Many new social media platforms are rising. For users, that’s good news because it means they will have more options. On the other hand, existing social media platforms do not like that as much. It means they will have to compete with many companies for the attention and time of viewers.
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In the age of computers, people have plenty of options to make a living. Artists can sell their services on websites like Fiverr, while photographers can advertise themselves through Instagram. Meanwhile, other people can do “live selling” on platforms like TikTok and Facebook.
Continue ReadingIt’s a great time to be alive. You can use social media platforms not just to connect with people and share your love for something but also to earn money. And the money you can get from these platforms is not negligible. You can earn millions a year if you perform well.
However, there’s a problem that needs addressing. Toxicity is common on social media platforms. You will inevitably meet some trolls.
These trolls may berate you in your comments section. Also, they may attack your other viewers through hate speech and disinformation. You may be forced to release an uncharacteristic video to respond when they do that. That may throw your audience and other people who stumble upon your channel off.
Another thing they can do is encourage others to dislike your videos. While viewers can no longer see the dislike count, you can. And it can be disheartening to see that, of all metrics, go up. That’s bad for your mental health. Furthermore, that may push you to quit YouTubing.
So, are you powerless against them? Not necessarily. You can use a feature to stop them from causing you trouble. Like in other social media platforms, you can block users on YouTube to stop giving them more YouTube views.
On other social media platforms, blocking a person disables them from seeing and contacting you. For example, on Facebook, blocked users can’t message you. Aside from that, they can’t see your profile, posts, and comments anywhere on Facebook. They also can’t send you a friend request.
Does the same thing happen on YouTube? Unfortunately, that’s not the case. If they are content creators, their videos may still appear in your feed and recommendations. Also, they can still see your videos.
They can still comment on your videos too. However, their comments will not increase the comment count. More importantly, only they can see those comments. That stops them from attacking you or spreading hate in your comment section.
They can still react to your video by leaving a like or a dislike. The same thing goes for comments of other people on your videos.
Even though the blocking feature of YouTube is not as strong as that of Facebook, it is better than nothing.
Launch the web browser of your choice, then open the YouTube website. Next, visit the channel you want to block. You can put their channel name in the YouTube search bar to get there. But if you can’t remember their channel name, you can check your comment section. Click their name to get to their channel.
Next, go to the About section in their channel. That tab will show you their channel description and when they joined YouTube. But that’s not important. What you want to look for is the flag-shaped Report User button. It is under the Stats section.
Click that button to access a drop-down menu. You can select “Block User” then “Submit” to disallow them from commenting on your videos. Also, you can click on the “Report User” option to make YouTube review their account.
When reporting a user, always choose the appropriate option for best results. You can flag them for harassment/cyberbullying, impersonation, violent threats, child endangerment, hate speech, spam, and scams. Also, you can report them for having content with your private information on it.
YouTube monitors flag users 24/7 to determine whether they adhere to the Community Guidelines or need to be penalized.
Blocking YouTube users on the YouTube smartphone apps is straightforward. Doing it would not take a minute.
Open the YouTube app on your smartphone. Then, visit the channel you want to block. Again, you can check your comment section if you can’t remember their channel name.
Then, click on the three dots at the top right corner of your screen. Choose “Block User” and confirm by choosing “Block.”
You can report the said user. Choose the appropriate category, then click “Next.” The next page will let you specify which are the abusive video/s that YouTube should check. You can do or skip that step. Next, add additional notes if you want to. And last, tap “Submit.”
Unfortunately, there’s no way to make your content invisible to others and vice versa. However, you can stop a channel’s videos from appearing in your homepage recommendations. That way, you will only see their channels when you visit them or in search results.
Here’s how you can do that.
Open the YouTube website on a web browser and log into your account. If you are already there, click the Home button or the YouTube logo to go back to your home page.
Find a video from the channel you want to block. Then, click on the three dots next to the title of that video. Note that it is not immediately visible. To make the three dots appear, hover your mouse over the title or thumbnail of the video.
Click “Don’t Recommend Channel,” which should do the trick.
Launch the YouTube app on your Android or iOS device. Then, find a video from the channel you don’t want to see on your Home recommendations. Unlike YouTube on a web browser, you can immediately see the three dots next to the video title. Tap “Don’t Recommend Channel,” and you are done.
When you block a YouTube user, you disallow them from commenting on your videos. That means you are purposely reducing the engagement. However, it is still recommended that you do it.
For one, it is only one user you are blocking. And that one user is doing nothing but cause you trouble. For the sake of your mental health and your viewer’s safety, it is worth losing that one person’s comments. You can always gain more comments from people who are not trolls.
