For the past year, YouTube has been testing out a new feature called Community with a select few channels. This feature is designed to better connect creators with their fans and increase engagement. Community is now being expanded to all creators on YouTube that have over 10K subscribers. 

YouTube has announced Community as a place where creators can immerse in deeper connections with their fans, share exclusive content, and help promote new videos. If you have over 10K subscribers, your channel should now have access to this feature and it will replace the “Discussion” tab on your channel.

The main things you can do with your Community tab are: 

- post an existing YouTube video

- post a poll

- post an image (and you can also just make a regular post with words and no images or videos). 

In our experience, the most effective Community posts are polls, questions, and provocative images and/or animated GIFs. Instead of just linking to your newest video, Community posts can be a great opportunity to highlight older content on your channel that viewers may not have seen or might have forgotten about. Many creators on YouTube have also been using Community to poll their fans on what videos they’d like to see next.

Community can also be used to promote and build anticipation for upcoming videos that haven't yet been published. Animated GIFs and images can be used to act as trailers for new videos you want to release. For example, if you’re a musician you could post an image of you in the studio to promote a new single, or post a short GIF of a music video shoot. You can also use Community to promote current videos on the channel and live stream events.

These Community posts will show up in your subscribers’ home feed, as well as the home feed of your most engaged viewers who are not subscribed.

YouTube is also rolling out a brand new feature called Stories, similar to Stories that you see on Snapchat and Instagram. Right now, Reels is in a beta version and only available to select creators. This feature allows creators videos that can be up to 30 seconds long and, unlike Snapchat and Instagram, the video won't disappear after 24 hours unless the creator wants it to. You can also use Stories to links to longer YouTube videos, and apply filters, add music, text, and stickers to the videos.

We’ll continue to provide updates on when Community becomes available to all creators and feel free to reach out to us with any questions on this new feature.