YouTube Community Tab: When You Get It, And How To Get It Faster

The YouTube Community Tab is a great way to engage with your audience without having to post a video. But even if you’ve worked hard to reach 1,000 subscribers, you might still not have access to it. Here is what I learned from gathering information from the Internet, as well as from one of my channels.

How many subscribers do you need to get the community tab? You need 1,000 YouTube subscribers to gain access to the community tab. Once you reach that milestone, it could take a few days up to one week before it shows up on your channel.

The YouTube help page about the Community Tab tells you that “Creators with over 1,000 subscribers have access to Community posts. It will take up to 1 week to see the Community tab after passing 1,000 subscribers.”

That being said, there are some things you can do that might help you get the Community Tab faster.

You Don’t Know Exactly When You’ll Get The YouTube Community Tab

Here is the deal:

In this very interesting forum thread on Quora, some YouTubers report getting the Community Tab just a few days after they hit 1,000 subscribers.

On the other end, some had to wait to have more than 3,500 subscribers to get it.

And I sure can confirm this information: a channel I run and operate got access to the Community Tab around 3,800 subscribers. A full 28 days after I reached the 1,000 subscribers milestone, at that.

Yet, another of my channels got the Community Tab enabled at around 1,700 subscribers, only 9 days after it hit 1,000 subscribers. So as usual: your mileage may vary.

The Community Tab has been in beta for the best part of 2018.

At that time, some creators complained about the fact that, even if their channel hit 10,000 subscribers, they still didn’t gain access to the feature. The process will most likely be a lot faster in 2019.

So please don’t be impatient when you hit 1,000 subscribers. You just don’t know exactly when you’re going to gain access to the Community Tab.

(But it will happen, eventually).

3 Simple Things You Can Do To Get The YouTube Community Tab Faster

As we’ve seen, you have no way to control exactly when you’ll get the Community Tab.

But it appears that there are some things that you can do in order to get it faster.

Roberto Blake is a YouTuber in the “How to start and grow a YouTube channel” niche. With 391,000+ subscribers as of early March 2019, he sure has access to the Community Tab.

So here is what you can do to help speed up the process if you want to get it, too.

1. Engage More With Your Audience

It seems like interaction is the most important signal YouTube analyses when it comes to giving access to the Community Tab.

As a matter of fact, YouTubers that gained access really quickly to this feature report having a high level of engagement with their audience.

And when you think about it: that makes sense!

The more a creator is already interacting with its audience, the more likely they are to use the Community Tab to its full potential, right?

So even if YouTube didn’t confirm this information, here are some things you can do today to boost your engagement:

• Reply to every comment. Avoid using canned response and make every commenter feel unique. Your answer doesn’t have to be long, witty, or anything special. But answering every comment will boost your channel’s engagement metrics (and karma) a lot!
• Ask questions. Not only you can say “Thanks!” when you get a compliment, but you can start a discussion around a particular point a viewer addressed in their comment. For example, ask them: “What did you like about it?”. If they don’t agree with you, ask them: “What would you have done differently?” or “What would you recommend?”
• “Heart” the best comments. When you really like a comment (because it added a lot of value to the discussion or just because it’s awesome), heart it. Not only the viewer will get a notification, but this is another engagement signal that YouTube will take into consideration. Plus, everyone likes getting a heart from a creator.

2. Ask People To Share Their Opinion In The Comments Section Of Your Videos

This seems logical, yet I’m always amazed at how many small YouTube channels forget to ask their audience what their opinion is.

Simply asking your viewers to join the conversation by leaving a comment makes all the difference in the world. Ask them!

People just love to give their opinion. Yet they don’t always do.

It’s not because people don’t care about your video, or don’t mind sharing their idea! Sometimes, they just forget about commenting. I certainly do.

You see, there’s always that suggested video in the right sidebar of YouTube that begs to be clicked. Or people just don’t know what to say.

In any case, help them help you! You can ask, at the end of a video:

• What is their take on the topic
• What is a tip they can share with the community
• What is their favorite gear, and why
• What they want to see in the future

The ideas here are pretty much endless. Just make sure it always connects to your video’s topic.

But you don’t have to wait until the end of a video to ask people to leave a comment!

Sometimes, in the middle of a video, you’re just sharing a little back story to give some context. And you might, for example, have made a choice that you’re not quite sure about.

At that exact moment, you can express how much you actually don’t know if that choice was a good idea. Then, immediately ask your audience what their take on that choice is, right on the spot.

It’s that simple.

Just don’t make up fake stories or choices that never occurred: people can tell.

3. Post More Videos

Why, you ask?

The more videos you post, the more opportunities you’re creating for your channel to get engagement from your viewers.

And obviously, the more you ask people to leave a comment in your videos, the more likely they are to do just that.

Now, don’t just pump out content for the sake of it.

People can tell when they watch a video that has no real purpose, besides getting more views and comments. Actually, they probably will call you out on your nonsense.

I am, and always will be, an advocate of quality over quantity. And of course, bringing value to your audience.

But if you can keep the quality while increasing the quantity and still bring value to your audience: do just that. Publish videos more often.

More videos mean more views.
More views mean more comments.
More comments signal more engagement.
And high levels of engagement will probably help you get the YouTube Community Tab faster.

So stop reading this article and start making a great video for your audience right now!