How To Get Brand Deals On YouTube Shorts

Brand Partnerships, Social Media Strategy

youtube shorts

Working With Brands On YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts are relatively new in the timeline of types of content you can create, but for Influencers and Creators there is a lot of potential in these short-form videos when it comes to both brand deals and account growth. As we all pretty much know, short-form video has taken over the digital space as the most popular form of content. YouTube added the Shorts tool to their platform to keep up with the trend and ensure that Creators can supplement their longer-form content with quick, engaging videos their audience loves. Brands took notice and are interested in YouTube Shorts as an option when it comes to working with Influencers and Creators in a partnership capacity.

At Sidewalker Daily, we help Creators grow their businesses by pitching to brands and landing paid deals. We also work with brands on their Influencer campaigns, so we see what goes down on both sides of the Influencer equation. We’re giving you our best advice for getting brand deals on YouTube Shorts because yes, there are brands who are interested in this platform and now is the time to start thinking about how it fits into your strategy. In this article, we’re going to cover how to monetize YouTube Shorts through brand deals and what you need to do to pitch to brands successfully with this type of content.

What Are YouTube Shorts?

First things first! You might already be familiar with YouTube Shorts as a Creator or Influencer who spends a lot of time on social media. But just in case you’re not, YouTube Shorts are short-form videos that have their own section on YouTube. Think Instagram Reels or the TikTok Feed, but for YouTube.

It’s just another tool that YouTubers can take advantage of on the platform to reach wider audiences. It runs on its own scrolling timeline, similar to other short-form video platforms. While they can show up through YouTube search, Shorts have their own algorithm on a timeline specific to Shorts. This means that your videos have the potential to reach thousands of people on YouTube, without creating and posting a traditional YouTube video.

How To Get Brand Deals On YouTube Shorts

If you’re not already creating YouTube Shorts, we know that it seems like a lot of work to add in another platform or type of content to your social media mix. However, Shorts are such a great way to get additional views on your content and reach greater audiences. If you’ve been wanting to find out more about how to make money from YouTube, you should definitely look into Shorts. Hopefully this post will show you that the extra work can pay off – and that with a good repurposing strategy in place, it might not take up too much extra time. 

YouTube Shorts are an entirely separate way to use the views you’re getting on that specific type of content to successfully pitch to brands. You just need to know how to showcase that value in your pitches or Media Kit, so let’s talk about a few things you can do to get brand deals on YouTube Shorts.

1) Keep Track Of Your Analytics

When pitching to brands, you don’t want to just tell them that you have good results, you want to show them that you have good results. Your pitch will always be more powerful if you can back it up with actual data or statistics. YouTube Shorts are just another place to gather Analytics about your content to show to brands.

You can see Analytics for each YouTube Short you post and also for your account’s overall performance on Shorts. When you open up any Shorts video analytics, you can see a number of helpful statistics, such as:

  • View count
  • Like count
  • Audience retention, or how many seconds on average users watched your video
  • Where the traffic came from
  • Average views over the last 30 days

This information is so important for you to have and analyze, and it’s also going to be really helpful when you’re pitching to brand partners, no matter which type of content you’re pitching for a YouTube partnership. If we were talking about TikTok or Reels, we’d give you the exact same advice. Look at both the performance of each individual video and the performance of your account as a whole. Combine your Analytics from both of those areas to show brands that you get results.

If you’re pitching TikTok and Instagram Reels now, the question is why not pitch Shorts too? Don’t worry if you haven’t started posting on Shorts just yet. We always recommend implementing a repurposing strategy into your content planning process, and this is the perfect way to get started on Shorts. This will take some of the pressure off from having to create brand new content. Soon you’ll gather enough relevant Analytics to add to your pitches and your media kit to show brands you have influence.

2) Pitch Content Packages

Plenty of factors go into deciding what deliverables to offer a brand and how to price them. One thing you can do is offer to create “packages” for your brand partners. All this really means is that instead of creating one piece of content for a brand, you create two or more pieces of content. You can offer a discounted rate on additional deliverables, which makes the brand feel comfortable with agreeing to more content. And for you, it just means that you’ll make more on the deal overall!

Offering to add in a few YouTube Shorts to your brand deal is a good idea at any stage of your YouTube Creator journey, but it can be particularly helpful if you’re just starting out with YouTube Shorts. When you don’t really have much content on that channel, you can let the brand know that you’re expanding to Shorts and would love to create content for them there. Instead of it being the entirety of your pitch, you can also package it in as a bonus. Brands may be more willing to take the chance on it if they’re getting other types of content where you have greater success too.

We’ve found out ourselves at Sidewalker that having short-form video to complement our traditional longer YouTube videos is a great way to reach more people on YouTube. For you as a Creator who posts on YouTube, adding in Shorts to supplement what you’re already doing on the channel is an amazing idea for a package that brands will likely be interested in trying out, especially if they are focusing on YouTube partnerships. 

3) Start Exploring YouTube Shorts

If you don’t create longer videos (AKA if you don’t use YouTube as one of your primary platforms for content creation), you still might want to consider creating short-form videos for YouTube Shorts. While it might not always be the case, short-form videos typically take less time to produce than longer videos. Adding only short-form into your current content strategy might be more feasible than adding both, and we believe that it’s worth doing.

You can also go to your current brand partners and pitch them Shorts. If they’ve already worked with you successfully on another platform, they’ll likely be willing to hear you out about creating on Shorts. This is a great opportunity to shoot them a pitch email and tell them that you’re going to be posting your short-form videos over on YouTube now and would love to have some sponsors join you.

