On September 14, 2016 YouTube launched the Community Tab for YouTube Creators. Ten years later, we are now seeing more community involvement in the Shorts Feed. Prior to the Shorts Feed, the only way to find images, polls or quizzes was on the Desktop YouTube homepage.
As one can imagine, this was not very effective as most users were consuming video content on their smartphones. It made sense for creators to be able to post behind the scenes pictures, quiz subscribers on past events or create a poll to get feedback. Most creators with large subscriber bases completely ignored this feature of YouTube as the engagement was so poor. If people have to find it, they are not going to consume it.
Fast forward to Spring 2026 and we are seeing more and more Posts showing up in the YouTube Shorts feed. Prior to late 2025 and early 2026, Posts garnered basically zero engagement. On one of the YouTube accounts we administer, the engagement rate is incredibly high on posts. In the month of March 2026, our Posts received an impression to like ratio of over 40%. You read that correctly. If 1000 people saw a picture YouTube Post, 400 of those users like the post.
These are engagement ratios that have never been seen before on the Internet. A strong engagement ratio on almost all social media websites/apps is 2%-3%. Anything reaching 5% triggers algorithms and can get channels, accounts or websites blacklisted.
Part of the reason for such high engagement is the fact that YouTube Posts are still and not moving. When scrolling through the YouTube Shorts Feed, users are overwhelmed with loud audio and fast moving video. One’s eyes consume these videos over and over and then they see a still image with no audio. It is a shock to the system and the senses. This is exactly why YouTube is finding such high engagement with picture Posts. They are different from the loud and eye catching short form videos.
In December 2025, major social media news websites started to report that YouTube was testing still image carousels within the shorts feed. Here is what we have noticed.
While the news outlets reported “image carousels”, YouTube seems to be pushing engagement and views on single photos or pictures; similar to the early days of Instagram. “Image carousels” are populating in the feed, but the highest engagement is on the first picture.
On other social media apps and websites, the algorithm encourages users to post a carousel of images because posting multiple images, in separate posts, in a single day can harm the creator’s account.
We have also noticed that timing matters quite a bit when attempting to optimize engagement on YouTube Posts within the YouTube Shorts Feed. Unlike other picture sharing algorithms, YouTube Posts are finding more engagement with consistent activity. Somewhere along the way, Instagram users decided to post one picture, or a carousel of pictures, once a month or even once a quarter. The Instagram algorithm adjusted and penalizes users that post multiple pictures in a day.
This is not the case with YouTube Posts. The YouTube Shorts Feed is pushing these picture posts out consistently whether you publish one (1) picture post a day or eight (8) picture posts a day. When actually discourages carousels. Why post a single carousel of images that gets 400 likes when you can post those five (5) images separately and get 300 likes on each photo?
We are still in the very early days of YouTube Picture Posts showing up in the YouTube Shorts Feed, but a major “glitch” happened at the end of March 2026 that we caught.
Within the YouTube Studio app, creators can see live views for videos only. In late March, we noticed a YouTube Picture Post showing day for live views. While it was housed under “Top videos” in the YouTube Studio App, this is clearly something YouTube is going to push out to creators in the near future.
One of our popular YouTube Channels receives about 8000 likes (per day) on Short Form Videos yet it receives over 10,000 likes on Picture Posts.
The writing is on the wall that YouTube is going after Instagram. The YouTube audience is enormous and the Short Feed continues to improve each and every day. It will likely be the case that more and more popular YouTube creators start to embrace Picture Posts to increase engagement.
We have not tested Polls or Quizzes but we have seen “Text Posts” showing up in the YouTube Shorts Feed. The engagement on the “Text Posts” is going to be significantly lower because most users are not on the YouTube Shorts Feed to read a paragraph. They are getting that on Substack, Twitter(X) or other apps that are more text based.
If you are looking to improve your YouTube Channel with higher engagement or getting more subscribers, reach out to us today at jesse@wojdylosocialmedia.com. We have studied the Google and YouTube algorithms since 2007 and are very confident we can assist you in growing your channel.
YouTube Picture Posts are going to challenge Instagram in the near future. Be ahead of the game and start seeding the algorithm with your best pictures and photos starting today.
The Masters Increasing YouTube Shorts Activity
A very interesting case study is about to occur in early April 2026. Prior to this year, the YouTube Shorts Feed was not amplifying Posts and now it is. The Masters Golf Tournament is a perfect YouTube Channel that would benefit from still images, quizzes, DYK facts and polls. We will be tracking the growth and the engagement in these pieces of content until after the tournament concludes on Sunday, April 12th, 2026.
During the 2025 Masters Tournament most Image Posts received between 500 and 1k likes; with Rory McIlroy holding up the trophy being the most liked post with 7.3k likes.
If The Masters is diligent about posting still images throughout the tournament, their engagement is going to triple, at minimum. It will be interesting to see the approach they implement when it comes to their YouTube posting strategy. There might not be a better and more viral vertical/sport for short form videos than golf.
What is very interesting is most golf YouTube Channels have yet to optimize for the YouTube Shorts Feed or the Community Tab. If you have a popular Golf YouTube Channel and would like to increase your exposure through more likes and subscribers, reach out to us today at jesse@wojdylosocialmedia.com. We have worked with a golf account that has garnered over 150 million views with YouTube Shorts.
As we continue to make our way towards the first tee shot of The Masters Golf Tournament on Thursday, April 9th, 2026, we expect to see lots of behind the scenes activities posted by The Masters YouTube Channel. If a women’s junior golf image post can get almost 1k likes, it will be fascinating to see how many likes the image of a well struck shot during the tournament receives.
Since we are tracking The Masters activity in our YouTube Shorts Feed, we suspect we will be introduced to many other smaller, golf YouTube Channels. Hopefully these smaller channels have figured out the importance of posting still images.
Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that still image Posts are only working incredibly well for those that have made the commitment to posting them. In our research, it takes about 100k total likes on Image Posts to start really generating a lot of traction through Image Posts in the YouTube Shorts Feed.
If you are a golf YouTube creator, start posting still Images today so you will have seeding the algorithm for the full golf season when major golf tournaments happen and crazy shots go in the cup. Golf is a wonderful activity to both enjoy and video.
Major Link Update Helps with SEO
On Wednesday, April 8th, 2026, YouTube finally released YouTube Image Posts links for creators. In the past, we had to find the URL and it was a task. Now, within the YouTube app, you can “Report on YouTube” or “Copy Link” for YouTube Posts. This will be enormous for search exposure.
The next step will be for YouTube to allow creators to embed their Image posts on websites throughout the web. We look for this sometime in the spring or summer of 2026.