On Instagram Reels and TikTok I have at least a few videos per month that each receive several million views. In fact, this month was my first month on Instagram surpassing 10 million views.
On YouTube Shorts however… crickets.
Until this week, that is.
I had my first YouTube video in years get over a million views.
And I almost did not upload this video.
So what you’ll get in this article is:
- How the video was iteration #3 of an idea I previously received validation on.
- How somewhat disappointing performance on one platform does not mean the idea is bad.
- Avoiding tons of views being left on the table.
- My thoughts on automated posting with YouTube Shorts.
The first iteration
My first iteration went viral on TikTok with 3.2 million views, did not go viral on Instagram Reels, and, at 01:23 in length, was 23 seconds too long for YouTube Shorts.
So I instead repurposed it into a horizontal YouTube video, which only received 1,100 views.
A few weeks later I was visiting Lithuania. It was my final day there, and I had a thought. “I’m constantly in need of great subject matter for my daily podcast. I should use short form as a testing ground for subject matter to go deep on.”
And that’s just what I did. Even though the video didn’t go viral on Instagram Reels or YouTube horizontal, I believed the TikTok performance validated the story in the video as being interesting.
So I made this podcast on it. Aaaaand, it performed above average but it didn’t go viral at all.
I repeatedly received the same piece of feedback in the comments.
Instead of being demoralized, I said, “Alright, I’ll make it in under 5 minutes.”
To be honest, that was only half of what I said. The other half was, “If people liked this story once on TikTok, I bet they’d like it again if told in a slightly different way.”
This takes us to…
Iteration #3
Iteration #1 was short form. It used the green screen effect and lots of images from my source materials. It was a bit higher-production with all the images, highlights, and layering that went in.
Iteration #3, also short form, had none of that. I had my script and I made the video with little effort. I used my phone to record my laptop which had images on it, and occasionally I flipped my phone around to record me speaking. I have a principle of putting my face in every video as I am the brand and doing this increases top-of-mind awareness and trust.
Iteration #3 was 01:09 in length. On TikTok so far it’s received 41,000 views (whereas Iteration #1 on TikTok received 3,200,000 views). On Instagram Reels so far it’s received 260,000 views (whereas Iteration #1 on Instagram Reels received 52,000 views).
But here’s what’s crazy.
Instagram Reels, which has decent performance, took a couple of days to get momentum. Typically in my workflow I delete the footage and file the next day, only keeping the export.
As Instagram Reels didn’t have great traction the next day, I almost deleted the video before shaving off the 9 seconds for YouTube Shorts (which has to be under one minute).
It wasn’t much extra effort to shave off the 9 seconds, but since the traction wasn’t yet overwhelming on either platform, I almost didn’t do it.
But I did.
The YouTube Short came in at 59.95 seconds. I uploaded it to YouTube manually from my phone as that seems to make a difference in views compared to using an automation tool which uses shared IP addresses. For more on this, this is my exact social media posting directions.
Here’s the YouTube Short’s growth and analytics so far (also interesting to see how long it took for the video to take off):
To recap, here are the view breakdowns:
Iteration #1
TikTok: 3,200,000
Instagram Reels: 52,000
YouTube Horizontal: 1,100
Iteration #2
YouTube Horizontal: 2,200
Iteration #3
TikTok: 41,000
Instagram Reels: 260,000
YouTube Shorts: 1,400,000
Update on removing 4,900 followers last week
If you didn’t see, last week I removed 4,900 followers using Instagram’s relatively new “remove flagged for review followers” feature.
I wrote last week:
- Engagement immediately went up… for what feels like all of my videos.
- Instead of 4,900 flagged followers being removed, only 1,100 were removed.
One week later here’s what I’ve seen:
- I’ve repeatedly received prompts from Instagram to remove thousands more followers. Upon accepting, very few, if any, followers are actually removed.
- Others I’ve spoken with have also shared the same experience.
- Average engagement continues to increase.
Again, nothing but good results with this feature.
That’s all for this week’s article – just because one platform doesn’t like your content, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.
