The AI that turned my client's old videos into a Short's goldmine

Create daily content. DTC marketers know they need consistent social content but are completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume required.

There’s an AI tool for that.

That's when I introduced them to TubeBuddy's Suggested Shorts tool.

What We Discovered Together

Here's what I showed them: they already had months of content sitting right under their noses. They just didn't know it.

TubeBuddy's Suggested Shorts uses AI to scan your existing YouTube videos and pinpoints the exact 15-second segments where your audience was most engaged (the audience retention report shows you how well different parts of your video hold viewers' attention, with spikes indicating sections where viewers rewatched or engaged more frequently eg ‘likes’) . Not the parts you think are brilliant, the parts where real viewers actually stuck around and paid attention.

We tested it on their best-performing video from last quarter, a 14-minute founder story about their journey from kitchen experiments to sustainable skincare. The tool flagged a tiny segment around the 9-minute mark where she casually mentioned her "disaster" first batch that discoloured. When we checked the analytics, that exact moment had a massive engagement spike.

It was perfect reel content that we knew would work because it already had.

The Reality Check I Give Every Client

Before you get too excited, what this tool definitely isn't:

It's not a video editor. You still need to clip and edit the content yourself. TubeBuddy just gives you the timestamp and says "this bit right here worked."

Your video needs to be public for at least three days before the tool can analyse it properly. So this doesn't help with brand-new content you've just posted on a low subscriber or viewed channel.

The free version is pretty limited. You get five suggestions, which isn't much when you're looking to solve the daily content challenge.

And sometimes the AI gets it spectacularly wrong. We had one video where it suggested a segment of a customer literally reading ingredient labels for 15 seconds. Not exactly riveting content.

What Happened When We Actually Implemented This

Working with three different DTC brands over the past month, I've learned the tool works best when you stop thinking like a perfectionist and start thinking like a data detective.

The polished moments aren't always the gold. That perfectly crafted product demonstration they'd spent hours filming? The AI completely ignored it. Instead, it flagged an offhand comment from a customer testimonial about how the product "finally worked when everything else failed." That raw, authentic moment was exactly what their audience wanted to hear.

Longer storytelling videos are absolute treasure troves. One client's 20-minute behind-the-scenes video about their manufacturing process gave us seven different short-form opportunities. Each one captured a different authentic moment, and they all performed better than the shorts we'd been creating from scratch.

The tool gets smarter with better source material. Videos with higher engagement rates (usually the most authentic real life non-AI’ed storytelling content) tend to produce more useful suggestions.

The Transformation That Happened

So. Your job creating daily content? You're not creating new content. You're just finding the content you already made.

Before TubeBuddy, one client was spending about 2 hours creating each short from scratch… concept, film, edit, the whole process. Video perfectionism. Using these suggestions? Twenty minutes max. They're literally just clipping existing content and adding captions.

That sustainable skincare brand went from posting 2-3 reels per week to daily posting across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. Same team, same bandwidth, way less stress for everyone involved.

My Honest Assessment for DTC Brands (or any other marketing team for that matter)

TubeBuddy's Suggested Shorts isn't going to revolutionise your entire content strategy, but it'll solve one very specific problem: how to maintain daily posting without burning out your team.

If you're already creating long-form storytelling content, customer testimonials or detailed product demonstrations, this is your secret weapon. If you're not producing longer videos yet, this won't magically solve your content problems.

The real win isn't the AI magic, it's giving you permission to stop overthinking. Your audience is already telling you what they find engaging through their viewing behaviour. Sometimes you just need a tool to translate that data into action. Hey. Manage the machine.

Every time you publish a long-form video, whether it's a founder story, customer testimonial or product demo, set a calendar reminder for four days later to check TubeBuddy's suggestions. You'll be surprised at what you find.

Is it perfect? Definitely not. Does it work for DTC brands struggling with consistent content creation? Absolutely. And right now, that's exactly what most brands need.

The bottom line: if you're feeling overwhelmed by daily content demands and you have existing long-form video (UGC, product demos, or storytelling content) this tool will probably save you hours each week. Just don't expect it to be magic… expect it to be useful. Sometimes that's even better.

The content your audience actually engages with isn't always the polished product shots. Sometimes the best reels come from the raw, authentic moments you almost didn't include in the first place.

Check out TubeBuddy using the link below (non-affiliate link)