YouTube Stories: Updated Guide On This New YouTube Feature

So you finally hit 10K subscribers and you want to know everything there is to know about YouTube Stories.

Or maybe you haven’t quite reached 10K so you don’t have access to the feature yet, but you want to be prepared for when you do.

Either way, you’re going to want to read this post because we’re sharing an updated guide of everything you need to know about the new feature.

Today, we’re covering everything you need to know about YouTube Stories.

So, let’s start by answering this question.

What Are YouTube Stories?

YouTube says they:

“are a collection of short videos. You can watch them on the mobile YouTube app from the top of your Subscriptions feed, from your homepage, or on some watch pages. Each story lasts 7 days.”

As you’re scrolling down on the home page or on the subscription page, you can run into Stories on the Stories Shelf.

Or, if you have not watched an account’s stories yet, this will be signaled to you by the red circle around their profile picture, and you can tap on it to watch.

Now, if you’re familiar with Instagram Stories, you’re probably already drawing comparisons between the two.

Like how IG stories last 24 hours before expiring, while YouTube stories last 7 whole days!

And that’s a fair comparison, because YouTube Stories are kind of viewed as a direct copy from Instagram (who got it from Snapchat).

By the way, if you want to learn more about how to use Instagram Stories for small businesses, then be sure to read it next.

But before you do, let’s go ahead and get into the things that are similar and different about YouTube Stories and IG Stories.

YouTube Stories vs IG Stories: Similarities & Differences

1. Comment section

Unlike IG Stories, YouTube Stories actually have a comment section!

But in order for you to reply to comments, you have to post another Story.

You cannot write text back in the comment sections. YouTube says that:

“Comments on Stories will expire with the story after 7 days. You can see comments on a story for 30 days in YouTube Studio.”

2. Subscribe button

YouTube will automatically put a Subscribe button on your Story that users can click on to subscribe to your channel, encouraging subscriber growth.

3. Sticker functions

YT Stories have sticker functions similar to what we’ve seen on Instagram.

And one of them is that you can link out to different videos, either from your own channel or from others.

But the catch is that you can currently only link 1 video from your own channel per week.

4. Hard cut-off of 15 seconds

YT Stories are 15 seconds long each just like IG story slides, but unlike IG, they have a hard cut-off of 15 seconds.

With Instagram, you can record up to 1 minute on the Story cam and then it gets broken up into 4 individual 15-second slides.

But with YouTube Stories, it does not record past 15 seconds.

5. Not automatically available to everyone

Another difference that you may have noticed at the start of this post is that YT Stories are not automatically available to everybody like they are on IG.

You need to have over 10K subscribers in order to get access to the Stories function.

YouTube previously said that, it could take 8 weeks after you get 10K subscribers for Stories to show up, now they’re saying 7 days.

Additionally, they said:

“you cannot create stories if your channel’s audience is set as made for kids.”

So if you want to know how to create a Reel from your phone, then scroll to the top, as we have shared a walkthrough guide in the video above this post.

How To Use YouTube Stories For Your Business

So now that you know what YouTube Stories are, let’s talk about some different ideas of how you can use them for your YouTube marketing strategy.

1. If you already post to Instagram Stories, take what you use for your IG stories…

…and post them to your YouTube Stories too. Work smarter not harder!

2. Behind the scenes of your company.

Share a clip of how your product is made, how your employees work together, or a BTS clip of you making the videos they see from you each week.

3. Alert people as to when a new video is out.

But remember, you can currently only do this once a week, so use it wisely.

4. Let people know about any sales, promotions, or general company updates your subscribers would care to know about.

Wrapping Up

Now before we end this post, if you want to learn more about YouTube marketing strategies, then here are some recent posts you can read next.

• YouTube Shorts
• YouTube Ads

But if you want to get the most your YouTube marketing, we recommend you work with the experts here at LYFE.

We offer affordable YouTube promotion services and YouTube SEO services to help you boost the results you get from this platform.

Get in touch with us today!