YouTube expands creator outreach with new features, better support

Along with news that it’s preparing to introduce live streaming support in its main mobile application, YouTube also this week announced a series of new features for its creator community. The details, which include a new Creator Hub, better support, a benefits program and other tools, were unveiled Thursday at VidCon, an event focused on online video and digital culture.

In a keynote address by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the company spoke of its investment in new technologies, like 360-degree videos and VR, as well as its expansion of YouTube Original programming, which is available to subscribers of the YouTube Red service.

For creators, YouTube promised a number of new features for those participating in or joining its community anew, including better customer support, a redesigned Creator Hub and a benefits program.

The company says that it has increased creator support by 100x, meaning that every creator who joins the Partner Program will now receive answers via email from a person at YouTube — within one business day.

This is a sizable increase in the level of support available before. The company previously offered this sort of direct support to thousands of video creators, and now it will extend that same support to millions.

The Creator Hub is getting a makeover, too, in order to centralize access to resources like educational materials and the help center, for example. Before, creators had to navigate through seven different websites to find the material they need, but now they’ll be able to just visit the new Creator Hub page, which is also fully localized in 23 languages, to find help and details on all of YouTube’s programs.

A new benefits program called YouTube for Creators is debuting, as well, which will make it easier for creators to access the resources they need to grow subscribers. This includes things like access to the learning program dubbed “Creator Academy” and YouTube’s studio app, for example.

As you reach different levels of subscribers (0, then 1,000, 10,000, e.g.), benefits also grow. Creators will be invited to attend “Creator Days” and local meetups and workshops at YouTube Spaces. When their audience is larger, they’ll have the chance to shoot videos at YouTube Spaces, get consultations regarding their channels, become ambassadors and enter the YouTube NextUp contest for increased exposure. At the highest level, they’re offered their own partner manager, among other perks.

In addition to the improved and more centralized resources, and the formalization of processes already in place with YouTube for Creators, YouTube noted it’s rolling out a few more tools, too.

It recently launched new comments control that let creators delegate comment moderation to people they trust; it’s tweaking how “strikes” (penalties) are handled to take into account that new creators need time to understand the rules; and it’s improving its Content ID system. The new system lets videos continue to earn money while a Content ID claim is disputed, and this will reach all monetized users in the next few months.