Maybe you offer a discounted rate because you’re new to the platform as a way to get them to get on board with the idea.

4) Update Your Media Kit

Seeing some growth on YouTube Shorts? We can’t stress this enough: add it to your Media Kit! Your Media Kit is the most effective tool for getting brands excited to talk to you and work out brand deals with you. A Creator with a beautifully made Media Kit who pitches YouTube Shorts is going to be a lot more attractive to a brand than a Creator who sends a templated email with a few sentences.

The way you set up your Media Kit matters. So what should be in your Media Kit related to YouTube Shorts? First, make sure your document is clickable. You should definitely have images in your Media Kit, but it’s really hard to show someone your quality video content without linking to the real thing. Make sure that someone reading your media kit can easily click through to your Shorts to see for themselves.

Secondly, include the Analytics from your YouTube Shorts. You should talk about how your account is performing overall, but you should also include Analytics for individual posts. If you’ve done brand deals on YouTube Shorts that went really well, you want this information to be in your Media Kit too.

Now when you send a pitch to get a YouTube Shorts brand deal, the person on the brand side will have real data about your work and can easily visualize what exactly you can do for them and the value you bring to the table.

5) Learn YouTube Shorts Best Practices

Monetizing YouTube through brand deals on Shorts is going to require more than just throwing up videos onto the platform. It’s important that you know how to create quality YouTube Shorts videos that perform well and meet YouTube’s guidelines. Here are some tips for creating YouTube Shorts that make users stop their scroll:

  • Keep the videos short and engaging! Try putting words and subtitles directly on the video or using fun transitions to keep viewers engaged.
  • Provide value to your niche by creating content that answers questions they may have or addressing their needs
  • Avoid watermarks from videos on other platforms
  • Jump on trends for some of your posts to increase your chances of getting seen

One thing you need to be careful about when posting to Shorts is music rights. The last thing you want to happen in a brand deal is the video getting removed from your channel! If you happen to be repurposing content from other channels, you need to be careful about reposting it exactly as is. Many TikTok video sounds will get flagged by YouTube Shorts as copyrighted music. YouTube will tell you about the issue and take it down, but that’s still not something you want to be happening on your account.

6) Remember To Use Captions And Keywords

YouTube is a social media channel, but it’s really a search engine too. Users rely on the search engine’s capability to find content that they are looking for or need, and the YouTube algorithm uses this to show people what they want to see. This means that taking advantage of the caption in your YouTube Shorts is necessary for reaching the right audience on this platform.

Put a little bit of time into thinking about what your target audience would be searching for on YouTube. If you’ve done this research on your other platforms, it’s probably very similar. Make sure that you use these words and phrases in the caption of your Short, in the title, and in the hashtags.

Using the right keywords is the key to getting seen by the right people, which increases the number of users who engage with your posts. Having more people engage with you content then signals to YouTube that your content is good, and the algorithm will want to push it out to more users for them to see it too. Understanding this will help you not only grow your audience for you own subscriber goals, but also show brands that you know how to get content seen by the audience they want to reach with their products and services.

Knowing how to use keywords is so important for getting noticed on social media, which is why we included a whole section on this in our How To Get Brands To Notice You Course. If you’re not sure how to go about adding keywords into your strategy, consider checking out this mini-course which will help you get noticed by brands and have them reach out to you first. 

Ready To Land Brand Deals On Youtube Shorts?

Monetizing YouTube is something many Creators and Influencers are interested in doing as they grow their business.  If you weren’t ready to jump into YouTube Shorts to expand your brand deal opportunities, hopefully this post gave you some inspiration to start. Creators posting Shorts on YouTube are seeing a lot of positive results, and it’s definitely an area that brands are starting to explore.

As a recap of our tips on how to make money on YouTube Shorts through brand deals, we suggest you: 

1. Keep track of your analytics to see how your Shorts content is performing so you can show brands that you get results.

2. Pitch content packages that bundle YouTube Shorts into your offer.

3. If you don’t post long-form videos on YouTube, you can still start posting Shorts.

4. Update your Media Kit with content examples and relevant statistics to show brands why they should work with you on YouTube Shorts.

5. Learn YouTube Shorts best practices so you can create quality content that performs well and meets YouTube’s guidelines.

6. Because YouTube relies on search, learn the best keywords for your niche and your audience and use them in your captions, hashtags, and titles.

Are you ready to turn your content into paid brand deals? We’re here to help—book a one-on-one coaching session with one of our Influencer and Creator experts and we’ll start building your personalized gameplan to grow your audience and work with brands!

Did you find this article helpful? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Disclaimer

All information provided on this Website has been prepared for general educational and informational purposes only. The information on this Website does not constitute, nor is it intended to be a substitute for, legal or financial advice and is general in nature.

ABOUT SIDEWALKER DAILY

Sidewalker Daily is a team of industry experts on both sides of the Influencer Industry. We work with Influencers, Creators, Bloggers and Digital Entrepreneurs through private coaching and online courses to help them make money and build successful businesses. We also work with brands to design their influencer campaigns and develop their social media strategy. Our unique position in the Influencer and Creator Industry allows us to provide valuable insight you won’t find anywhere else!

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Sidewalker Daily is a team of industry experts on both sides of the Influencer Industry. We work with Influencers, Creators, Bloggers and Digital Entrepreneurs through private coaching and online courses to help them make money and build successful businesses. We also work with brands to design their influencer campaigns and develop their social media strategy. Our unique position in the Influencer and Creator Industry allows us to provide valuable insight you won't find anywhere else!

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