By: Nick Gambino
YouTube may be one of the top video content platforms with seemingly no shortage of comments and engagement, but they fall short when it comes to direct interaction between creators and fans.
In fact, despite the comments section being right there with their unique fans under their videos, creators still flock to other platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Discord. That’s a problem for a company whose main goal is retention of users.
“We heard they want more ways to connect with each other; that creators, their content and communities are already on YouTube, so we have the potential to be the best place for deeper conversations too,” the Head of Design for YouTube Community, Whitney Taylor, said in a blog post.
The Google company plans to rectify that by launching Communities. This new space is a lot like Discord and allows creators and fans to engage with each other outside of the comments section. Again, while the comments section on YouTube is legendary it’s mostly fans interacting with other fans.
When a creator starts their Community, followers can initiate posts with their own content (presumably related to the channel) and others can answer them, including the creator. For example those in a fitness community can share progress photos and the story of their journey. Another example shared in the YouTube blog post is a cooking channel where fans share their culinary creations based on the creator’s recipes or inspiration.
The main thing that Communities offers that might help retain people on YouTube is the ability for followers to create their own posts. This effectively brings YouTube into the fold with the most popular social media apps. Until now the only thing you could do is post your own video which takes a lot of effort or drop a comment which is limited.
The new Communities space is like its own mini social network for every YouTube channel. This is just getting started and we’ll see how many people, both creators and fans, use it.
