How To Create A Short Video App like ReelShort Without Coding?

Quick entertainment in the form of short videos/reels is garnering the attention of modern-day users. ReelShort, leveraging this short-video streaming trend, has become immensely popular in just two years of its global launch.

This blog is your comprehensive guide to building a successful short video app like ReelShort. From discussing the need to invest in the short video app market to describing the steps of how to create a short video app without coding, we have covered everything.

After reading this blog, you will be able to build a short video app like ReelShort without writing a single line of code. That’s our promise!!

What is the ReelShort App, and Why Is It Popular in the Short Video App Format?

ReelShort Background:

ReelShort is a short-form video streaming app, focusing on bite-sized, episodic dramas. The app was launched in August 2022 with the intent to deliver users, a seamless mobile viewing experience.

Owned by the Chinese production giant – Crazy Maple Studio, the short video app strives to introduce short dramas of popular genres – Love, Betrayal, Revenge, Redemption, Vampire, and more, to international audiences.

ReelShort platform is very similar to the short video app – Quibi (Discontinued now). Quibi was the first video streaming app to introduce a micro-series format in the US, but the company failed. 

Leveraging the competitor’s exit and COVID-19 lockdown which forced movie theatres to close, ReelShort launched its short-form serial drama streaming app for Western audiences.

Rising Popularity of ReelShort:

Last year, the Quibi-like short video app was all over OTT news for hitting a new record in downloads and revenue. The app removed TikTok and took the #1 position in the App Store for Entertainment category in the US.

Currently, ReelShort has more than 30 million downloads worldwide, with the US accounting for 40% market share.  In the short span of just 2 years, ReelShort is successfully headed towards the billion-dollar revenue mark and established itself as one of the top short video apps in the entertainment niche.

Talking about the most popular titles on ReelShort – “Never Divorce a Secret Billionaire Heiress” and “Fated to Be My Forbidden Alpha” are among the top content that have gone too viral in recent times.

Highlighted Features of ReelShort App

• Bite-Sized Short Video Episodes: On ReelShort, all the serialized dramas have been chunked into bite-sized episodes of 1 – 2 minutes long. This allows viewers to consume the short crisp videos in work intervals, during coffee breaks, or on the go while commuting.

• User-Friendly Mobile Apps: ReelShort’s mobile apps (iOS and Android) both are designed for easy navigation and lag-free video playback, ensuring a seamless viewing experience for mobile users. Where traditional short video platforms remained desktop-centric, ReelShort went beyond with its Mobile-First approach.
  
  
• Download Short Reels: For the flexibility of users, ReelShort offers an offline viewing feature in its app. Users can download a couple of episodes or the entire series/movie and can watch them later without an internet connection. This is very useful for users who often stream while commuting or live in low-connectivity areas.

• Virtual Currency Monetization Model: On ReelShort, the first few episodes, say up to 5, are available for free streaming. Anyone who has logged in can stream them. But to access the additional episodes, one needs to buy virtual coins. The best part is users can earn these virtual coins simply by watching in-video ads during their streams.

• Content Recommendation Engine: Like Netflix, ReelShort also leverages the power of an AI-based content recommendation engine. The short video app uses machine-learning algorithms to analyze users’ viewing habits, preferences, interactions, etc, and suggests serials/movies that align with their interests, ensuring they spend more time on the app.

Why You Should Build A Short Video App Like ReelShort?

The stunning growth of ReelShort in just two years is clear proof that there is a huge opportunity in the short video app market. FYI, ReelShorts’s success is largely driven by shifting user behavior and the increasing demand for fast-paced snackable entertainment content. 

If you’re a short filmmaker, or content creator, or own a media production company, you can consider building a short video app like ReelShort. Here are the key reasons why:

• Growing Popularity Of Short Video Apps: The trend of short video apps is not new. Back in 2016, iQIYI, the Chinese streaming platform, introduced micro-series dramas to cater to the needs of modern audiences (Millenials and Gen Z) who have very limited time for entertainment. Before ReelShort, short video platforms like YouTube Shorts, IG Reels, and TikTok have witnessed huge mainstream popularity.

• Mobile-First Consumer Behavior: Smartphones have become an important part of our day-to-day lives. In between work and busy schedules, users prefer watching short videos on their mobile phones in downtime, during breaks, or while commuting. Building a short video app like ReelShort can allow you to cater to this audience’s behavior and deliver short, snackable content that can be consumed on the go.

