YouTube is often viewed as a hybrid platform at the intersection of social media and entertainment, and the new Community feature fully embraces and takes advantage of this notion.
If you’re an active subscriber on YouTube, you may have seen activity from the channels you follow that looks more like social media posts than a video upload. As a creator, you may see this as a new opportunity, and you’re absolutely right. Community posts operate under a social media logic that allows creators to develop a relationship with their audience in a way that goes beyond a regular video upload schedule. These posts increase interaction and awareness via polls, animated GIFs, images, text, video, tour announcements and more; a new level of engagement between channel and subscriber within YouTube that wasn’t really available before.
YouTube is enabling the feature on many channels including artist and label/brand pages. If you don’t see the tab available, artists and labels through The Orchard can request the feature by connecting with your label manager.
You can check out Community posts on a channel between the playlists and channels tabs, also on the subscription feed and occasionally on the home feed for non-subscribers. Go to your creation icon and select create post to start, but first…
Let’s explore opportunities:
The key here is creative platform communication. These posts still feel new, so there’s an element of surprise to them that you could leverage with use of innovative posts that reach beyond the familiar daily uploads associated with the subscriptions feed:
- Create teasers
- Share exclusive insights into your videos
- Post random thoughts
- Test out your audience’s preferences with polls
- Communicate your schedule in a direct way
- Promote older or classic content
- Boost sales and awareness
- Cross-promote with similar creators
There’s a lot you could be doing to effectively expand your community and social experience without having to leave YouTube.
Now it’s time to look into some basic best practices:
Introduce Community to newcomers: they might not be aware of this new feature and an intro would be the best way to learn what they might want out of it.
Be consistent but don’t overflood the feed: same logic as videos, you want to spread out your posts so they feel significant instead of overwhelming.
Take advantage of the tool for off-release cycles and content shortages: as you know, being consistent is essential to your channel’s growth, so whenever you don’t have any new videos or content to promote, using this feature will allow you to stay active with your fans without having to wait for a release cycle or investing in content creation.
Think about anniversaries and special occasions for key content promo: these are great excuses to repost older content and raise awareness for videos that have relevance in a particular date.
Be social and think about your audience: this feature lives up to its name. It’s a great way to build and develop a community between you and your audience, appreciate their participation by acknowledging their voice, interacting with their comments and considering their opinions whenever using a poll. –make them feel like an essential part of your channel’s future.
In conclusion, YouTube’s new Community feature is a tool that you should incorporate into your channel’s daily activity schedule. Use it wisely to strengthen the relationship between your content and subscribers.
