Your YouTube Update for March 2018

The month of March brought us several new nifty features and tech developments. YouTube has continuously worked to improve their site and has introduced new Live Streaming features, revamped the Creator Studio and available metrics, updated their iOS app, announced they will sponsor the NBA finals and even teamed up with Google to help kids understand and learn about fake news. Phew! They have certainly been busy.

And because it can be hard to stay up to date with all these developments, we have, as always, rounded them up for you.

YouTube is introducing a new dashboard that will replace the existing Creator Studio. The ‘YouTube Studio’ will show you an overview of your latest uploads, insights and data.

The update also offers the metrics and data to better understand your channel! We have described them here in more detail, but to sum them up, you will now be able to get data on these key new metrics:

• Impressions: This shows you how many times your thumbnail was seen
• Impressions click-through rate: How many times have people actually clicked on the video
• Unique Viewers: An estimated number of people who watch your videos over time

There have been multiple new features on the Live-Streaming front! Most notably, you can now launch a live stream from your desktop without having to use an encoder and lots of equipment. You are now able to use your webcam and simply click ‘Go Live’.

• See live chat on the recorded version. It’s like you were actually there when it all happened.
• Have your captions auto-generated by LASR (Live Automatic Speech Recognition) technology if you have not provided them with your live stream. This will make the viewing experience a lot more versatile.
• Tag your location! Users will also be able to search and explore videos by location.

If you are an iOS user, you are in for a treat. Newly available on the YouTube app (and so far only on iOS) is a dark theme. This will make watching videos in bed and in other low light situations much more comfortable.

TekRevue have a handy and super easy guide on how to use the theme.

If you have any questions on how to use these features, drop us a note.