Using YouTube Shorts with Buffer
YouTube has more users than any other video platform, offering unparalleled distribution on desktop and mobile. You can reach more people on the world’s most popular video platform with Buffer’s YouTube Shorts scheduling and content planning tools. Let's get into the details.
In this article:
- Connecting and refreshing your YouTube channel
- Scheduling YouTube Shorts
- Video specifications for YouTube Shorts
- Engaging with YouTube comments
- YouTube analytics
- YouTube error library
These features are available for YouTube Shorts
| Publishing | Analytics | Engagement |
| ✓ |
Connecting and refreshing your YouTube channel
⭐ Scheduling and publishing YouTube Shorts is only available on our new plans.
You can connect multiple YouTube channels to Buffer. To see a step-by-step guide and troubleshooting steps, check out the article: Connect your channels to Buffer.
If your connected YouTube/X channel requires a refresh, check out the article Refreshing a channel in Buffer.
📝 Good-to-knows:
- Due to API limitations, you must be the owner of the YouTube channel to connect it to Buffer.
- To access full functionality for YouTube, make sure to verify your email with YouTube.
- Unverified users will see a limit of 10 posts within 24 hours. They will also not be allowed to add external links to their post descriptions. Verified users have no posting limitations.
Scheduling YouTube Shorts
Check out the table below to see which features are available while scheduling posts for YouTube Shorts.
Looking for the best time to schedule your YouTube Shorts? Check out our guide: The Best Time to Post on YouTube.
| Features & good-to-knows | Notes |
| Scheduling posts | Checkout our step-by-step guide to scheduling posts on any social channel or peruse YouTube-specific details below. |
| Daily posting limit | 10 posts per 24 hours for users who have not verified their email addresses. Unlimited posts per 24 hours for users who have verified their email address. Learn more about Daily posting limits here. |
| Character limit | 100 characters for the title (Title field). 5,000 characters for the description (type this into the main composer). Learn more about Character limits for each social network here. |
| Hashtags | In the composer, type the hashtags you'd like to use. When the post is published, the hashtags will hyperlink just as if they were sent from the native platform itself. Learn more about How hashtags work in Buffer. The #PoweredByBuffer hashtag will populate in the caption for customers on our Free plan but will not populate on our paid plans. |
Video specifications for YouTube Shorts
YouTube supports videos only, and YouTube posts cannot be created without a video attached. Buffer currently supports YouTube Shorts only.
| Videos | |
| Number allowed per post | 1 |
| Video length | Up to 60 seconds |
| File size | 10GB or less |
| Dimensions / Aspect ratio | Either Square (1:1) or Portrait (9:16). Portrait is recommended and will appear best on mobile devices. |
| File types supported | .mov, .mp4, .mpg, .mpeg, .avi, .WebM |
| Custom thumbnail supported | No |
| Giphy and Canva integration | No |
| Alt text | It is not possible to add alt text to YouTube videos via Buffer. Learn more about adding alt text to your images here. |
Engaging with YouTube comments
Buffer’s engagement features are only available for Facebook and Instagram.
YouTube analytics
We can post all day, but the real excitement comes when seeing the reactions to our posts.
You can view analytics for each of your YouTube Shorts (views, likes and comments) by heading to the Publishing tab and then the Sent tab.
YouTube error library
We don't currently have an error library for YouTube, but feel free to reach out to our Customer Advocates via hello@buffer.com if you're hitting any errors.
📝Do you have a YouTube feature suggestion? We’d love for you to submit or upvote it here on our feature suggestions board.