This is thanks to YouTube adding Live rings to help identify channels that are currently live. Continue reading to find out how to spot a channel that is streaming live and how this helps creators.
YouTube Launches Live Rings on Its Mobile App
YouTube is joining the likes of TikTok and Instagram to help users identify channels that are currently live with the addition of a red ring effect on a channel’s profile picture when using the mobile app.
The feature was announced by YouTube’s Chief Product Officer, Neal Mohan, on Twitter. The ring is clickable, allowing you to jump right in and join the live broadcast right from your feed. The whole point of Live rings is to make it easier for you to find accounts that are streaming live as you scroll through YouTube, much like the quick tap action you get when watching live content.
How to Know When a Channel Is Live Streaming on YouTube
If you come across a channel that has a red ring around it with the word “live” while scrolling through your feed on your phone, that’s how you know that channel is currently live. The feature works the same as Instagram, which shows a colorful ring around the profile picture of an account that is live at the top of your feed, and TikTok, which also has a similar ring effect on a channel that is live at the time.
While the addition of Live rings may seem unassuming or even insignificant to some, it forms part of YouTube’s goal to improve the YouTube platform for creators in 2022, which is increasingly important as YouTube faces growing competition from TikTok and Instagram.
In a blog post from February 2022, Mohan shared YouTube’s plans to introduce more engagement and monetization options across its Shorts, live video, as well as video on demand (VOD) features.
Read more: New Things YouTube Has Planned for 2022
How Live Rings Will Benefit Creators on YouTube
On YouTube, views mean everything. The more views a channel gets, the better. Live rings are an opportunity for creators to get more views on their live streams, even from users who don’t follow them.
When a user sees a red ring around a creator’s channel while scrolling through their feed, it could catch their attention and might make them want to hop on to the live stream out of curiosity. Live rings could therefore make creators’ channels more discoverable, which could, in turn, increase their reach. The more viewers that account reaches, the more subscribers it could gain.
And let’s not forget the money-making potential that live streams provide creators on YouTube. Creators keep 70% of the revenue they make through Super Chats and Super Stickers—YouTube’s version of Instagram’s Live Badges feature.
Creators can also enable ads—before and during live streams. Unlike the ads on YouTube videos, users cannot skip these ads, which makes them particularly appealing to advertisers.
YouTube Continues to Follow in TikTok’s Footsteps
As much as Live rings are a great idea that will add value to both creators and users on YouTube, the feature is still not an original one. Live rings are, yet again, another TikTok copycat feature, just like YouTube Shorts.
We can only wonder how many of YouTube’s features will continue to be “inspired” by TikTok, although we cannot be surprised as YouTube is one of many to look to TikTok for what to add to its platform next.
