A few things to note: this is an experiment I just began. I plan to update the information here as I get more data. I appreciate anyone following along on this journey and you may realize something useful on the way. I also use terms such as “lots of views” because I am comparing my videos’ performance to my previous videos. No one else. I don’t compare myself with other people. That being said, to make this information useful to readers, my shorts thus far have about 100 views or less, except the video I posted here which currently has a little under 500.
This is something I just tried today. It does not seem to have worked very well thus far and I imagine it will continue to not work very well.
To some extent, it seems that filming a video within the instagram app helps optimize the videos when you post. I say “to some extent” because some practices might optimize videos further that require the video to come from a different app (i.e. videos that have been processed through software to optimize the image, audio processing etc.) Personally, I have not even started processing my audio in any way. Someday, when I make studio recordings of my songs, I will do things like that.
When you think about it, it makes sense that the algorithm would “reward” videos that were filmed within the app. They want people using their software and, on top of that, there is something authentic about a video that was recorded in Instagram and then posted on Instagram.
I was thinking, perhaps this is not so true on YouTube. After all, the platform got off the ground primarily by users uploading video files from their devices. However, given the fact that YouTube has the capability to record and post shorts all within the app, YouTube may very well be optimizing videos recorded with YouTube.
Now, I have been on Instagram longer than YouTube, so I have some videos that did well/were my favorite. I took this one off my instagram reels and uploaded it to YouTube shorts.
Edit: Originally, I had said that based on this one data point, the video that was reposted from Instagram reels seemed not to do well on Instagram shorts. I was thinking that videos that get a lot of views get a lot of views in the first few hours which does seem to be true. However, this particular video did better a few hours later, and it is now my top performing short. I hope I can update this article later with something a little more scientific. Obviously, this is just one video and does not tell us very much. I still only have a hypothesis and that hypothesis is that videos recorded or originally uploaded on YouTube will do better on YouTube. I think the video did well compared to my other videos because of the reason I stated above: the video just has some attention-grabbing power. I already knew it had gained a lot of views on instagram, which was why I chose it to begin this experiment.
I have done this a few more times, largely just for the convenience of it. I cannot say that I see any clear difference. While I have still only had a few shorts break 100 views, I think the viewership is growing, on average. It may not be growing by much (if at all) but I am having a fun time posting and keeping my blog updated.
So that’s what I have found out from my limited experience. But if you know more or have an opinion you’d like to share, I always welcome comments. Tell me in the comments or DM me on instagram @wildguy.songs. Thanks for reading!
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