YouTube Introduces New Communities Feature
YouTube has recently unveiled a new feature known as Communities, aimed at enhancing engagement on the popular video streaming platform. This feature, once enabled, allows users to engage in discussions and interact within a YouTube Community, fostering a sense of community among viewers. Additionally, YouTube has announced the rollout of a new ‘Hype’ button, which has been several years in the making. This button serves to amplify the visibility of emerging creators on the platform by showcasing their content on a platform-wide leaderboard, highlighting the most hyped videos on YouTube.
According to the company, the introduction of the YouTube Communities feature marks a significant step in creating a more interactive and engaging environment for users. Initially launching on select channels, this feature is expected to become widely available next year. With the new functionality, users can now actively engage with channel owners through community posts, enabling discussions and interactions among members. This forum-like feature is set to keep users engaged directly on the YouTube platform, eliminating the need to resort to external platforms for interaction.
The rollout of this feature will require channel owners to manually enable it, ensuring that they can moderate their communities effectively to uphold community guidelines and prevent inappropriate content. This can be facilitated through the new Community Hub tool, adding an essential layer of moderation and control for channel owners.
Introducing the YouTube Hype Button
The YouTube Hype button is a novel feature designed to support emerging creators who may struggle to expand their viewer base, even if they have a dedicated following. This feature allows viewers to ‘hype’ channels with less than 500k subscribers, providing a more impactful way to support creators beyond traditional likes and shares on the platform.
When viewers engage with the Hype button, it triggers a surge in the channel’s visibility, propelling it up a weekly leaderboard showcasing the most hyped videos. Users can stay updated on the latest trends by viewing these leaderboards and identifying channels that have garnered significant hype within the community.
Notably, the functionality of the Hype button comes with certain limitations. Users can only hype videos from channels with fewer than 500k followers within seven days of their publication. Additionally, viewers are restricted to hyping videos thrice a week. To explore monetization options for creators, YouTube is exploring additional hype options that may be available for purchase in the future.
Creators with limited subscriber counts stand to benefit from a ‘small creator bonus,’ which functions as a score multiplier to level the playing field on the leaderboard. It is worth mentioning that hyping a video does not influence its search result rankings or recommendations on the platform, ensuring fair competition among creators.
Overall, the introduction of these new features underscores YouTube’s commitment to fostering a vibrant and interactive community for both creators and viewers. With Communities facilitating direct engagement and the Hype button boosting visibility for emerging talent, YouTube continues to evolve as a dynamic platform for content creation and consumption.