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You already did the hard part: you recorded a long video full of good ideas. But most people who would love it will never press play on a 50-minute video from someone they don’t know. A short puts one of those ideas in front of them, in their feed, in under a minute.
What makes a good short
A good short is a complete moment. Someone who has never seen you should understand it, enjoy it and get the point, without the rest of the video.
- Hook the line that stops the scroll
- Context only what they need
- The point one idea, said plainly
- Payoff end on the strongest line
Before you cut anything, run each moment through three quick tests:
- It makes sense on its own, without the minutes before it.
- It has one clear idea, not three.
- Its first sentence is strong enough to stop a thumb.
Step 1: Find the moments worth cutting
Watch for the moments when your energy rises, the guest laughs, or someone says a thing people will argue with. Those are the parts viewers share. They are spread across the whole video, not just the start.
- A story
- Hot take
- Surprising number
- Clear tip
- Funny moment
- Big lesson
What to look for:
- A short story with a turn in it.
- A strong opinion, like “most advice about this is wrong”.
- A surprising number or fact.
- A clear tip someone can use today.
- A funny moment or a real reaction.
- An answer to a question people often ask you.
As a rule of thumb, expect about one good short for every 4 to 6 minutes of talk.
Step 2: Cut it clean
Start on the strong line, not on the warm-up before it. End right after the payoff, before the talk drifts on. Cut long pauses inside. Most good shorts land between 20 and 60 seconds.
✂ start on the strong line✂ stop right after the payoff
Step 3: Make it vertical
Shorts are tall: 9:16, or 1080 × 1920 pixels, the shape of a phone screen. A wide video cut to that shape keeps only a slice of the picture, so the slice has to follow the person talking.
16:9: the whole room9:16: whoever is talking
There are three ways to fill a tall screen:
- Crop and follow the speaker. Best for talking videos.
- Split screen. Two people, one above the other.
- Fit the whole picture on a blurred background, when everything in the shot matters.
Step 4: Add captions
Many people scroll with the sound off. In a survey by Verizon Media and Publicis, 69% of people said they watch videos with no sound in public. Captions keep them watching, and help everyone follow along.
Word by word
One key word lit
- 2 to 4 words per line
- Large, bold letters
- Light up the word being said
- Keep clear of the app’s buttons
Step 5: Open with a hook
The first two seconds decide if someone stays or swipes. Put your strongest line first, and add a few words of text on screen that say what the short is about.
Weak start
- “So, today I want to talk about…”
- “Hey guys, welcome back”
- A slow intro with music
Strong start
- “Most people get this wrong.”
- “This took me ten years to learn.”
- A question your viewer is already asking
Step 6: Post it and link back
Post one short a day instead of all at once: each one gets its own chance in the feed. Give each a clear title. On YouTube, use the Related video option on each short to link it to the full video, so curious viewers can watch the rest.
Then post the same shorts on TikTok and Instagram Reels. Same work, three places to be found.
By hand, or with AI
By hand, every short means watching, finding, cutting, cropping, captioning and saving. For many creators that’s half an hour or more per short, so a week of shorts can cost a day of editing.
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