People used to upload videos on the internet to entertain others. Also, it can make you famous. So, if you want to become popular, YouTubing is one of the things that you can do.
Continue ReadingYouTube can help you rediscover yourself, believe it or not. How? You can check the list of content creators you follow and have followed. By doing so, you can see how your tastes have changed over time. Also, you may have an interest that you have put at the back of your mind and have forgotten about them. Looking at your Top 10 YouTube views sites and subscription history can remind you of those things. And the chances are you still love those things, and you may have even helped buy them YouTube views.
You can also check your subscriptions if you want to “declutter.” Getting recommended videos from YouTube channels you no longer watch could get annoying. So, you may want to unsubscribe to them.
So, how can you do this? There are many methods to do it. And the steps can also change depending on what device you are using. Let’s look at all of them.
You can’t see how long you have subscribed to a channel using YouTube’s tools. A third-party app is needed for you to be able to do that. But it can show you your subscription history.
Here is how you do it on the web or mobile app.
The first step, of course, is to visit Youtube.com using a web browser and log into your account. Then, on the left-side panel, click on “Subscriptions.”
Finally, click on “Manage.” That should be on the top right corner of the screen, below the “Create” button.
The steps on the mobile app are almost the same as when you do it on the web. You start by launching the YouTube mobile app. If you haven’t logged in yet, do that. Then, tap on “Subscriptions.” That is between the (+) icon and “Library” at the bottom left side of the screen.
There will be a menu at the top of the screen displaying the profile pictures of the channels you are subscribed to. There’s clickable text saying “Manage” on the rightmost side of that menu. Tap on that.
Tapping or clicking “Manage” on mobile and the web will open the YouTube subscription management page. There, you can see the history of your subscriptions.
Please note that YouTube will not list the channels in any particular order. So, because the channel is at the topmost of the list does not mean it was the latest addition to that list.
On this page, you can unsubscribe to channels that you are not interested in anymore. Also, you can set up alerts, so you don’t miss any video from a channel that you really like. That gives you some control over how YouTube presents content to you on your Home screen.
However, keep in mind that you can’t turn the notification bell on for channels labeled as “Made for Kids.”
Suppose you want to see all the channels you are subscribed to on YouTube. At the same time, you want to learn how long you have been subscribed to that content creator.
As mentioned earlier, no native YouTube tool can give you what you want. But, you can get that using another Google product. Remember, YouTube is a subsidiary of Google.
That product would be My Google Activity. Open an internet browser, go to its webpage, and then sign into the Google account associated with your YouTube channel.
Once logged in, there should be a list of options on the left side of the screen. If it is not there, click or tap on the hamburger menu at the top-left corner of the screen.
Next, select “Other Google Activity.” That will redirect you to the “Activity controls” page. Scroll down until you find “YouTube Channel Subscriptions.”
Click on “View Subscriptions.” If you do this, a new browser tab will open. Click on that tab to see the channels you are subscribed to on the largest video-sharing website in the world.
Unlike the previous method, you can see when you click that subscribe button on each channel. It will show you not just the date but also the exact time when you subscribed. Unfortunately, it will not tell you exactly how many months or days you have been subscribed. If you want to know, you have to do the computation yourself.
You can delete your subscriptions activity on My Google Activity. That will effectively unsubscribe you to the channel that you deleted. However, it may take a few hours before Google can fully remove the data on YouTube.
What you can’t do, though, is activate or deactivate the notification bell. So, you can’t use this method to set alerts. You have to do that on the YouTube app or website.
You can also use third-party apps to review your YouTube subscription history. You have to set your YouTube subscription visibility to “Public” for this to work. Therefore, it’s not for people who see privacy as an issue.
Here’s how you adjust your subscription visibility setting.
Log into YouTube. Then, tap or click on your profile photo. Select “Settings.”
On the Settings page, locate “Privacy” and click on that. Then look for the option that says, “Keep all my subscriptions private.” Toggle that off.
Now, you can use third-party apps/websites. Most of these will only need you to paste your channel’s URL into the textbox. Then, click the “Continue” button or any equivalent of that.
After that, you should see a list of all channels you are subscribed to. And as with My Google Activity, you’ll see the date and time when you subscribed.
Unlike doing it on YouTube, you can’t set or stop alerts. Likewise, unlike dong it on YouTube or My Google Activity, you can’t unsubscribe to any channels through that preview.
So, this method does not offer anything the official methods do not provide. And it also offers less than them. So, there’s really no reason to choose this. You also have to make your subscriptions’ visibility public. It’s best not to do that.
