YouTube wants to make it easier for users to identify the most interesting parts of video recordings, and it’s also introducing a new option to thank loyal viewers during live streaming.
When you scrub through a video clip on YouTube, you’ll observe spikes and valleys in engagement activity as you can see in this example. This new ‘Engagement Graph’ is being tested with a small number of mobile and desktop users.
According to what YouTube has to say: Viewers will be shown a signal to help them quickly determine which parts of a video are worthwhile. If you’re scrubbing while in this experiment, you’ll notice a graph above the red progress bar, which indicates how often people have re-watched a certain section of the film.”
In 2016, Facebook experimented with the same concept for live videos, using engagement insights to guide viewer behaviour. The main distinction between Facebook and YouTube is that Facebook uses Reactions and comments as a signal, but YouTube does not, as per the above description. This might make it a better indicator of content activity and help focus interaction toward topics of direct interest rather than, say, contentious issues or activities designed to entice users to stick around.
Also, it’s possible that YouTube is also using comments and Likes as a proxy, but the description here suggests that this could assist users to identify the most relevant and intriguing parts of each video.
As an added bonus, YouTube is also rolling out ‘Member Milestones,’ which will allow users who have been members of their Channel for longer than two months to send a live-stream message commemorating their membership milestone. As a result, the broadcaster will be able to recognise and reward loyal members while also increasing community involvement.
For as long as a member is active, he or she can send one special highlighted message in a live chat per month. Simply by acknowledging your most committed members, you may help them feel valued and be a part of your community for longer. It’s a simple technique to help maximise your community-building efforts.
All channel members can now take advantage of the new Membership Milestones, which are separate from channel subscribers,’ who are simply people who follow a channel without paying for it.
