YouTube has continued to expand Shorts community engagement, and looks to help Shorts creators convert more views into subscribers using short form clips.
First, YouTube is looking to make Shorts a more responsive engagement option. How? By enabling users to reply with a Short in the comments feed.
Creators will now be able to add Shorts clips as comment replies in-stream, which is similar to TikTok’s video reply option and provides a more engaging and creative way to interact within the process. YouTube says that the functionality is rolling out to creators on iOS this week, with Android coming ‘in the coming months’.
YouTube is also adding new Data Stories for posts, which will provide more insight into how your YouTube content is performing.
YouTube has been rolling out variations of its full-screen Data Stories cards over the last few months. The new post analytics will give you another way to learn more about your overall channel performance which will be helpful for creators of any kind.
Finally, YouTube is also adding the capacity for subscribers of a channel to become a channel member direct from the shorts feed.
“The join button will show to subscribers on Android and iOS. The goal is to give more subscribers of a channel the opportunity to support a creator through channel memberships.”
As YouTube continues to grow its short-form video capabilities, be on the lookout for how they can help you grow your channel and your business. With TikTok on increasingly shaky ground in the US, YouTube could wind up ultimately winning in the short-form video race.
