What is the new channel membership feature
and what do you need to know about using it successfully?
Well, stick around because we're going to talk about it coming up
and about all the things we've learned about doing it.
Hi, I'm Simon, from Simon and Martina
where we run a YouTube channel called 'SimonAndMartina'
where my wife and I have been making food and travel videos
in Japan and Korea and other parts of the world.
We've been using the channel memberships programme
now for over half a year or so
and it's actually been a great addition to our channel.
So, today we're going to share with you our approach to channel memberships
what we thought about it, how we chose our perks
and how we deliver this content to our audience.
So, if you've never heard of channel memberships before
it's a way for creators to engage more deeply
with their audience members that purchase monthly channel memberships.
In turn, the creator gets more money
and we end up delivering them badges, and custom emojis
and other different perks that we've decided to give them.
Of course, this is a no-brainer, you do want to connect with the audience more
and you want to make more money on the side.
However, this isn't a feature that you can rush into implementing.
So it actually took the two of us
a good month and a half of discussing it back and forth
'what are the best ways to implement this?'
because we were actually really worried
'what if we alienate some of the people that can't afford this?'
I don't want really anybody to feel left out on our channel.
So there are a lot of different approaches to channel memberships.
Some of you guys might want to go the route of 'VIP'
special access, you might want to have exclusive, behind-the-scenes content
but for our audience and our message, that wasn't a good fit.
Our channel membership isn't a way for us to be like
'sell this, buy this, it's a hot commodity'.
We were looking for a way to connect more with our audience members.
So, we tried to view our channel memberships as something like
our audience having a way to say
'thanks for all the hard work, we want to give back to you guys'.
So, once we finally did agree
that channel memberships was something that we wanted to implement on our channel
it took us a good while to figure out what our custom perks were going to be
because we didn't really want to have a whole new line of programming
that's very different from what we usually do.
We were trying to think about
something that kind of adds more value to our more dedicated audience.
There are tons of different and new things that we could do for channel members
but we were also concerned, 'hey, we don't want to make anything
that's actually going to take away from our main channel and burn us out'.
You don't want to hurt yourself
working on all these perks that might be not sustainable
for you to do in the long run.
In the end, we came up with a set of perks
that our audience actually really values
and it's something that we could keep on doing for months and years to come.
So, for us, communication with our audience is critical, it is key.
We spend all day talking to them in the comments section
we're all over the Community wall
we're always having live streams and interacting with them there.
So when we were coming up with our ideas for channel memberships and our perks
we wanted it to be something that would represent this aspect of our community.
So, for example, whenever we post our videos
we usually have right at the very beginning
the notification squad come in and they write 'notification squad!!!'
with a whole bunch of exclamation marks.
We made a custom emoji that's a bell
kind of looks like a notification bell, except we made the bell look like our cat
and this is a kind of inside joke that we have with our audience
along with other inside jokes that we've made into these little emojis.
And, for us, it's actually great seeing our emojis used in action
and these inside jokes as little emojis as well
and other people that aren't channel members
will wind up asking 'hey, how did you get those emojis?'
and then that kind of brings them in on it too.
So these small touches like these custom emojis
and these inside jokes between our audience members
it was something that once we did it
it was done.
It wasn't something that was unsustainable
that was taking away from the main videos on our channel.
But what it represents is close communication
with our audience members.
OK, let's talk about the video perk we share with our members.
So, what we do once a month is
we take tons of footage that doesn't make it into our main videos
it might just be something funny that happened that we record on our iPhones
it might be extra footage that doesn't make it into our main videos
we just have so much footage.
We even have old footage from like 8 years back that we include.
But one of the key points is
at the very beginning of video, we talk to our channel members
they're the Rainbow Ladder Support Team
and we tell them that we're going to share our feelings of the month
our stories of the month
but it's going to be raw and unedited
which is unusual, because normally we edit our videos.
Having this unedited, raw footage
it helps us be closer with our audience members
and our audience members feel closer to us because of it.
And to us, this is what channel membership is all about.
So, once we figured out the perks, the badge, and the emojis
we knew that it was very essential for us to make an announcement video
so that we could explain to our audience what channel memberships means to us
what it means to them, and how we're going to be implementing this
in our future videos.
We knew that this video was essential because if we just launched the feature
and just hoped that people would click on the button
we knew that people wouldn't really engage with it all too well.
We have over a million subscribers
not all of them are going to sign up, though it would be pretty awesome if they did
and we know for the other people that don't sign up
I don't want them to feel excluded
so we had to make this video to explain how our future videos would be
with this channel membership in mind.
So, once we had everything laid out, and we had the announcement video filmed
we launched the button, and it actually has been doing really well for us
and one of the things that we really enjoy
about those people that are members
is that we can engage with them privately on the Community tab.
There's actually a drop-down function where you can post for channel members only.
So we've been able to share some secret photos before a film shoot went out
or put up some polls
and it's been a really great way to communicate with them more closely.
So, being able to actually interact with people in the Community tab
and heart their comments, and see them coming up in the live stream
is something that we really value.
After all, your audience members are spending their money on you monthly.
These are recurring payments, and they can cancel any time they want
so we really want to say to them
'thank you so much, we really appreciate this'.
So that's it for this video on channel memberships.
If your channel is eligible, and you're interested in implementing it yourself
make sure you find an approach that works for you.
We just explained the approach that works for us
because of our connection with our audience
but you have a totally different connection
with your audience
so make sure you find something that resonates with you
and the people that are watching your videos
and best of luck to you.
And if you want to be a member of our channel
I highly recommend it, super great, we've got some lovely emojis.
- Woo! - Woo!
Also, if you have any other questions, leave them below.
There are lots of things we couldn't discuss in this video
we're going to try to answer as many comments as we can
because this is something that we're really interested in.
Thank you for listening to this video.
I was super nervous filming it and this took way too many takes.
Oh boy.
Run away ducky!
- I am sweating so much. - Run away!