NEW: YouTube Let's You Shout at your Subscribers
YouTube recently made some updates to their Bulletins feature. For those of you not familiar with Bulletins, its sort of like YouTube's version of Twitter. You can post short messages and links to videos that will be delivered to your entire subscriber base. This feature has been around for a little while now, but YouTube made it far more prominent today. In fact, here is the greeting I received when I logged into my channel:
These bulletins will appear on your subscribers'/friends' YouTube homepage (in the recent activity module) and on your own YouTube channel. Here is what my latest bulletin looks like (if you are a vidiSEO YouTube subscriber):
I think this could be a great way for video producers to build buzz for upcoming videos and engage with their subscribers, but, speaking of buzz, where is the ability for Subscribers to interact with these bulletin postings... like in Google Buzz !?! The little megaphone icon is all too telling. All you're doing is shouting information at your subscribers. Can't you already do that by sending a mass message? I don't need another way to annoy my subscribers. I want Bulletins that act as a two way street with comments, likes, etc.
Then you could have a conversation with your subscribers, ask questions, get feedback, and strengthen your own YouTube community. Only subscribers to your channel would be able to add comments and interact, so you could actually have GOOD conversations free from YouTube trolls and other assorted troglodytes. Without interaction I feel that over using bulletins will actually decrease your subscriber count, not grow it.
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