✌️Still trying to figure out YouTube?

Metricooler, can’t seem to crack YouTube?

You love it when you’re the one watching a video, but when it’s your turn to run the channel, it feels like a completely different story. 

Should you post Shorts, long-form videos, or both? Why does the video you spent hours creating flop while a Short you filmed in two minutes blows up? Should you post every day, or slow down and focus on quality? And how much time should you really spend tweaking the title, description, and hashtags?

So many questions, so it was time to get some answers from the data.

We analyzed 799,718 videos from 71,177 accounts around the world and put everything we learned into our 2026 YouTube Study.

5 things you didn’t know about YouTube in 2026:

Over the past year, views have increased significantly across both long-form videos and Shorts. According to the 2026 YouTube Study, long-form videos are getting 76% more views, while Shorts are up by more than 127%.

But it’s not all good news. Videos are getting more views, but viewers are spending less time watching them. And that’s happening across both formats. Average view duration is down 37% for long-form videos and 67% for Shorts.

In practical terms, the average long-form video is now watched for around two and a half minutes (one and a half minutes less than the year before). Shorts, meanwhile, are watched for an average of around 16 seconds, which is 32 seconds less than in 2025.

➜ Here’s how you can act on this: Put your strongest moment up front. Your viewers decide in seconds whether they’re staying or scrolling, so don’t save the good part for later.

Six out of ten organic views in our sample came from the Shorts feed, making its algorithm the biggest content discovery engine on YouTube today.

Now that you know that, do you need a Shorts strategy? And how many Shorts should you actually publish?

According to the data from our YouTube Study, moderation works best. Channels that publish around five Shorts per month get 46% more views than the overall study average.

➜ Here’s how you can act on this: Treat Shorts as the storefront for your channel, not as a completely separate content format.

We tend to think social media is all about volume: the more content we publish, the better our metrics will be. But YouTube says otherwise. 

For long-form videos, publishing 2 to 4 times per week delivers the best performance per video and the strongest monthly results. Producing that much content takes effort, but the results make that effort worthwhile. Channels that publish more often, however, don’t see their views increase at the same rate.

With Shorts, the picture is slightly different. 2 to 4 videos per week is still the sweet spot when it comes to effort versus results, but publishing more won’t hurt your long-term performance.

Every new Short is another opportunity to be seen. That means the more Shorts a channel publishes, the better its total results tend to be.

➜ Here’s how you can act on this: Don’t upload another long-form video just for the sake of posting. Every extra upload competes for your own audience’s attention. With Shorts, however, every additional post is a new opportunity to appear in the feed.

Do you use hashtags on YouTube? Then you should know that adding them won’t hurt your content, but they probably won’t give it a major boost either (not on long-form videos or Shorts).

Do you use hashtags on YouTube? Then you should know that adding them won’t hurt your content, but they probably won’t give it a major boost either (not on long-form videos or Shorts).

Why? Hashtags can bring more intentional viewers to your videos. Those viewers are more likely to interact because the content already matches what they were looking for. You may get fewer views, but those views can be more valuable.

➜ Here’s how you can act on this: When using hashtags, stick to one or two that are directly related to your product or business.

Accounts with between 2K and 10K subscribers are the most likely to grow into the next category. In fact, 16% of the accounts in this group did exactly that between 2025 and 2026. These aren’t brand-new or completely unknown channels. They already have some experience on the platform, but they’re still small enough to have plenty of room to grow.

However, at higher subscriber levels, growth becomes harder. This reinforces the idea that YouTube is a platform for building long-term momentum and a loyal community rather than achieving sudden growth.

➜ Here’s how you can act on this: When your channel has between 2K and 10K subscribers, you’re in one of the strongest growth windows. Stay consistent, because your effort can make a bigger difference here than at any other stage. When you’re already above that range, focus on strengthening and retaining your community.