How to Automatically Create YouTube Shorts using Make

In this video automation tutorial, you'll learn how to generate short-form videos from text and media for posting on YouTube using Make.com (Integromat).

YouTube Shorts can be a powerful form of marketing for your business – if done right. Consistency is often an issue. To favor the YouTube algorithm, you have to frequently create Shorts. But then again, that's another thing on your plate, and hiring someone to do the marketing isn't always worth it. The good news is that there's a way to do YouTube marketing without making it a second job, and that's where no-code video automation comes in. Let's see how.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to set up an automated workflow in Make.com that generates YouTube Shorts from text, images, and video clips. To produce the videos, we'll use Creatomate, a video and image generation API. The great thing about this method is that it can be adapted to work with your favorite apps as Make.com supports thousands of app integrations, so it's really customizable and flexible.

Below is an example of a YouTube Short automated this way. No worries if you have a different concept in mind, the online video editor lets you design your own template, or customize any of the pre-made templates.

Prerequisites

To keep it simple, we're just going to use plain data for creating our YouTube Shorts. In practice, you'd use an app like Airtable or Google Sheets to trigger the Make.com scenario. After the video is created, we'll send the videos to a Slack channel. This allows us to get notified when new videos are made, have the opportunity to review the videos, and then upload them to YouTube.

Here are the tools we'll use:

• Creatomate: to create a video template and generate YouTube Shorts. Sign up for free.
• Slack: to post a URL to the generated YouTube video.
• Make (formerly Integromat): to automate the entire process.

How to create YouTube Shorts with Make (Integromat)?

To get started, we'll create a template in Creatomate, which will serve as the design for all videos. After that, we'll move on to Make and create a new scenario. Just for demo purposes, we'll start with a basic trigger. The data from this trigger will then be fed into a YouTube Short template using the HTTP module. Because the creation process takes some time, we'll add a sleep module to briefly pause the workflow. Lastly, we'll share the video link via Slack:

Let's get started by creating a video template.

1. Create a video template in Creatomate

Log in to your Creatomate account and go to the Templates page. Click the + New button to browse the template gallery. You can choose any ready-made template you like or design your own from scratch. For the purpose of this tutorial, we'll use the Storytelling Video template from the Social Media category. The 9:16 Vertical format is fine and click Create Template to open it in the editor:

Let's delve deeper into our video design and explore how it fits into our automation plans. On the left side panel, you'll see that our template is composed of 4 compositions, one for each of the scenes in the YouTube video. In every composition, you'll see a Text and Background element. The video template also includes a Music element as the background track.

The important thing to remember is that you can make these elements dynamic, which means we can replace them with other content in the Make scenario we're about to build:

For now, that's all you need to know about the template. If you want, you can customize it however you like. Here's a quick guide to get you started with the editor. However, to keep things simple, I'll use it as it is.

Once you have a template in place, let's move on to Make.

2. Trigger the scenario

Log in to your Make account and click the + Create a new scenario button. Click the big +, search for and select Tools as the app, and Basic trigger as the trigger.

Let's add these dummy items to our trigger:

• Background-1 -> https://cdn.creatomate.com/demo/image3.jpg
• Text-1 -> Creating YouTube Shorts with Make.com is easy! 💪

Then, click OK:

Then, right-click the module and select Run this module only to make sure it works:

3. Auto-generate YouTube Shorts

Next, we'll use Creatomate to generate a YouTube Short using the template and data from our trigger.

Click + to add another module. Search for and select HTTP as the app and Make a request as the action.

Copy-paste https://api.creatomate.com/v1/renders in the URL field and set Method to POST:

Next, click on Add a header, and insert the following values:

• Name: Authorization
• Value: Bearer [YOUR API KEY HERE]

Now, you have to enter your own Creatomate API key. To find it, go back to Creatomate, and click the Use Template button at the top right of the template editor. Then, choose the API Integration option. Your API key will be shown here:

Next, select Raw in the Body type field and JSON (application/json) in the Content type field:

Go back to the API Integration page in Creatomate. From there, copy the code enclosed between the curly brackets { and }, as shown in the screenshot below:

Paste this code into the Request content field. At this point, we're ready to connect the dynamic elements in the template with the data from our trigger. To do this, swap out the Background-1 value with Tools - Basic trigger -> background-1, and replace the Text-1 value with Tools - Basic trigger -> text-1. Then, set Parse response to Yes, and click OK:

To ensure Creatomate can generate a video using the template and provided data, click the Run once button, found in the bottom left corner.

After a successful test run, we'll move on to the next step.

4. Delay the scenario

Since generating videos may take some time, we'll use a sleep module. This will pause the scenario, waiting for the YouTube Short to finish before proceeding to the next step.

Click +, search for and choose Tools as the app, and Sleep as the action. Set Delay to 60 seconds, then click OK:

Note: If you're using a different template, Creatomate might require more time to generate the video. In such cases, the 60-second delay may not be enough. You can visit the API Log page on your Creatomate dashboard and adjust the delay module to accommodate the rendering time.

5. Send your YouTube Shorts

In this final step, we'll share the link to the YouTube Short we just created.

Click +, search for and choose Slack as the app, and Create a Message as the action.

Select your connection or create one if needed. Then, specify which channel you wish to use. In the Text field, create your message, for example: A new YouTube Short is created: Next, include the link to the YouTube Short by choosing HTTP - Make a request -> Data -> Url. When done, click OK:

Click Run once. If your scenario is set up correctly, a message with the video link should pop up on your Slack channel:

What's next for automated YouTube Shorts?

And that's it! Creating YouTube Shorts with Make.com is pretty straightforward. The only thing is that there's no automated way to upload the videos directly to your YouTube channel. However, Zapier, a platform similar to Make.com, does offer native integrations with both Creatomate and YouTube, enabling you to automatically post Shorts. So, if you're open to alternatives, be sure to check out this Zapier tutorial next.

In addition, Creatomate provides an auto-transcription feature, allowing you to transcribe video files and automatically generate subtitles. This feature is especially useful for videos with spoken content, such as podcast clips. The best part is that it seamlessly integrates with both Zapier workflows and Make scenarios, and setup is easy! For more details, check out this tutorial.