YouTube is expanding its Analytics for Artists feature with a new Total Reach metric that will include data for fan-uploaded YouTube Shorts. In addition to official content uploaded by the artist as well as user-generated long-form videos, YouTube says Total Reach represents “the most comprehensive snapshot of the size of an artist’s audience on YouTube,” showing how many viewers are experiencing content across all formats. The company is also launching a new Songs section in Analytics “to help artists see how fans are listening to their music or creating with it, across all video formats, all in one place.”

“In January 2023, fan-created Shorts increased the average artist’s audience of unique viewers by more than 80 percent,” YouTube global head of music Lyor Cohen wrote in a blog post, asserting “this means fans on Shorts are nearly doubling an artist’s total reach.” In other words, “artists who are active on Shorts saw more than 50 percent of their new channel subscribers coming directly from their Shorts posts on average,” writes TechCrunch.

“Shorts are the appetizer to the entrée,” Cohen continues. “They are the entry point, leading fans to discover the depth of an artist’s catalog, including music videos, interviews, live performances, lyric videos, and more.”

By way of example, Cohen cites a collaboration by Rema and Selena Gomez, who he says ended up “winning big by leveraging all the video formats available on YouTube. After they surpassed 60 million unique viewers of their official music videos and Shorts for ‘Calm Down,’ fans uploaded Shorts featuring their track, taking viewership to another level: adding 350 million unique viewers in January, an increase of over 500 percent.”

Another success story cited by Cohen was artist Oliver Tree, who uploaded 20 Shorts along with four long-form videos for his song “Miss You,” increasing his channel’s monthly views from six- to 75 million in a just over four months. User-generated Shorts brought in 1.8 billion more views in January alone, Cohen said.

“Google revealed last month that YouTube Shorts are now being watched by more than 1.5 billion logged-in users every month and averaging over 50 billion daily views.” Conceding that is “a notable milestone,” TechCrunch points out that the number lags Meta Platforms’ combined shorts views on Instagram and Facebook, which as of October totaled “140 billion daily views across both social networks.”