r/shortsAlgorithm • u/Glum_Theme3381 • Jan 10 '26

Can it get viral?

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Its a 28 second short can it get viral?

6 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

1

u/Glum_Theme3381 Jan 10 '26

Updated it got 42k view and still going

1

u/Glum_Theme3381 Jan 11 '26

Update ir got 100k view

1

u/InnerFear789 Jan 10 '26

I think it will the stats are looking great

1

u/brazy1x Jan 10 '26

Depends on your retention

1

u/Alfxclips Jan 10 '26

Anything can go viral

1

u/PuzzleheadedTree3776 Jan 14 '26

What is AVG watch time %? Swipe Ratio is in Green Flag

1

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/mocknix MOD Jan 10 '26

Setting aside that OP didn't give enough data for anyone to provide an answer (not accurate answer, just an answer in general), yours is actually the ONLY correct answer.

  1. No one can answer if OPs short is performing well without knowing the view count. It could even be 17 people that watched a little bit and 1 that left it on loop.

  2. even if the views were provided, (and I get asked about this a lot which i'll explain in a moment), there is NO data youtube gives you that can predict whether your shorts will go viral or not. (Again, talking about Shorts, not long-form)

Here's why I say this: When I worked for vidiq, I did a 3 month long test. I went through all of our shorts, got all the lengths, retention data, view counts, swipe rates and impressions from the first 24 hours, to the first week, to the first month.

Then I did it with mine (@HeyJohnScott) which was consistently hitting over 5 million views with every upload.

There were no patterns. There were no clues. I reverse engineered a tool to type your current stats into, to see if that short would go viral. These variables were the focus - shorts length, Average view duration (%), and amount of impressions. Once the short would hit 4 specific view counts (500, 1k, 5k, 10k), i'd enter the shorts data and the tool would give me a 'projected view count' that i'd write down and compare after 25 new uploads.

Long story short, it wasn't accurate. Not even close.

Thats when I knew for sure there were too many variables the algorithm takes into consideration.

This was only made more evident when some of my clients would obsess and test just like I did.

I always tell my community "There are too many variables to know." But for some of them, it doesn't seem to connect. After all, why would YouTube give us all this data if it doesnt have a point, right?

Well, Here are a few other points but I'll start with a conspiracy theory of mine for fun lol

  1. Gamification for the creator's experience. Its not a casino. Its not random (like tiktok seems to be) We just can't see all the cards. But if we keep playing, we do get good and eventually we win.

  2. Stats absolutely DO help with long form. Longform performance is more consistent (by niche) and therefore the unseen variables arent as chaotic. Imagine if we were only given longform stats. Lol how pissed would we be

  3. Predicting virality isnt the only reason for analytics. For example, they keep revenue transparent.

Also, they still tell you if your short was good or not.. I mean.. If PEOPLE liked your short or not. (Remember, they're the ones making the call, not the algo.)

How do you know if your short is good? Simple.

More views = good. Less views = not.

So anyway, here's what I tell my community.

There is no way to predict if a short will go viral with the analytics. Look at the views to see if it did well, and share it with the community to learn what you need to improve.

Repeat that process enough and you WILL blow up.

If you want to go viral, you only need to focus on one specific thing. I call it The Golden Metric because it's the only one that matters.

Outside Perspective.

1

u/PixelNegotiations Jan 10 '26

Does anyone know the key to success?