How to Make Viral YouTube Shorts With Claude

Make the Short people choose to watch, not the one they swipe past.

On Claude Pro or Max, switch to Opus before you build - it makes a visibly better video.

One reel Claude wrote for us reached 100,724 views. That was on Instagram, and the loop behind it is the same one this post runs on YouTube Shorts: read what already worked, copy the shape of it, make the next one from your own footage, and post only what you approved.

We have not run Shorts long enough to publish a YouTube number of our own, so this post does not give you one. What it gives you is the method, the prompt, and exactly what Ootto does on YouTube today - and what it does not.

The mega prompt for YouTube Shorts

1. Sign up at Ootto and connect your YouTube channel. On Accounts, tap the grey YouTube logo on your brand's card and sign in with the Google account that owns the channel. You sign in on Google's own page, so Ootto never sees your password.

2. Add Ootto to Claude. In claude.ai or the desktop app: Settings, Connectors, Add custom connector, paste https://mcp.ootto.ai/mcp. The full steps are further down.

3. Open a new chat or a Project, paste the mega prompt and send it.

4. Claude reads your channel and finds your outliers. It sees your newest Shorts and videos with their views and length, and it compares a Short only with your other Shorts, because a Short and a 20 minute video live on different numbers.

5. Then it studies the winners you give it. Paste a YouTube link and Claude takes it apart: what is on screen in the first second, what is said, how long each beat runs.

6. Then it makes your Shorts with Ootto, from your own footage, and waits. You watch each one. Nothing goes to YouTube until you say so.

What makes a Short work

A Short is not a small YouTube video. It is a different shelf, with different rules.

• YouTube decides by the file. A square or vertical video up to three minutes long, uploaded since 15 October 2024, is a Short. A 16:9 video is a normal video, whatever its length. (YouTube Help)
• The feed decides in the first second. People in the Shorts feed did not search for you. YouTube Studio shows how many chose to watch your Short instead of swiping it away, and that is the number to read first. Put the result on screen in the first frame, not a logo or a "hey guys".
• Views count every play. Since 31 March 2025 a Shorts view counts each time it starts or replays, so view counts went up for everyone. Engaged views still use the old rule. Compare your Shorts against each other after that date, not against your numbers from before it. (TechCrunch)
• The title and description are read. Unlike a reel caption, a Short's title is searchable. Keep it under 100 characters, with the result first. The description's first line is the link people act on.
• There is no comment-to-DM loop on YouTube. On Instagram a comment keyword can send a DM. YouTube has no DM, so the next step lives in the description or in a pinned comment you write yourself.
• Upload the clean file. A reel downloaded from another app carries its watermark and its cropped captions. Post the original export.

How to set this up yourself

You can run all of this by hand. It takes longer, and it works.

1. Read your own numbers. In YouTube Studio, open Content, then the Shorts tab. Sort by views and note your usual Short. Any Short at twice that or more is an outlier. Open each one's analytics and read "viewed vs. swiped away".
2. Find the winners in your niche. Search your topic on YouTube, filter to Shorts, and keep the ones far above their channel's usual. A big channel's average Short is not a lesson. A small channel's breakout is.
3. Take them apart. Paste the transcript, or describe the first three seconds, into Claude with the free viral hook writer skill, and ask what made it work.
4. Write and cut yours. Script the result-first opening, film it vertical, keep it under a minute, and edit in any app.
5. Fit it to YouTube. Our free cross-platform-reformatter skill rewrites one reel's hook, length, on-screen text and description for a Short. It is in the skills repo.
6. Upload it in YouTube Studio or the YouTube app, with the title and description from step 5.

It works. It also takes an evening per Short, and the research step is the one people skip.

Or stop the manual setup

This is what Ootto does on YouTube today:

• Connects each brand's channel next to its Instagram, from the Accounts page, with Google's own sign-in.
• Reads your channel - your Shorts and videos with their views - so Claude knows what already works for you.
• Makes the Short from your own photos and footage, in your brand, the same way it makes your Instagram reels. It can also make a full 16:9 video.
• Posts it to your channel, or books it. On every made reel there is a Where it goes choice: Instagram, YouTube or both. Give it a title and post now or choose a time. A booked video is uploaded as private and YouTube itself makes it public at that time. Want it unlisted first, to check it on YouTube? Ask Claude to post it as unlisted.
• Only when you say yes. A made video goes to YouTube only when you press post or ask Claude to post it.

And what it does not do on YouTube:

• It does not answer YouTube comments or send messages. That part of Ootto is Instagram only.
• It does not post on its own schedule without you.
• It does not set a custom thumbnail. YouTube uses a frame from the video.

If you want it all without opening Claude, the done-for-you plan writes your week, makes each video and sends it to you to approve. Prices are on the pricing page.

What it learns about you

Ootto builds a Brand Brain for each brand: your voice, your niche, your audience, your content pillars, the hooks that already work for you, and the things you never say. It reads your website, your connected accounts and research on your niche, and you can correct any of it by hand.

That is why the same brand sounds like itself on Instagram and on YouTube. The method does not change between the two. Only the shelf does.

For a frame-by-frame look at what turns a viewer into a customer, read what a reel that turns into a customer actually looks like.

Running more than one channel

Each brand in Ootto connects its own YouTube channel, kept apart from every other brand you run. From Accounts, press Add account to onboard another brand, then tap its YouTube logo to connect that brand's channel. If two brands share one channel, connect the same channel to both.

Switch which brand you are working on from the Active brand picker at the top of every page. Your plan, your credits and your connection to Claude stay the same across all of them: connect Ootto to Claude once and tell it which brand you mean.

Get the master skill

Want the whole loop as a skill inside your own Claude? It takes three steps.

How to connect Ootto to Claude

On a computer, at claude.ai or in the Claude desktop app:

1. Sign up at ootto.ai, add your brand, and connect its YouTube channel on Accounts.
2. In Claude, click Customize in the left sidebar (on some versions it is Settings), then open Connectors.
3. Click Add, then Add custom connector.
4. Name it Ootto and paste this address: https://mcp.ootto.ai/mcp. Leave the advanced settings empty.
5. Click Connect. Claude opens a page from Ootto. Sign in there with the same account, and Claude is connected. There is no key to copy.
6. The first time Claude uses Ootto, it asks for your permission. Choose to always allow it, so Claude can work without stopping.

Shortcut: open Claude's connector form with Ootto already filled in, then go straight to step 5.

On your phone? Connectors are easiest to add on a computer. Add it once on claude.ai, and Ootto then works in the Claude app on your phone too. Screenshots of every screen are in the connector guide.

The skills: github.com/Ootto-AI/claude-content-skills, with the master skill in skills/content-factory.

Frequently asked questions