Rene’s Top Five on YouTube: January 11, 2024 Edition
Jan 11, 2024 – [[read-time]] minute read
Happy New Year! That’s right, it’s not a dream, not a simulation, not a fever brought on by watching too many drama videos back-to-back-to-back — It’s 2024! And that means we have a whole year’s worth of YouTube, X/Twitter, Instagram, and Threads scouring to do so I, your friendly neighborhood Creator Liaison, can keep you, all of our amazing creators, up to date. But don’t worry, I’ll keep this one quick, because the whole year is currently not even two weeks old yet! Let’s go!
⚡️ Live Streamers! After doing algorithm deep-dives with Todd Beaupré for long-form videos and Todd Sherman for Shorts, we just knew Live had to be next. So, Sarah from the YouTube content strategy team and I channelled a lot of love — and some #BigToddEnergy! — into a best practices video for Live as well! We cover how to start with live, different approaches for consistent vs special event schedules, timers, chat interactions, live for non-gamers, and much, much more. Watch the whole entire thing on Creator Insider now!
📜 For streamers and moderators thereof, you can now access Channel Activity inside live chat. TL;DR: Every person in chat has a channel associated with their handle (user name), and so this feature lets you see how that person/channel has been moderated in the past. That includes deleted chats, timeouts, hides, etc. as well as messages from the last 30 days. It’s meant to help streamers and mods better determine what, if any, action they want to take on those people/channels if they’re disrupting the chat or otherwise being extremely unchill. Check out YouTube CEO, Neal Mohan’s X post on it, or his brand new Threads post and screenshot!
🎤 If you’re a podcaster, good news — You can now ingest your existing audio RSS feed directly inside Creator Studio. That means, you can take all your past episodes and easily upload them and make them available in YouTube and YouTube Music. Old episodes won’t flood your subscribers with notifications, but new episodes will send out alerts just like any new long-form upload. YouTube has an incredible discovery system that works at the video level. So, if someone is watching another video on a topic you cover in your podcast, there’s a chance your video will be suggested alongside it, or recommended right on their home page. The potential for growth is just unmatched, so for all the details, check out YouTube Creator’s full walkthrough!
🩳 Got a long-form video you want to remix into a Short but, you know, in a not super ugly clashing aspect ratio ugh gross way? Well, YouTube has a whole new workflow to help you more easily change those old layouts. In other words, crop, zoom, even stack them landscape longs into snappy, snazzy clipped Shorts! It works with all the Remix types and you can see how over at YouTube Creator.
📈 Tip of the Week: “When your viewers are on YouTube” — bright purple when most viewers are watching, dark gray when almost none are. But, who and what? The who is anyone who’s watched any of the videos on your channel in the last 28 days — whether they subscribe or not. The what is watching anything on YouTube — not necessarily or specifically your videos. How is this useful? For live streamers, you want to target times when most of your viewers are awake and around to watch, so bright purple means big audience potential and dark gray means… not so much. For video creators, think of it more as a way to set your own expectations when it comes to initial views. If you publish in prime time, there’s a greater chance of more people watching sooner. If you publish off-time, less people will be around to watch and it might take them longer to get to it. Over the course of a week or several, it probably won’t make a significant difference, but for those first few hours or day, if you don’t account for it, it can make a big difference in your stress levels if you’re accustomed to watching those numbers ramp up! So, publish whenever you want, just know what to expect when you do, and be kind to yourself either way!
Now get to that New Year contenting!