• Creator-Friendly Market: It is quicker and easier to produce 1-minute short videos than a 2-hour movie/series. The best thing is content creators, both amateur and full-time filmmakers, can simply use their smartphones or digital cameras to create short-form content. By enabling the User-Generated Content (UGC) feature, you can allow creators to upload content on your streaming platform, and scale your content library without even producing in-house videos.

• Lower production costs: Even if you decide to produce your own short videos like ReelShort, the content production cost would be notably low. In a recent interview, Joey Jia, the founder of ReelShort said, “Micro-series are quick and inexpensive to produce as it involves a cast of unknown actors, simple sets, and costumes. While Netflix spends an average of 17 billion dollars for content production, we do it only in 30,000 dollars.”

• Multiple Revenue Opportunities: Short video apps offer multiple revenue streams. You can monetize videos through ad-supported free models or offer premium subscriptions. You can also go out-of-the-box and offer premium entry passes for unlocking exclusive content, just like ReelShort does by offering monetization through virtual coins.

ReelShort has become popular mostly for two reasons – the short, serialized drama content based on great plotlines with cliffhangers and the second is its fully-featured streaming application. If you are someone who has expertise in producing short-form content or simply want to leverage the short video market boom, building a short video app like ReelShort is highly recommended.

But how do you develop a short video app without a technical team? Is it even possible to develop such a complex streaming application without coding? Let’s explore the app development possibilities in the next section.

How To Build A Short Video App Like ReelShort With Muvi Minis  – No Coding Required

Muvi Minis is your go-to OTT solution if you’re willing to build a bite-sized video streaming app. The no-coding framework is meticulously designed to launch short video app like ReelShort in minutes. 

The short video OTT platform manages everything from video hosting and lag-free streaming to monetization, user engagement, and analytics. All the essential streaming elements such as encoding, ABR transcoding, CDN, Online Video Player, and Payment Gateways, are already built-in. And this is what makes Muvi Minis the go-to OTT solution when building short video app like ReelShort or TikTok.

Let’s move forward and learn how you can build a short video app like ReelShort with Muvi Minis without any coding and technical skills.

Step 1: Conduct Market Research & Survey

By doing market research, you can learn about your target audience and what kind of content they are looking for. ReelShort succeeded because it had a clear picture of its target audience. 

If you target the younger generations, particularly Gen Z and Millennials, you must understand their shifting viewing patterns. How are they consuming content, on which devices, at what hours, and all?

Once you find your target market and audience, you can decide upon the content categories: (like romance, comedy, stand-ups, or roasts). Relying on data-driven surveys and research will be very helpful in the further steps i.e. content curation and branding.

Step 2: Sign up for Muvi Minis and Set Up Your Video Platform

Subscribing to Muvi Minis is pretty easy. Sign up and get instant access to your ready-to-go streaming store. Login to the admin panel and start configuring your video streaming platform’s front end from the CMS dashboard.

Choose from multiple pre-designed templates, upload your app Logo, and change the color theme as per your brand identity. Every type of customization can be done to the UI. Raise an instant ticket and ask our development team for the changes you want.

Step 3: Upload Your Short Videos into the Content Library

Using Muvi’s powerful Content Management System, upload your short videos either one by one or in bulk. Muvi supports videos in multiple formats – AVI, MOV, MP4, etc., and follows an auto-encoding process to optimize your videos for mobile streaming. 

While uploading the videos, you can create custom categories/genres such as comedy, horror, romance, and fantasy, as you want. Set appropriate tags, metadata, and descriptions to your short videos so that users can discover them easily through search.

If you are targeting a global audience, we recommend enabling the Subtitles feature in the CMS itself. Muvi Minis supports subtitle tracks for multiple languages, allowing you to expand your app’s geographical reach.

Step 4: Select Your Monetization Model

With Muvi Minis, you can earn profitable revenue from your short videos. The platform offers multiple monetization methods such as ad-supported monetization, Subscription model, Pay-Per-View, Video Rentals, and more.

You can also opt for coupons and vouchers if you want to offer subscriptions through collaborations with internet service providers or telecom operators. The best thing is you can feature different monetization options subject to geography.

If you want to try something out-of-the-box like the virtual currency model by ReelShort, you can ask for a customized monetization model, exclusively for your short video app.

Step 5: Launch Your Short Video App Like ReelShort and Go Live

Once you are done with setting up the streaming platform from the CMS, you can instantly launch your short video app on both iOS and Android ecosystems. 

Then with the help of Muvi’s development team, list your short video app in the app store where users can download it. 

