[FAQ]

Hi,

My channel’s been getting a grand bit of interaction lately, and a lot of my viewers are asking for a place where they can all chat with each other and with me outside of the YouTube comments. I’m looking at setting up a proper community hub, but I’m a bit torn.

I can’t decide between pushing everyone to a Discord server or trying to get them on board with YouTube’s own Channel Memberships. Discord seems brilliant for real-time chat and having different channels for different topics, but Memberships keeps everything on YouTube and is an easy way for people to support the channel financially.

What have you all found works best for actually building a sense of community? Is one platform better than the other, or do most of you end up using both?

Cheers for any advice.

[Jeff Bullas]

Choosing your community platform is a major strategic decision.

Short Answer: Neither is inherently better, as they excel with different types of community formats. Discord is superior for high-volume, real-time text and voice chat, while Channel Memberships are best for offering exclusive, on-platform content formats.

The optimal choice depends on the specific content formats and the level of interaction you want to facilitate.

Each platform is built around different core content formats. Firstly, Discord’s strength lies in its real-time conversational formats; it allows you to create numerous organised text channels for specific topics and host live audio chat rooms, which are formats that YouTube does not offer for persistent community interaction. Secondly, YouTube’s Channel Memberships specialise in integrated, on-platform content formats that reward financial support, such as custom emojis and loyalty badges that members can use in your comments, as well as exclusive members-only video and text formats delivered via the Community Tab. A common and highly effective strategy is to use both, leveraging the Memberships feature as the paywall that grants access to the more dynamic chat formats within a private Discord server, giving you the best of both systems.

Cheers,

Jeff

[Author]

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