Sure, YouTube does ok in terms of streaming, but the company wants to compete more directly with Twitch. With that in mind, YouTube has announced a new feature called Super Stickers that allows fans to further express their support of a streamer. Previous steps toward engaging users with streamers saw tools like Super Chat added. This tool has been widely derided, but has also been successful for many content creators, who can generate hundreds of dollars through a live stream courtesy of viewers. At VidCon today, YouTube said 90,000 channels now use Super Chat and it is the primary revenue source for 20,000 of them. Super Stickers is a similar tool, allowing users to pay to place animations in chat. When a sticker is purchases, it will appear in the chat windows during a screen.
New Membership Tiers
YouTube’s new $4.99 Channel Membership allows users to back a channel more through a subscription service. There are now various tiers of membership depending on how much the user spends. Subscription levels can now be set at five different prices, each providing different perks. Yes, this is very similar to Patreon, which incidentally many YouTubers also use. With new monetization opportunities emerging on the platform, YouTube promotion services surely might see an increase in popularity as well.