YouTube creators no longer have to rely solely on the recommendation algorithm, search results, or collabs to help them grow their audience. At the company’s Made on YouTube event on Wednesday, YouTube announced a new feature that will allow a creator’s existing viewers to help “hype” a video with a click of a button, allowing it to climb up a leaderboard of top hyped videos, where it can potentially reach a wider audience.
To work, viewers click on the new “hype” feature below the existing “like” button. The feature will be available on videos from creators with less than 500,000 subscribers. As more people hype the video, it will rank higher on the top 100 hyped videos leaderboard. To prevent fans from abusing the feature to boost their favorite creators, users will be limited to three “hypes” per week for the time being.
The company said it decided to create this feature because it saw that passionate fans wanted to become a part of a creator’s success story.
However, in the future, YouTube says it will allow fans to purchase additional “hypes,” which unlocks a new stream of revenue for the video site. The company didn’t yet share to what extent it will take a cut of those purchases. On other fan purchases like Super Thanks, where revenue is shared with creators, YouTube takes 30% of a standard 70/30 split between creators and itself.
As creators gain “hypes,” they’ll earn points to move up the weekly leaderboard in their country.
Plus, YouTube is offering creators a small bonus that’s built-in for those channels with fewer subscribers that multiplies points to put them on a more level playing field with the larger creators being hyped. Top hyped video will also receive a special badge, the company notes.
“Hype gives the community a way to express the love and excitement they had for up-and-coming creators and to rally around their new videos by hyping them,” said Bangaly Kaba, Director of Product Management at YouTube, speaking at today’s event. He added that, in the future, creators will also be able to see who hyped their videos.
In the first four weeks of beta tests in Turkey, Taiwan, and Brazil, YouTube viewers hyped videos over 5 million times across more than 50,000 channels, YouTube says. The largest age group engaged in hyping videos in the beta was 18 to 24-year-olds, who made up over 30% of all beta users.