YouTube Stories: The video platform now offers a Story function

Snapchat and Instagram did it first, and now YouTube is following suit: the video platform now allows you to create so-called “Stories”. That is, short videos or slideshows of photos. The photos and videos can be edited in various ways and are usually deleted from the system au­to­mat­i­cal­ly after 24 hours. YouTube users can augment their posts further with special filters, stickers, and text. It’s also possible to integrate a link to a Story easily, unlike the com­pe­ti­tion, and Stories can be set to be per­ma­nent­ly visible – beyond the usual 24 hours. However, YouTube Stories can’t be commented on like normal videos. Instead, users can only respond with direct messages.

The ability to add Stories to user accounts was first im­ple­ment­ed by Snapchat in September 2011, followed by Instagram, Facebook, and Skype. Now YouTube also offers the feature.

The feature was orig­i­nal­ly announced and promoted under the name “YouTube Reels”, but became “YouTube Stories” even before the official release. The reason for this was that users had already become ac­cus­tomed to the term “Stories” from using the feature on competing platforms.

Since YouTube Stories is still in beta form, only selected channels have been able to try it out so far. It has only been possible for content creators with over 10,000 sub­scribers to use the feature since the second test run. The addition will, unlike with Instagram, serve as an in­ter­est­ing extra feature to round off YouTube’s func­tion­al spectrum rather than a core function of the platform.

Users can access a channel’s YouTube Stories via a tab on the re­spec­tive channel page, similarly to the Community feature. However, this story tab is only available in the mobile app. The new feature will give YouTubers an extra way to connect with the community and keep their sub­scribers up to date on all their latest news.

With YouTube Stories, YouTubers can record and share videos of up to 15 seconds long. For example, you can publish teasers of upcoming videos or update your sub­scribers about your activity in a concise manner. In this way, Stories are a good ad­di­tion­al element allowing to connect and interact with sub­scribers.

Normally, the YouTube community will go to the channel page of a par­tic­u­lar YouTuber in order to com­mu­ni­cate with them. The com­bi­na­tion of the Community tab and the Stories feature serves as the com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool. This way, users can get in touch with channels and have an ongoing con­ver­sa­tion, separate from the video comments section. Content creators can also post questions in order to stimulate con­ver­sa­tion or conduct Q&A sessions. In principle, this is possible in the comments section of a video, but the Community tab is better suited to it since the questions don’t have to be related to a specific video.

Unlike Stories on other platforms, YouTube Stories aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly deleted after 24 hours, and can be made available for a longer time period. In short, the content creator can decide how long their Stories are available for and can delete them at any time. Similarly to other platforms, YouTubers can also add filters, music, text, and stickers to their Stories, as well as create as many Stories as they like. This gives them plenty of flex­i­bil­i­ty to connect spon­ta­neous­ly with their followers.

The beta phase is designed to test what YouTubers use their Stories for most often, and how. Beta should also flag up any par­tic­u­lar issues that users are having with the feature.

Users don’t have to subscribe to channels in order to see their Stories. It suffices to visit a channel via the mobile app, where you will gain access to their Stories.

The YouTube Stories and Community features are integral to YouTube’s overall community strategy. However, Stories can also be used in­de­pen­dent­ly of the Community feature via a separate tab on the mobile app. From YouTube’s per­spec­tive, the Stories feature offers several in­cen­tives for users to post their content on the YouTube platform instead of its com­peti­tors, such as Instagram and Snapchat. For example:

• Share photos and GIFs
• Create surveys
• Recommend videos and YouTubers
• Product placement
• Create, edit, and share Stories
• Like and comment on Stories

The goal of YouTube’s strategy is to receive more traffic, and ul­ti­mate­ly, to expand the user community on the platform. In order to do this, they will need the YouTube community at large to fully engage with the Stories feature once it is launched. However, some critics have concerns that YouTube Stories is another tool that can be used to collect user data.

Meanwhile, the Community feature is available for all channels with over 10,000 sub­scribers.