Hey creators this week. I'm with Barbara McDonald from The live Team at YouTube and
Well first of all welcome to the show thank you, and we're here in San Bruno and YouTube headquarters and I
Wanted to start off with [just] some basic
Like what is live streaming like from a Youtuber point of view many creators are very accustomed to
Shooting videos like this having time to edit them by kind of getting it just right
Different story with lives [just] like how how do how do you think about that right and how do creators make that transition?
So I [think] they'll live as a different way to supplement the on-demand content on your channel
Because you don't need to spend as much time in pre-production
figure out Sort of what are the the
like the rough schedule of what it is that you want to do and just do it go live and
Instantly the thing that makes life very different then on demand is engaging directly with your audience
So through live [chat] and other interactivity features that we have and you're able to get real time feedback and engage with people
So you'll be there streaming and you could get
Thousands of your viewers are instantly there, and you'll be able to rip with them. They'll be asking you questions
You'll be able to respond it really makes it a different creation process
So I've never done it before but my first impression when I hear that is like
Oh what no one should know we actually have done a time in the past year to work on litems
live search and discovery to
Really tap into the power of the search and recovery systems that YouTube has and make it shine with live streams
So you know we'll send out notification to your subscribers will make sure that in search people are able to find these
Peoples home pages, they'll be able to see your stream
So we try to as best as possible make sure that all your subscribers. I know that your lives
they ,don't hang out with you and this energy level you have right. Now is removable. Yes, it is actually I can i can assess
Barbra's is normally like this. I just yeah, you come fired up
This is kind of I do have my own YouTube channel
Kind of who I am I get I actually really do get excited about it. No, no I could feel it
it's so different than um you know coming up with what your script will be going and editing or doing offline doing your editing and
You know you just want to be like really engaging in the moment. So how many like how many subscribers?
Do you need to have to feel like doing live [makes] sense is there sort of like a minimum that you should be oh?
That's actually a good question
i got to around like
200 300 subscribers um you know that's when reliably I could start getting you know 5 to 10 people coming back. i just hit
3000 Subscribers last week, and I'm able to get anywhere from 30 to 50
Every single week come back to hangout me alright. Well you also have
Your team has said launched a super chat things, super chat! yeah a lot of people talking about it
So what is it super chat super chat is a new way to monetize your live streams
We're in a busy stream checking off and you flying and it's so hard for your fans that your your die for your fans
I just want to reach out and talk to you
It's hard for them to be able to do that
And so it's super chat is they can purchase fun
brightly colored highlighted chat messages they stand out from the crowd and really helps each of your viewers better connect with
you so viewers can pay anywhere from $1 up to $500
And for certain amounts these messages actually get pinned at the top of the chat feed for up to [5] hours
$500
$500 and we have had we've been launched for about two months now. We have had many many $500 purchases
It totally happenss I know very cool. So what would be an example of like a super chat success story ah
We have many many many, and so we have a game streamers Canadian his first ever stream a super chat he made over
$4,000
While he was just playing Gta 5 Grand theft auto 5. it's a popular video game, so the
Video game guy that got for grand yeah, how long did it take him to earn that he'll be an hour and a half?
are you serious, oh yeah!
Oh, yeah, oh my God okay? How many subscribers got that um he's he is a top top creator said yeah?
Millions, No, okay?
Subscribers, yeah, that's a good living. Yes, that works
Yeah, and what he was just playing video game, he was just playing gta5
But something we really learned from him that really works is
When he was getting all these super chats coming, and he was just getting so many of them
But he would take breaks in his gameplay to go and click through and read out all the messages answer the questions and acknowledge everybody
So he would be like you tom. Thank you so much for that $5.00 supa chet. Yes. I do like puppies
You're awesome. You would just kind of go through everything and when viewers actually noticed hey, he's paying attention to this
That's when more started to come in some of the best practices that I've seen is I think what I've learned is
as a product manager
We really can't stick a button somewhere
And just expect people to click on it and start spending money so in the streams where Superchat has really
Shined and where we have seen the most success from the creator perspective is where creators are working it into your content strategy?
So as an example we had a one japanese channel who was part of our
Trusted tester Mm-hmm. He's a fitness channel. So he does a lot of work yoga workouts
Or workouts in a gym
He got super chat and just in his first like three four streams didn't get anything
Except a super chat for me
Unfortunately, so he and I kind of went back and forth talking like what can we do what can we make this?
How can we make this work and so in one of his sreams? He was working in at a gym?
He made a little sign that said
For essentially five dollars American he would do 50 pushups
Kind of put [two] sign there and within two minutes of his his stream
He was doing push-ups because he was doing super chats. wow, It was great, and the audience was able to get that [real-time] like oh wait
I spend this money and this guy's gonna go to work for me. Yeah. Yes. I hear there's this giraffe
it's kind of a big deal uh, what's the deal
Yeah, this is giraffe using it has that worked okay?
So okay, you guys are probably all seeing if there's a pregnant giraffe in New York
She is currently being live streamed on Youtube and any day. There's about 150 thousand people watching
April [2] pregnant giraffe this giraffe has earned tens of thousands of dollars in [Superchat]
What is she doing during [the] stream? Oh?
Thank you
So thinking [about] a zoo pan okay?
It is like a security camera feed so the zoo pan and so you see april the one giraffe
that was a giraffe and the other pan otherwise, it's just
She's [just] hanging out some [for] eating sometimes
Zookeepers will come and they'll feed her that's kind of cool. Yeah, the zoo staff will be there
oh will will purchase super chat
Uh because the chat is usually just flying yeah, so people purchase super chats and the Zoo staff go in there
And you can tell that it's the owner who's responding to the questions and they will call out all the super chats and answer all
The questions, okay last thing. I want to ask you about was like
We love to kind of give a little bit more color in context to how products kind of come about yeah
Was it one day someone said hey? We should do
the
live-streaming super chat or like where does where did the project kind of come from yeah? So youtube has a feature called fan funding.
So it launched about two years ago at Vidcon
i was supposed to be a way for fans to be able to contribute directly in support of a channel
unfortunately it never
Really took off and never performed the way that they had intended it to at the time
So we actually took fan funding and within Youtube gaming we made some live specific channels
Where we looked at the interactive feedback loop which is to say?
Tom if you were to fan fund on my channel um
It would be highlighted in chat in a very different way you know with Stano Mm-hmm
I and so what we saw was creators would see these bright green fan funding messages and be like yo Tom. This is awesome, and
By you being recognized for for contributing in that way
that live
Interactive part would actually what made it really work and so when we heard the fan funding was going to be deprecated
But we saw this little part that was working really really well for gaming channels
I took all of those learnings made super chat and brought it out to all
live-streaming creators on YouTube awesome well
so I guess
The Moral of the story is sometimes as Youtube as a has a feature
Product that doesn't quite sort of hit the mark we keep trying
Yeah, and then ends up helping giraffes like they spend thousands of dollars, so yes, that's a lot about that
Awesome, well, thank you so much for sharing. That's what you for helpful, and
Folks if you have any questions for Barbara go ahead and leave it in the comments, we'll probably
Have a link to your channel as well people want our networks see the video games that you play and what not
in the meantime keep it real. Hey if you liked that video
don't forget to subscribe up here and then check out another video here and
Because Barbara is into like all the interactive stuff. Go ahead and like this video. This is the first time we're going to do a
like Spike
Where you try to get everybody the same time to hit that like button?
So if Barbara's video if this video gets more likes than any other video in our channel, we will buy
Barbara a cup of coffee a lotte. I'll take it yeah from the cafe right here. I'm on me