Build a sustainable community

Guiding principles to engage your fans

Contents

Best practices

Building a healthy community can lead to a zealous fan base and long-term audience growth. Finding authentic ways to connect with your viewers on and off YouTube can be easy to do and can yield fantastic results.

The YouTube platform provides a unique experience for both creators and viewers alike, one that is social with lots of interactive tools baked right in. As a creator, you can encourage engagement around your channel and also interact directly with your viewers. The benefits of doing so are numerous. First, interacting with your audience and turning them into an engaged community is one of the easiest ways to create a social army of promoters. If your fans love what you’re doing and have positive interactions with you, they’re much more likely to share this with other friends— and personal recommendations are the most effective kind! A healthy community can also be a content barometer or focus group for you. If your viewers are coming back regularly and begin to feel invested in your channel, they may give you valuable feedback about what you’re doing and what they’d like to see more of.

Community building shouldn’t be a ton of extra work and that is partially because communities form naturally. Communities form around common interests as people are drawn to shared experiences and are eager to connect with others. Marketers and big brands have capitalized on this innate human need to belong and have learned how to use a few simple principles to create zealots for their brand: creation story, creed, leadership, rituals, and language. These principles are also exemplified in many of today’s top YouTube channels.

  • 5 guiding principles

    #1 Share your creation story

    Your creation story is powerful. Give your viewers the inside story of you. By letting them in on what this channel means to you, and the life experiences that contributed to how you got started, you are providing viewers with an opportunity to find a commonality or relate to you. Giving fans a peek behind that curtain will showcase your authenticity and true passion. Tell your fans about how you got started. Viewers will return to support you once they can relate to you.

    #2 Define your creed

    If you want to build a strong community, take a step back and think about what your viewers want and how they feel. One of the most important aspects of developing an inspired, and sustainable community is making sure that your audience has something they also believe in, and this is called creed. Give your fans a higher meaning when they come to YouTube, rather than just “watching a silly video a friend shared.” Think about what inspires you, and illustrate that feeling or higher purpose for your community.

    #3 Have clear leadership

    When you are passionate about your topic, and you (or your host) shows this on screen - your inspiration can transform into leadership. A leader can be a literal host or personality, a group with a consistent voice, or a figurative authority. This works incredibly well on YouTube - while a lot of people subscribe to channels they like, most people subscribe to personalities they like. Consider finding a way to showcase authority or leadership on your channel.

    #4 Build in rituals

    Rituals are repeated activities or formats that viewers can come to expect and look forward to over time. Is there a repeated element that you can do in every one of your videos? This can be as simple as sharing your upload schedule with viewers, or as involved as actually building in something special into each of your videos.

    #5 Create language

    Being conversational is one of the quintessential hallmarks of YouTube but many of today’s top YouTube creators have done something more. They've developed special lingo or language with their audiences over time, which can make feel like insiders— like they’re part of a secret club.

  • Actions you should take

    Develop relationships with top contributors

    Think of each viewer as an individual. Respond to frequent commenters, and take a genuine interest in them. Respond to comments in the first few hours after you publish a video. These first commenters are your loyal community members, so keep them engaged.

    Recognize the contributions of individuals in the community

    People love to be recognized; responding to first-time contributors is a way to encourage ongoing engagement. Consider recognizing your community through in-video shout outs, or by offering other rewards like fan merchandise or exclusive content shared through unlisted videos.

    Create content about your community

    Whenever possible, include your community in the video content itself. Shout them out by name, acknowledge that you’re reading their comments, or even let viewers choose the direction of a special feature. Many creators find ways to work-in their fans, letting the whole community know how much they appreciate their viewership.

    Spur conversation

    Create relevant content that generates conversation among your community. Ask for their opinions and feedback. Remember, good debates are a part of a healthy community. If trolls or bullies emerge, a healthy community will likely take care of the issue for you, but use the moderation tools available to ensure back-actors are flagged or blocked.

    Use off-platform social tools to engage with your community

    Do some research and figure out which social platforms your community is actively involved in. Jump into the conversation on those social networks. There are many social networks that YouTubers use as part of their social strategy. Some popular platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, and Google+.

