In just two months, creator Jorge Soto gained two million subscribers from YouTube Shorts – sure, he already had quite the platform on TikTok but this number is astounding nevertheless. 

The real change stepped up when instead of repurposing his TikTok videos — skits and what he calls “storytimes” — as YouTube Shorts, eventually he shifted to producing first for YouTube Shorts and repurposing those videos for TikTok.

“I felt like, me as a creator, I was better off on YouTube because I had the access to long-form and the algorithm is a little — I don’t want to say it’s easier on YouTube Shorts, but it just makes sense,” said Soto to the publication DigiDay. For example, his storytime format, in which he recalls a story from his life, performs reliably well on YouTube, and he’s able to see if one storytime video does well, then a similar one should perform similarly.

Interestingly, Shorts themselves aren’t the selling point at all – instead, they are a way to drive more traffic to longer form, more traditional YouTube videos as those long-form videos bring in the bulk of the money Soto makes on YouTube. In comparison, Soto receives five to six cents per thousand views through the YouTube Shorts ad revenue-sharing program. 

For other creators, it is worth noting that success via Shorts took patience. There was a lot of posting before Soto achieved the 2 million in two months mark. I was on YouTube Shorts for about six months, reposting all my TikToks with no success. The videos will get roughly 500 to 2,000 views each, which isn’t horrible but compared to the amount of views on TikTok, it was very noticeable. But I was being encouraged by my friend BrentTV. So I was like, ‘I’m going to ride this out.’ And I was 80 Shorts in until my first one took off. And when that one took off, all the other ones took off as well.”

An advantage worth noting for creators is that the analytics on YouTube Shorts are in real-time. So you can see what’s working in the real moment, unlike TikTok where it takes two to three days for the algorithm to kick in or to show you what happened.