YouTube is experimenting with a new way to engage fans by giving creators the ability to post voice notes and reply to comments on their videos, the company announced on Monday.
The ability to post voice notes is limited to certain creators in the U.S. for the time being. YouTube says they’ll only be able to post these voice comments through the iOS YouTube app on their own channels.
Creators who have this feature enabled can tap on the new soundwave icon while replying to a comment, record their reply, and post it as a comment.
While only some creators can post a voice comment, everyone will be able to listen to these comments. Users will also see a transcript button below the voice note to read the comment if they don’t want to play the voice note.
The company says it hopes the experiment will result in “more meaningful relationships” between creators and fans in the future.
This year, YouTube has focused on building out community and fan engagement-related features. In March, the platform started allowing creators to share exclusive Shorts to their subscribers. In September, the company rolled out a Discord-like space within a creator’s channel to let fans (specifically subscribers) of a creator have discussions.
