The YouTube statistics for the year 2023 are in and Tibo InShape is among the list of creators who gained the most subscribers on the platform in a single year. If he does not reach the podium – made up of MrBeast, Inox tag and Unchained – the bodybuilding enthusiast has nothing to be ashamed of his seventh place, behind Michou and Squeezie. However, the objective is not sufficient for the YouTuber. Last October from the late show “Zen”, presented by Maxime Biaggi, he explained: “I think I have the abilities to become the French number 1, but we will see what tomorrow brings. As a competitor, we like challenges, we like to surpass ourselves and we will do everything for it.”
With its 13 million subscribers now, the account has grown in just a few months. These are more than 2 million subscribers in two months and more than 4 million subscribers in nine months. The figures – which are worthy of a Tibo InShape on the bench press – do not weaken.
Mimed sketches to attract international audiences
His only prot’ to inflate the statistics? Shorts videos launched by YouTube in July 2021 to counter the insolent success of TikTok. If we expected the Shorts to become extracts to promote longer videos, the YouTuber Tibo InShape – who did not respond to our requests – decided to do otherwise by offering mostly mimed sketches, at the rate of four mini-videos on average per day. On the program: sport, jokes that are not always funny and acting that would make the Comédie Française pale. With the character from the British series Mr Bean or the famous TikToker Khaby Lame as a style reference.
The recipe is a success and the short videos sometimes garner up to 3 million views, with an average of 300,000 for the majority. However, the bodybuilding enthusiast was a bit refractory at first. “At first I was anti-Shorts, because I was on TikTok, on Instagram. I had my dose of vertical content,” he confided to Maxime Biaggi. Finally, the YouTuber takes a closer look and discovers a great technique for finding new subscribers, even international ones from Germany or India. “Shorts blow up the chain.”
Audience growth thanks to shorts
In addition to the few subscribers attracted worldwide, the creation of content boosts the SEO of videos on YouTube. “We recently did an analysis where we looked at audience growth for channels that only did long-form videos and channels that did both long-form and short-form videos,” explained the YouTube product manager. The chains that created shorts seemed to grow faster. We believe that audience demand for short-form content will be a long-term trend,” replied Pierce Vollucci, product manager at YouTube, in a video published in July 2022.
But to get on the first step of the podium, Tibo InShape still has a little margin. On the channel of its biggest competitor, Squeezie and its almost 19 million subscribers, Shorts videos are also offered highlighting extracts from certain shows such as “Who is the imposter” or “Who is hiding something from us”. Long formats which each time count nearly 10 million views… far from the 500,000 views on average for Tibo InShape.