Communities: YouTube launches a new social media section

The video platform YouTube is launching an area in which creators and creators of YouTube content can interact with their fans and viewers. The company announced this on Wednesday at its Made on YouTube event. The area, called “Communities,” will be linked to the YouTube channel of the respective creator. Viewers can post directly on the creator’s channel and interact with other fans.

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In addition to familiar functions such as creating posts and comments as well as moderation tools, YouTube Communities differ in a few important ways, the company writes in a blog entry. While viewers could only leave comments on an artist’s videos in the past, in the future they will be able to share their own content in an author’s community and interact with each other. In a cooking community, participants will then have the opportunity to share recipes, post photos of the dishes they have prepared or make suggestions for the YouTube channel’s next cooking video. The creators of the respective YouTube channel will have the opportunity to determine who can participate in their community. At the start, only subscribers will be able to post in YouTube Communities.

Tests with selected channels

“Communities is a place where you and your fans can come together to build an even closer relationship with the topics and videos you love. It’s not just about posting updates between uploaders or asking for opinions or ideas, but for the first time, subscribers will start their own discussions with you and each other,” tech blog TechCrunch quoted Bangaly Kaba, Director of Product Management at YouTube, as saying, addressing content creators and creators during the Made on YouTube event.

YouTube hopes that with the new Communities social media space, creators will no longer have to use platforms like Discord or Reddit to interact with viewers. The company sees Communities as a dedicated space for conversations and connections that allows creators to maintain control over their content. YouTube is currently testing Communities on mobile devices with a small group of creators. “We’ve started building communities with a diverse selection of channels, and many of the first communities are already very successful,” the company writes in its blog, announcing that it will expand YouTube Communities to other channels in early 2025.

(akn)