powered recommendations tool makes it easy to identify the most engaging parts of your long-form videos and repurpose them as YouTube Shorts. It analyzes your content and helps you pinpoint which segments will work best in a shorter format. This way, you can quickly create engaging, attention-grabbing Shorts without spending extra time brainstorming new ideas.

SEO Studio

With SEO Studio, TubeBuddy helps you optimize your Shorts for maximum discoverability. The tool assists you in finding relevant keywords to include in your Shorts’ titles, descriptions, and tags, improving their chances of being found. It also offers suggestions on how to fine-tune these elements, ensuring your Shorts are primed for better performance in search results.

Other Helpful Tools

TubeBuddy offers even more tools to take your YouTube Shorts to the next level. Video + Thumbnail helps you create standout thumbnails that grab viewers’ attention, while Batch Processing lets you save time by bulk editing titles, descriptions, and tags across multiple videos.

Final Thoughts

The three minute YouTube Shorts update opens up new possibilities for creators without drastically altering the existing landscape. While music usage rules have tightened and YouTube Shorts monetization would benefit from a little attention, the ability to create longer, more engaging content could lead to better viewer engagement and discoverability.

Ultimately while YouTube is the platform, it’s the creators and viewers who will decide whether longer YouTube Shorts are worth their time and attention.

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🚨Big YouTube Shorts Update You Must Know! – Video Transcript

00:00

okay so big update starting October 15th you can now upload YouTube shorts as long as as long as 3 minutes now just to be clear vertical videos uploaded between 60 and 3 minutes before this date will remain long form videos and any horizontal video regardless of its length won’t be affected by this update and will stay as a standard YouTube video now I asked you all how you felt about this and there was a very very mixed response not everybody’s happy but how will this affect your ability to be discovered How would this affect music

00:31

and how will this affect monetization all right let’s start with music usage so for shorts up to 60 seconds nothing changes you can still use any popular song from the shorts audio library but for shorts over 60 seconds using these popular songs it’s not an option if you do then the video will not be playable or recommended on YouTube it will not be eligible for monetization but you can use any song from YouTube’s audio library you find that by going to YouTube studio and navigating to the audio library section in the left- hand

01:01

sidebar from there you can browse through a wide range of royaltyfree music that is safe to use in your content without worrying about copyright restrictions and all those other royaltyfree music sites are also fine now let’s talk about search and Discovery let’s talk about how this is going to affect your ability to get found and discovered on YouTube well YouTube says that the shorts Discovery system isn’t changing your longer shorts will still pop up across home watch next in the shorts tab just like before so

01:29

there’s not necessarily an advantage of making longer shorts but think about this update as giving you the breathing room to tell the stories that you want to tell and if the video is better then the video is going to perform better and therefore you’re going to get more views and more discoverability because of that but inherently just because they’re 3 minutes now doesn’t change anything let’s talk about monetization because that’s something you might expect it to be really different but it’s not longer

01:54

shorts will earn the same ad Revenue as shorter shorts that sounds crazy you still earn based on shorts views not watch time so a three minute short with 2 minutes of watch time won’t earn you more than a 60-second short with a same amount of views the only thing really changing here is your ability to have more breathing room to tell bigger and better stories and not being cut off that’s all that’s changing the discoverability is not really changing the monetization is not really changing the music is

02:21

changing just a little bit all right now let me know what you think about this update in the comments below is it good news is it bad news do do you just not care and if you want to hear about this new update the Youtube CEO just announced for smaller channels go ahead and watch this video right here I’ll see you over there I enjoyed hanging out with you and keep creating