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Continue ReadingSince it was added as a feature on Instagram and Facebook, Stories has become a major staple of our social media life. In fact, Instagram has the highest number of users this year with over 400 million daily. It has even surpassed Snapchat and Facebook.
Who would have thought that this kind of posting format will hit big? Its popularity encouraged even other platforms to include it as one of their features. Netflix and Airbnb are now following in the popularity of this social media format. Not only that, YouTube is trying to also incorporate it into its platform.
YouTube is launching a “Stories” format and called it “Reels”. The video tech giant is currently testing it with its YouTube creators that has over 10,000 subscribers. It was successful with Instagram. Now, the question is, will it be successful with YouTube?
Do creators and subscribers really need this kind of format in the platform?
YouTube is trying to create a not so similar Stories format for its platform. One is the people who have access to it.
In Instagram, anyone with the account can post their stories. However, with YouTube, posting Reels is only a feature available to creators with large followings. And instead of the normal 24 hours, the Reel gets to stay in their account for a week or seven long days. YouTube is also allowing multiple stories which are very different with Instagram and Snapchat.
Subscribers will be able to find the creator’s stories in the Subscriptions tab, while for non-subscribers, it will be in the “Up next” list. On the other hand, just like Instagram’s Stories, there will also be some editing features in Reels. Creators can add filters, music, stickers to their video stories.
What is also good is that viewers can add a comment on the Reels. They can also comment with thumbs up or thumbs down or even give a heart icon if they like the video.
Since YouTube is only opening the Reel features to creators with over 10,000 subscribers, we can say that it is trying to build its communities. It also aims to promote channels as well as increase engagement.
Other creators have already started using the feature. They used it to create behind the scene accounts for the videos that they are creating and will be publishing in the platform. This creates an exciting feeling for the viewers and YouTube subscribers.
With this feature, YouTube is encouraging its users to stay on the platform, especially for its creators. Now creators don’t need to head to Facebook, Instagram or other social media to post updates on their videos or accounts. They can use YouTube Reels to do that. They can update their viewers easier and in a low key way.
YouTube Reels is also a good opportunity for creators who occasionally creates videos. They can close the gaps by updating its viewers of what is happening to them. On the other hand, for vloggers who are posting frequently, using Reels may be a redundancy for them.
In the end, Reels is about making creators stay with the platform and increasing their audience engagement.
Creators and users have mixed reactions about YouTube Reels. Some say that YouTube is just jumping into the bandwagon of the Stories and it really does not need it. Another is that YouTube is just limiting it to its well-followed creators. It means there is no opportunity for budding YouTubers or small startups to try the feature.
Perhaps, the reason for this is that YouTube is trying to crack down and weed out inappropriate content on its platform. It is also cutting advertising rights to creators who are producing explicit content or graphical images.
On the other hand, other creators think that it is not reasonable to cut out advertising privileges just because the creator is touching the subjects of sex, mental health, and politics.
The problem with YouTube’s algorithm is that creators with high following continue to flourish, while those small and starting creators are bound to fail. This is because YouTube’s algorithm only favors those that have a sustainable following. They monetize them, while those that are small failed to get the monetization that they need since they are not given the right amount of exposure on the platform.
Using Reels, it is only another way to help those who have established accounts to flourish more. If Reels aim is to build community, wouldn’t be right to allow others to use it so other communities will be bigger? Also, it will help small or budding creators to create bigger communities?
10,000 subscribers may just be a small number for others. But with many YouTubers out there, it is hard to compete for attention. Thus, it is not easy to reach this number in a short period of time. Worse, those unfortunate creators have been in the platform for a long time and still fail to hit the 1000 subscriber mark.
It is also hard to gauge if Reels will be able to get audience engagement since the only indicator that you will have is comments and the reactions of the viewers.
Its purpose of audience engagement is good. However, if no one is using it, then it is a useless feature.
With Reels, brands can also use it to promote their product or campaign. They can create a poll, snippets or behind the scene footages.
It will be the same with Instagram. However, the big question is, will brands use Reels if they are already successful in using Instagram? Are they ready to take a risk in using another platform for their brand?
Remember paid ads on social media is not cheap. And trying to use all possible social media and social media features will surely cost your brands heaps of money. So better to think carefully and decide wisely which one will be effective for your brand. And if Instagram is effective for you, will you still move to other platforms, whether that platform has the same feature and purpose?
This feature is new. And it is hard to imagine a lot of people taking and consuming it in a short period of time. Furthermore, if it is not their platform, they won’t bother checking it out or much more use it.
These YouTube Reels is an interesting experiment. However, only the changes in the digital trends will tell if it will be successful just like with Instagram. Facebook and Snapchat has a steady follower on their own Story features, but will that mean the same for YouTube?