Vertical Live Streams in the YouTube Shorts Feed: Latest Updates & Features

Expanding Your Reach with Vertical Live and Community Features

YouTube is continuing to evolve its ecosystem to better support short-form content and community engagement. Recent updates are focusing on how creators broadcast live and how viewers interact with content through clips and community posts. From the rollout of vertical live streaming to new discovery mechanisms for community updates, these changes provide creators with more tools to increase their visibility and foster a tighter bond with their audience.

Vertical Live Streams in the Shorts Feed

One of the most significant updates is the gradual rollout of Vertical Live. This feature allows creators to stream in a vertical format, making their live broadcasts eligible to appear directly within the YouTube Shorts feed. This is a strategic shift, as it places live content in front of users who are already consuming short-form, vertical video, potentially increasing the discoverability of live streams for new audiences.

The rollout has been ongoing over the past month and is scheduled to reach 100% availability by February 1st. For creators looking to implement this, the process is relatively straightforward, particularly for those using external broadcasting software.

Technical Setup for Vertical Streaming

To successfully broadcast in a vertical format, creators can utilize tools like OBS. Based on recent testing, the process involves two primary steps:

1. Installing a Vertical Plugin: Using a dedicated OBS plugin allows the software to handle the vertical aspect ratio.
2. Stream Key Configuration: In the settings, switching the stream key to “Automatic” ensures that YouTube correctly detects the broadcast format as vertical.

By automating the detection process, YouTube simplifies the transition from traditional horizontal streaming to the vertical format, allowing creators to focus more on the content and less on the technical configuration.

Leveraging Community Clips for Audience Growth

Beyond live streaming, YouTube is enhancing how creators and viewers collaborate through Community Clips. This feature allows viewers to take highlights from a creator’s content and turn them into short, shareable clips. To make these highlights more prominent, YouTube has introduced a dedicated tab and a specific “shelf” for these clips.

The “Top Community Clips” Shelf

Creators can now showcase the best moments of their broadcasts or videos by adding a “Top Community Clips” shelf to their channel page. This is managed through the following steps:

• Navigate to YouTube Studio.
• Go to the Customization section.
• Enable the Community Clips shelf.

This feature serves as a powerful tool for social proof and community building. Because the shelf displays who created the clip, it provides direct recognition to the viewers who are actively supporting the channel. By encouraging the community to cut out funny or informative moments and provide brief descriptions, creators can effectively outsource some of their highlight editing to their most engaged fans, while simultaneously highlighting the most valuable parts of their long-form content.

New Discovery Paths for Community Posts

Community Posts have long been a way for creators to maintain a presence between video uploads. However, YouTube is now making these posts more discoverable through a new “feed chip” within the YouTube app.

The Community Post Filter

The introduction of this feed chip allows users to filter their home feed to show exclusively Community Posts. This creates a dedicated stream of text, image, and poll updates, removing the noise of standard video recommendations.

Crucially, this filtered feed is not limited to the channels a user is already subscribed to. It includes posts from both subscribed creators and those the user has not yet discovered. This represents a significant opportunity for growth, as a well-crafted Community Post can now act as a discovery vehicle, leading new viewers to a creator’s channel.

Practical Tip: The Update Post

With the increased visibility of the Community feed, creators should consider their posting strategy. A practical approach is to occasionally create a “Community Tab Update” post. By explicitly updating the community on upcoming projects or current status, creators can take advantage of the new filter to stay top-of-mind for their existing audience and attract new followers who are browsing the Community Post feed.

By combining vertical live streaming for reach, community clips for engagement, and optimized community posts for discovery, creators can build a more integrated presence across the various surfaces of the YouTube platform.

Original transcript

Transcript

Vertical Live has been rolling out gradually over the past month and will reach 100% availability on February 1st. I’ve tested it for you on my gaming channel, and so far, it’s working pretty well. I simply downloaded an OBS plugin and switched the stream key to “Automatic” so it detects that my stream is being broadcast in vertical format. It’s actually a very straightforward process. If you need help, feel free to comment below, and we’ll create a detailed tutorial.

Next, we move on to another feature primarily used in streams: Community Clips. These now have their own dedicated tab. All accounts should now be able to offer this feature, except for a few where it’s not working. This means that when you upload content and your viewers create clips from it, you can offer a so-called “Top Community Clips” shelf on your channel. You can find this option in the Customization section of YouTube Studio. By the way, I’d love it if you cut out funny or informative moments from our live streams, briefly describe what they’re about, and share them on our channel. It will even show who created the clip.

Moving on to Posts, specifically Community Posts. These now have their own feed chip in the YouTube app we all know. Now we can filter posts within the app, which means we have a home feed filled exclusively with Community Posts. It shows both the people you subscribe to and those you don’t know yet. I think this could be a very interesting feature. And a little tip: Maybe you should occasionally create a Community Tab Update post.

If you have any further questions, feel free to comment below. Otherwise, see you next week for more updates. Until then, take care and keep going!