    Sources: Patrick Hanlon, Primalbranding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future

Mastery checklist

  • What is your creation story?
  • What do your fans believe in?
  • How will you show leadership?
  • What kinds of rituals and language will you use?
  • What do your fans respond to the most?

Examples from creators

Shay Carl shares his personal struggle
Shay Carl let his fans in on his struggle to lose weight. Many of his fans could relate and followed him on his weight loss channel. Think about how your creation story can get your viewers to relate to you. (Video in English)
DS2DIO unites all dancers
DS2DIO built creed by showing viewers that a magical world of dance on their channel has arrived, a place for all kinds of dancers - it doesn't matter where you live, or what kind of dance you are into. (Video in English)
Vsauce builds their brand with leadership
Michael Stevens is the host from Vsauce 1. In Vsauce 2 and 3 - each host speaks in a similar cadence, has a similar disposition and systematic presentation formula. With this consistent voice, Kevin, Jake, and Michael - together - built the “Vsauce” brand. (Video in English)
Jenna Marbles engages fans with her rituals
At the end of Jenna's videos is her ritual - chatting to her two little dogs - it's very personal. People stick around to watch and it takes her very little time to produce. Can you identify any other rituals performed by favorite YouTubers? (Video in English)

Community activities

Put your new knowledge to work! Answer the activity questions below. Then share your answer with the community to get feedback from other creators.

1. What video have you liked recently or commented on? What motivated you to push the like button?
2. How do you find out who your fans are and what they like? What interesting fact did you learn about your fans and how did you use this information?
3. Think of the communities you’re involved in - maybe it is a book club, a sports team, or your college alumni group. What qualities of these communities make you want to be a member? What will you do to recreate some of those same qualities in your YouTube community?
4. There are a lot of other things your viewers could be doing instead of watching your videos. Give viewers a reason to support your cause. What value does your channel and the content you create provide?

Check your knowledge

Question
Jane’s channel has some new fans who are starting to post comments on her new videos. What strategy would you suggest to her to engage these fans more?
Send a personal note to each fan.

Acknowledge these fans’ contributions publicly.

Add a shout-out in one of your videos.

All of the above.

Great job!
Fans love to be a part of your community - you can engage them by relating to them, being personal, thanking them for their contributions, and incorporating their suggestions into your next video.
Try again!
Think about the last time you got engaged in a channel, why was that?
What can you do in your video to show your fans that you care about them?
Have your fans comments to drive the creative of your next video.

Nothing, keep making what you are most passionate about.

Set up a call to action for people to go to your personal website.

Modify your video content so there are less arguments around them.

Perfect!
One way to show that you are engaged with your fans is to incorporate their comments and feedback directly into your video. You can either give them a shout out or add it to your creative.
Not quite! Try again.
Look at some top YouTube channels and see how the channel interacts with their fans.
How can you tell which videos have the most engaged community?
See which video has the most views.

Look at your analytics and look at your demographics.

Analyze the ratio of number of comments per views for each of your videos.

See if your fans are starting to use the same language that you use in your videos.

Excellent!
Use your analytics to check out the likes and comments and see how it's changed between videos.
Not quite! Try again.
Think about the last time you did something that sparked excitement in your channel. How did you know your community was engaged?
Awesome job completing the questions! How can we make this page better?
 

Measure success

How engaged is your audience?
Download the comments report to calculate the number of comments per view and compare how recently uploaded videos are doing in comparison to older videos over the same time period.

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Are your videos attracting a new audience?
Look at the ratio of new subscribers to views over time to see which subscriber sources or videos were driving this increase, note the increases in the amount of new subscribers per view.

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What sites are driving your engaged viewers to your videos?
Look at the traffic sources for external sites and playback locations (embedded player) to understand which sites’ communities are engaged.

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Who are your top contributors and what are they saying?
Check out the Top Fans tool and sort your fans by their number of subscribers.

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In this collection

01:
Build a sustainable community
02:
Strengthen ties to your fans
03:
Go big, go live
 

What to do next

Strengthen ties to your fans
Strengthen ties to your fans
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