Not only for mobile devices, but Muvi Minis also allows you to launch your short video app on Smart TV ecosystems such as Samsung TV, LG TV, Apple TV, Fire TV, Android TV, and more. 

Step 6: Market & Promote Your Short Video App

Creating and Launching your short video app is not enough. To stand out from the market competition and achieve quick success like ReelShort, you need to market your app with the right strategy.

ReelShort launched its app with a mega press release event in the United States. This garnered the attention of local press & media and the word spread like fire. The Quibi-like short video app also invested heavily in paid promotions across Meta (Instagram & Facebook ) and did amazing influencer collaborations.

For targeting Gen Z and Millenials, you can cross-promote your short video app across popular digital sites like dating apps, e-commerce stores like Amazon, event booking platforms, and more.

Creating a short video app like ReelShort is quite a daunting task, but with Muvi Minis it is not. The moment you sign up with Muvi, everything is streamlined and you don’t even need to write a single line of code.

So, why wait? This is the right time and market to play with your own-branded short video app like ReelShort.

Built-in Unique Features That Come With Muvi Minis Platform:

• User Generated Content: 

Enable the UGC feature for your short video app with just one click in the CMS. Allow creators to upload short videos directly from their phones. They can trim, merge, and edit the video with filters and music of their choice. 

As an administrator, you can filter the content, your end-users will be uploading and after final admin approval, the videos will be made live instantly.

• Engagement Tools: 

The virality of short videos is very common on social media sites. When viewers like short-form content such as comedy clips or drama videos, they immediately share it in their circle. 

With Muvi Minis, the short video apps come with built-in engagement features – Like, Comment, and Social Sharing. These tools will greatly help to keep your audience engaged and boost your organic presence across digital platforms.

• Potrait Video Player:

To cater to the mobile-first behavior of viewers, the short videos will be automatically played on a portrait video player that fits from edge to edge of the screen. This enhances the viewing experience of users and makes video streaming more interactive and lively.

The best thing is the built-in online video player supports an infinite scroll feature that keeps your users sticking to the app for a longer time.

• Analytical tools:

Track your video’s performance and get in-depth insights on user interactions and behavior on the user analytics dashboard. Monitor the count of active subscribers and the time they spend on your app. Leverage the data to make informed decisions about UX improvements and content strategy.

The data set provided by Muvi Minis is not limited to user’s info only. You can also track your revenue count from ads & subscriptions (both monthly and yearly) using revenue analytics.

• AI Recommendation Engine:

Users often get confused in selecting the right title to stream from the large content library. By enabling an AI-based content recommendation engine in your short video app, you can suggest relevant videos to users, helping them to quickly find the content they want to watch.

Muvi Minis has its in-house AI recommendation engine called Alie, which works on machine learning algorithms. It analyzes the user behavior and content viewing pattern and offers personalized recommendations, increasing the overall watch time and app stickiness.

• Global Payment Gateways:

Muvi Minis OTT platform comes with multiple payment gateway integrations like Stripe, Paypal, Amazon Pay, and more. This lets you take your short video app beyond geographical boundaries and connect with global audiences.

Moreover, the platform accepts payments in more than 132 global currencies, allowing users to pay in their local currency, without worrying about the medium of exchange.

• Digital Rights Management:

Short videos are often subjected to unauthorized online usage through illegal downloads. To avoid this, you need to integrate Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology into your streaming platform.

Luckily, Muvi Minis comes with a built-in DRM setup including encryptions, watermarking, token authorization, and SSL. DRM helps you protect the authenticity of your short videos and manage content copyright over the internet.

• User Profile and Watchlist:

Users will automatically get a dedicated profile section, where they can curate watchlists, save their favorite videos for offline viewing, and also manage their details. This enhances the overall user experience as well as drives engagement.

The user profile section comes by default with the Muvi Minis platform. With this built-in feature, you can enhance your personalization game and keep your viewers engaged.

How Much Would It Cost To Build A Short Video App Like Reelshort?

With Muvi Minis, you can create your own branded short video app with customizations under $700 per month only. ($399 platform charges + $299 app development cost). There is no need to arrange for heavy upfront investments like $70,000, which is the actual cost of developing a short video app like ReelShort. Simply, get a monthly subscription and scale your short video app over time.

In case, you’re not sure about taking a monthly subscription of Muvi Minis. You can get started with a 14-day Free trial of the platform and check whether the features justify your expectations or not. No credit card is required to sign up. No commitments – cancel or upgrade any time you want.

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