YouTube’s expanding access to its “Communities” tab, which provides a dedicated space to facilitate expanded channel discussion, while it’s also looking to provide more insight into Connected TV viewership in its latest update.
First off, YouTube’s officially announced that it’s giving more channels access to its new “Communities” element, which is an extension of its Community Posts feature.
As you can see in this example, Communities provides a text-based discussion board element to channels, adding another, more social media-aligned way for creators and their fans to interact.
YouTube began testing Communities last July, and now, it’s rolling it out to more users.
As per YouTube:
“We’re rolling out Communities to more creators in the coming months. Subscribers can now get involved in building the community on your channel, and help keep the conversations going. This takes some of the pressure off the creator to always be interacting with their fans.”
YouTube says creators that are invited to enable their Communities will receive notifications via email, and a banner notification displayed on their channel pages on mobile.
“Invited creators can then go to their channel pages and tap ‘Go to Community’ to learn more and decide if they want to turn on their Communities.”
YouTube further notes that channel managers will be able to de-activate their community at any time, while managers will also be able to moderate Communities posts.
It could be a good way to encourage more engagement and interaction with your audience, which may help to strengthen bonds with your fans.
But it may also cause some confusion, given that YouTube already has a “Communities” tab in its channel management options, which is dedicated to broader comments and discussion.
In order to alleviate this, YouTube’s also renaming the existing “Communities” tab to “Posts.”
“Everyone who currently has access to posts will continue to have access, and the tab will work just as it does today, but with a new name.”
It’s an interesting addition, which could be worth exploring, and it may help you build your expanded YouTube community.
On another front, YouTube’s also adding more insights to help channel managers understand the impact of connected TV viewership on their stats.
“We’ve heard that, at times, it can be hard to find info on CTV viewership, so we’ll begin surfacing device type data more prominently in the ‘Audience’ tab on both desktop and mobile with the goal of helping creators understand how their content is being consumed.”
To be clear, this data is not new, but the presentation will now feature more prominently, which could help to address concerns about limited visibility.
Connected TV viewing has been steadily rising over the past decade, and is now a significant contributor to many channels’ data. As such, this new overview could make it easier to understand where your audience is seeing your videos, which could help to guide your process.
YouTube says that this new overview is being rolled out to all creators.
You can learn more about YouTube Communities here, and its updated CTV metrics display here
