YouTube Fan Communities: Everything You Need to Know! 📢

Transcript

YouTube introduced so-called Fan Communities yesterday, initially for mobile devices. The desktop version (computer) will follow, but only after full release on smartphones. Martin, what are Fan Communities? Good you asked! You can think of Fan Communities as similar to the old channel comments section, except now people writing comments can post images as well, just like you’re used to from regular Community tab posts. For communities, it’s now similar to the Community tab. No, Fan Communities are a two-way communication, meaning viewers can ask the creator something and vice versa. The Community tab we have now will be called “Posts” in English or “Beiträge” in German, and it will be for one-way communication, like announcements or if you want to interact only with your members. Don’t worry, the classic Community tab isn’t going away; it’s just getting a new name: great!

Who can create posts in Fan Communities? We had some questions about this in a livestream, and YouTube has now specified it in their documents. It’s now stated that this area is intended only for subscribers. That means someone who belongs to your community must also be subscribed to you. And here’s where moderation tools come into play: You essentially have the option to choose how long someone must be a subscriber to be part of the community and access the Community or Fan Community tab accordingly. In the example I found, you must be a subscriber for at least one day. Of course, you can determine the exact breakdown and set the maximum number of days. We’ll see how this develops.

As with comments and live chat, there’s also the option to hide or essentially ban users from your entire channel. That means no comments, no live chat messages, and no posts in the Fan Community tab will be shown from that person. Conversely, if you want to pardon someone or lift a ban, it works just as before. YouTube also offers automatic filters, similar to those for regular comments: There’s no filter, a basic filter that holds back potentially inappropriate posts, or the strictest filter, which holds back all posts. Of course, you can disable the entire community if you wish. I’ve linked some resources in the video description below.

Do you have any further questions about communities or Fan Communities? I’d usually say feel free to ask in our Fan Community, but we don’t have access yet, so you’ll have to be patient. Feel free to leave a comment in the meantime. Attentive viewers may have noticed: YouTube also introduced a small additional feature in the screenshots earlier. Don’t worry, it’s 100% optional; you don’t have to use it. Creators now have the option to specify their own pronouns—a nice touch for inclusivity, as mentioned, entirely optional. If you don’t want to do this, just leave it be. I think there’s nothing more to say about this except: If you actually want to set this up for your channel, you can do so in YouTube Studio on desktop under “Customization” and then “Profile.”

Thank you very much for watching! If you have any questions on these topics, feel free to leave a comment, and otherwise, see you next Saturday for more YouTube updates. Until then, take care and keep going!