YouTube Has More Ways to Build Hype For a New Video

YouTube is expanding the capabilities of its Premieres feature with 4 new ways to drum up hype for a video.

What YouTube is calling ‘Premieres 2.0’ is the most significant update to the feature since it launched in 2018.

Premieres is designed to allow creators, publishers, and artists to turn their newest video into a shared viewing experience.

Creators can use Premieres to publish newly-uploaded videos at a scheduled time. This gives the creator an opportunity generate advance buzz and get people to RSVP via the video’s watch page.

Viewers can visit the watch page to set a reminder and receive a notification when the premiere is about to start. When they tune into the channel on the scheduled premiere date, they’ll join a group chat where everyone can watch the video together in real-time.

A member of YouTube’s live streaming product team shares details about the 4 new features coming to Premieres over the next few weeks.

4 New Features For YouTube Premieres

Live Redirect

Live Redirect allows creators to put together a multi-part show experience by connecting a live stream to an upcoming premiere.

The goal with Live Redirect is to help creators build excitement and engage their community before the new content is unveiled. Creators can host a live pre-show, interview, or Q&A and instantly redirect their audience to the premiere page when their live stream is over.

Live Redirects can only be set up between videos from the same channel. So a creator can’t, for example, host an interview on another channel and direct the audience to a premiere on their own channel.

This feature is rolling out to channels starting this month.

Premiere Trailers

Premieres can now have their own trailer, which is a pre-recorded hype video between 15 seconds and 3 minutes long. Trailers are shown on the premiere watch page when a viewer lands on it before the video is scheduled to start.

With up to 3 full minutes of footage to work with, creators can put together more compelling content to generate interest in their video launch. Without a trailer the watch page will only display a static thumbnail.

YouTube makes a point of mentioning videos used for trailers must be public and owned by the channel hosting the Premiere. So one channel cannot use a video from another channel as its trailer.

Also, ads are not eligible to run on a trailer unless it also exists as a standalone video on the creator’s channel.

Trailers for Premieres are rolling out this week.

Expanded Countdown Themes

YouTube is giving channels more options when it comes to the countdown displayed immediately before a video premiere.

Up until now there has only been one countdown theme available, and users would frequently voice concerns that the countdown theme didn’t reflect the correct tone of the video that followed.

YouTube listened to that feedback and designed 10 new countdown themes that span a variety of different content verticals and moods.

Creators can now adapt the Premiere countdown theme to match the tone of their video whether it be happy, dramatic, funny, scary, or otherwise. The length of countdowns can range from 1 minute to 10 minutes.

The new countdown themes will be available in early 2021.

Schedule Premieres on Mobile

For the first time creators will be able to schedule Premieres via the YouTube mobile app. This update allows to creators to upload a video from their mobile device and schedule it as a Premiere at the same time.

Previously, Premieres could only be scheduled from the YouTube desktop site.

Eligibility:
One final not about feature eligibility. Channels must have at least 1,000 subscribers to access the Live Redirect and Trailers features. YouTube’s goal is to make the features more broadly available in the future.

For more information about any of these features see the video below: