YouTube launches Communities to strengthen interaction between creators and fans

YouTube launches Communities, a forum-style space for creators and fans to interact with each other directly within the platform.

At its Made On YouTube event, YouTube announced a new dedicated space for creators to interact with their fans. The space, dubbed "Communities", resembles a Discord server integrated into a creator's channel.

YouTube Communities: a community space to keep content creators captive

Communities is a space where fans can publish and interact with other followers directly within a creator's channel. Whereas in the past, subscribers had to limit themselves to simple comments under videos, now they can share their own content in the creator's community to interact with other fans around common interests. For example, a fitness creator's community could include posts from fans sharing videos and photos of their most recent ride. With this new feature, YouTube hopes that creators will no longer have to rely (or rely less) on other platforms such as Discord or Reddit to interact with their followers.

"You know that feeling, that magic, that joy that comes from finding a group of people who understand you. Communities are a place where you can choose to create that with your fans. It's a place where you and your fans can come together to make even deeper connections about the topics and videos you love, not just by posting updates between the users who posted them or asking for opinions or ideas, but for the first time, subscribers will spark their own discussions. with you and with each other." said Bangaly Kaba, YouTube's Director of Products.

YouTube's Communities feature: a forum-style space

YouTube envisions this new feature as a space dedicated to "conversation and connection", while allowing creators to retain control over their content. According to the platform, conversations in Communities should take place over time, as they would in any other forum-like environment. " This new space, linked to the creator's channel, is where creators and fans can truly connect on YouTube by building deeper relationships around shared passions," reads the YouTube blog.

YouTube is currently testing Communities with a small group of creators. The company plans to extend the feature to more creators later this year, before rolling it out to all channels during 2025.

Please note: Communities should not be confused with YouTube's Community feature, launched in 2016. While Communities allows creators to share text and images with their followers, it does not allow fans to interact with each other.

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