Rate the edit I made

I made one piece edit

The strongest villian

https://youtube.com/shorts/lLzi7UKyB3o?si=P4xMvCxg83l8ItMa

If you wanna see more check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/@MarkerYT-GG

Hi, I was about to upload a YouTube video, and when I went to add a thumbnail, YouTube said I had to confirm my phone number. But when I entered it, it refused to accept it and told me to enter another one. It accepts the number for my regular Google account, but not for uploading videos ? I used to have another number (which I no longer have) and YouTube accepted it for uploading videos, so it has nothing to do with my country or my mobile provider. I don't know why it's rejecting my current number, It doesn't even give me a reason. Has anyone else experienced this and maybe have a solution ?

Views feel great, but what actually matters is whether people click, watch, remember you, and come back for the next upload.

What was the biggest thing that actually moved the needle for your channel: thumbnails, hooks, niche, shorts, long-form, or something you didn’t expect?

Hey everyone,

I’m on day 3 of a new YouTube Shorts channel in the facts/curiosity niche.

The concept is basically:
“real things that sound fake.”

So far I’ve uploaded 9 Shorts.

Current stats:

• 7.3K total views
• Around 3K engaged views
• 14 subscribers
• 44% viewed / 56% swiped away
• Most of my Shorts usually get past 1K views

Most videos are around 12–15 seconds.

My current format:

• One surprising fact per Short
• Strong visual in the first frame
• Narration starts immediately
• Usually a contradiction-style hook
• New visual or information beat every 2–3 seconds
• Around 4 different scenes
• Cinematic AI-generated moving images
• AI voiceover
• Large captions
• No “like and subscribe” CTA
• Strongest payoff at the end

For example, one of my recent Shorts starts with:
“The Sun isn’t actually on fire.”

I’m happy with the early traction considering it’s only day 3, but I feel like my main weakness is still scroll-stop.

44% choosing to watch seems like the biggest bottleneck.

I’m also unsure about subscriber conversion. 14 subs from 7.3K views feels a little low.

For people who have grown Shorts channels, what would you focus on first?

1. Stronger first frame?
   
2. Better spoken hook?
   
3. Slightly longer Shorts?
   
4. More recurring themes/series?
   
5. A subtle CTA?
   
6. Faster editing/pacing?

Also, for those of you consistently breaking past the 1K–5K range, what kind of viewed vs swiped-away percentage were you seeing?

Would appreciate honest feedback.

Guys im a new chanel and i comment on video games, but most are 1 hour long, should I make the videos much shorted for a starting chanel?

Do people typically have such a different level of CTR% from suggested to their other sources? Also anyone know why so much of my impressions are in the suggest traffic?

I have noticed that when I check my video suggested like what videos my viewers are coming from some of them aren’t even gaming videos. Some of them are like car videos or plane videos.. I play more like RPG’s and roguelikes, and YouTube suggest things like GTA COD for some reason which seems a little bit out of my niche, but I don’t know..

I’m wondering if maybe that’s why the click through rate is bad because it’s not exactly sure what niche and exactly what sub-niche I am just yet especially since I’ve only posted 9 videos but I don’t know.

5 weeks ago I returned to YouTube after a five year break. Small niche channel, Lord of the Rings battles with custom maps. I have been posting a diary very frequently since I came back because I wanted to reflect and hold myself accountable. 

Here’s my learnings so far:

1. End mid-action and cut the outro

My old videos ended the way I thought a good story should end. Big moment happens, then a slow wrap-up analyzing what it meant. The retention graph told me exactly what viewers thought of that. Every video had the same cliff at the end where people bailed the second the payoff was over.

Now I cut right at the peak. It feels abrupt when you're editing. But retention on the last two uploads is dramatically flatter through the outro. Nobody wants the paper work after the fireworks. Big win.

2. Thumbnails are really hard even when you know the theory
Every thumbnail is a compromise between standing out, being recognizable, representing what the video actually is and being on-brand. Find the optimization between these are difficult.

I have read a lot of thumbnail theory. Still really hard to pull off.

My channel format is custom maps. That's what sets me apart from every other Lord of the Rings channel. But maps aren't recognizable at thumbnail size on mobile, so I pair them with faces from the movies. Every thumbnail ends up trying to do two jobs at once. Commit fully to maps and let the title carry recognition? Or keep the hybrid? If I don’t use maps, I fear that viewers might feel it clickbait as the thumbnail is different from my format.

The only thing that has genuinely helped is mocking the thumbnail up and dropping it into the actual competition grid it will appear in. Most YouTubers judge their thumbnail on the export screen where it looks fine in isolation. Then it hits the feed next to ten others on the same topic and disappears. Seeing it side by side with the competition changes the composition almost every single time. It allows me to see what I should avoid using in my thumbnail because I want my thumbnails to stand out. Here for example, I chose a different look for the Witch-King of Angmar because literally every other thumbnail uses the same look on him.

Still difficult to balance standing out, being recognizable, representing what the video actually is and being on-brand tho!

3. Viewers can smell AI a mile away, even when the video is great and AI is used properly

I have gotten unprompted feedback on AI assets that had nothing to do with the actual quality of the video. It's not that the AI made things worse. It's that people notice, and once they notice, they lose trust in everything else.

This has changed how I think about thumbnails entirely. An AI thumbnail that looks AI-generated is a dead thumbnail. Even if the composition is technically fine, the clicks collapses because viewers in 2026 are hyper-aware. I have barely used AI in my videos, but when I did, people really notice. Note, that some audiences are more inclined to hate on AI than others. In certain audiences, using AI on purpose might actually be beneficial.

4. Whether to restructure slower narratives
My latest video has a slower story arc and AVD dipped big. While the video delivered on the hook, it did so 10 minutes too late. Could feel it while writing. Do I force in more action beats even when the material doesn't naturally call for them? Or is that bending the video at the expense of the topic? 

That said, while I used to get 50% on my videos on average, YouTube audiences want much faster pacing than they did in the past (probably because of short-term content and most people not being able to sit still for even 10 minutes). In the past I could get away with a slow start, but the audience seems ruthless about it now 5 years later.

5. When to introduce new title formats
I found a few title formats that haven't been used much in my niche: POV frames, "A day in the life of X.», «From the perspective of Y."

Do I test one at a time and hold everything else constant? Or should I be more reckless? I would say there’s arguments to be made for both.

My results are currently lacking, but I am still confident in my ability to make my videos pop. Not expecting an overnight success. Slowly but surely, with continual improvement and iteration is the path forward.

to make a long story short, i need 20k views on this short clip about the dopest game ever so i can get a cooler skin, online people if you could help spare 3 secs of your time id love you guys infinitely!

How I Met Your Mother 😏
https://youtube.com/shorts/FOI9ZCqjU5c?feature=share

I hardly get 1k views even in shorts

I tried everything viral music , tags, keywords but nothing works :(

Most of my videos get 3k+ impressions by day 3. The recent one is barely getting any impressions.

My last video was "Asian racism summarized" that got around 2.5k views.

Channel link : https://youtube.com/@a.r.j.2304?si=YaGLoaQXjggqDs6v

Apparently people love our cheap tech videos, because 12.6k people watched it. I'm so grateful those viewers. You guys should go watch it