1136 – Use This New YouTube Feature: Tom talks YouTube Community Posts

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Tom Antion explains that YouTube Community Posts are a highly underused feature that can help YouTube channel owners increase engagement, revive older content, and build a stronger audience without creating full videos.
The main point is that Community Posts are like free promotional space inside YouTube. According to a former YouTube/Google manager Tom referenced, only about 10% of YouTube channels use Community Posts, yet some channels see meaningful increases in views and engagement by using them consistently.
What YouTube Community Posts Can Do
Community Posts allow creators to publish different types of content directly from YouTube Studio, including:
• Text-only posts
• Image posts
• Image plus text posts
• Text polls
• Image polls
• Quiz posts
• Links to your own videos
• Links to other people’s videos
Tom is especially interested in image polls, because they allow up to 36 images and let viewers vote. He plans to use this for his documentary launch team so people can help choose a movie poster.
Why They Matter
Tom argues that Community Posts can:
• Bring attention back to older videos
• Keep subscribers engaged between video uploads
• Encourage audience interaction through polls and questions
• Promote videos without creating new video content
• Help build a sense of community around a channel
• Potentially generate more visibility because the feature is underused
He gives the example of reposting an older video with a note such as, “In case you missed it, this video from a few months ago was really useful.”
Moderation and Control
Tom also explains that if you allow others to post in your community area, YouTube gives you moderation controls. You can:
• Require approval before posts appear
• Block certain words
• Set a minimum subscriber duration before someone can post
• Require moderation for posts containing links or hashtags
He strongly recommends moderation so people do not spam, promote themselves, or post inappropriate content.
Tom’s Own Experience
Tom says he only started using Community Posts a few days before recording, so he does not yet have personal results. However, based on what he learned from the former YouTube manager, he believes it is a feature worth using because it is simple, free, and underutilized.
He encourages listeners to visit his school’s YouTube channel, check the Posts tab, and interact with the content there.
Closing Promotions
At the end, Tom promotes:
• His free automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree
• His mentor program at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com
• His school at IMTCVA.org, which he says is certified to operate by SCHEV and offers distance learning in internet marketing skills.
Main Takeaway
YouTube Community Posts are a low-effort way to increase engagement, promote videos, run polls, revive older content, and interact with subscribers. Tom’s recommendation is simple: if you have a YouTube channel, start using the Posts feature regularly because many creators are ignoring it.

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Episode 1136 – YouTube Community Posts
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1136 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about a very underutilized part of YouTube, which is a great opportunity for you if you have a YouTube channel. It's called community posts. So that's what we'll talk about today. Hope you didn't miss episode 1135. That was a password managers. I can't tell you how many people pay me a lot of money to talk to me, and then 20 minutes later, they can't find the password to what they wanted to show me. So you don't want that to happen. And there's all kinds of other cool things you can do with password managers. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com/the episode number. That was 1135 for password managers and today's is 1136. Pick up a copy of my automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Free version 3.0 is the latest. Download it now, but be ready because in a short period of time, I'm going to be done editing episode or not episode, but version 4.0, which is going to add a whole bunch to 3.0. So you can get 3.0 now and get busy on it, and then watch for 4.0 and check out my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by SCHEV.
[00:01:53] Okay, I was watching a video by a very recent and former Google a YouTube manager that manages accounts for people and she has her own business now. But she was being quizzed and or interviewed on a show, and they asked her some things about YouTube that, you know, people weren't really taking advantage of. And she said, and I quote, the most underutilized feature of YouTube is the community posts. And I have seen them for a while, but just never even thought about them that much. But she said a lot of people were increasing their views and everything like crazy, about 10% using them. And she said only about 10% of YouTube channels use this feature. So it's basically an underutilized place where you can build a community of people if you want and just do other things. It's like free, free real estate to help your YouTube channel out. Now, I only started using this a couple days ago, so I can't claim any results. But this lady, like I said, was eight years, I believe at working for YouTube, dealing with this kind of stuff. And she said it's one of the most underutilized and it's so easy to take advantage of it. So basically, you go into your YouTube studio, your channel, and you click on posts, and there's all different kinds of posts you can put. One is an image where you just put an image up there. Another is an image and text.
[00:03:47] One is text only. And then this is a feature I'm definitely taking advantage of is called an image poll because I have my launch team, which I would love for you to screwthecommute.com/launchteam for my upcoming documentary, and I could get external poll software, and I didn't really like any of it, so that the launch team members can help pick the movie poster that we use to promote the documentary. And it's right there. You can put up to 36 different pictures up there and have people vote on it as a poll. You can also have a text poll where it's just a question, and then you put the answers in and let people answer what they think. And you can also link to one of your videos and you can actually link to other people's videos too. So if you wanted to trade with other channels or something, or if there's something really great that you think about somebody else's video and you want to do a service for your community, then you can link to a video. Now, what you can't do at this point is linked to one of your videos and still have an image, so that doesn't work. So I wish they would do that. And I could put an image up and then still link to a video and throw some text in also.
[00:05:19] And then they also have a quiz section of it. So this is all for free in your channel under post posts. And you can schedule posts. So you can put a whole bunch of them in and have them automatically show up. And here's another thing. When you say community, you can let other people post in that community and you have moderation controls. You know, I would never like turn something totally loose to the world and let them put stuff under my channel because you want to make sure that it's not something really nasty or dirty or something or mean or whatever. So you can put certain words in that are blocked and you can just moderate the the post so that you have to allow them to show up before they show up. So you look at them and you can set a minimum time that somebody has to be a subscriber before they can post, because you don't want somebody just subscribing for one day and then throwing a bunch of crap up there. And, and then if you didn't have your moderation turned on, so you can set it either one day or one week for them to, to be able to post and any post that has links or hashtags in them, you know, people could be just doing it to promote themselves and spamming you so you can check a box and make sure that any post that has a link or a hashtag in it, you have to moderate it, you know, so you don't have to do that, but you can check that box.
[00:07:03] And that's certainly what I would do if I was letting other people, um, you know, post on there. So this is, like I said, it's a great opportunity. You probably have a bunch of pictures and videos that are underutilized that you could just throw in there. Or you can even some people are using it to, to, you know, re-up some older videos. So you could say you could have a post like, hey, this, this video was really great from a few months ago, and I thought you might like to hear about it in case you missed it. And then you link to the video and they can see it and it kind of renews some of your older stuff, see? So that's a great feature of this. So I'm sure they'll improve upon it as they go. Like I said, I hope that you can do an image and link to a video in the same one. But, but still, it's, it's free real estate on a highly trafficked site and it, and it's underutilized. So so it's very likely that you'll get some traction there.
[00:08:07] In fact, I was reading about one guy who was getting more views on his post than he was on his videos. All right. So I haven't seen that yet. As I said, as I'm recording this, you won't hear this until at least Monday, but I just put 3 or 4 posts up today and you know, nothing happened. Right? But but, uh, that's understandable as I'm building or rebuilding this new, this, um, uh, school, I'm doing the school YouTube channel. You know, it didn't have any really attention for years now, so I'm really hitting it hard now. Plus there's a lot of good shorts there. And of course, my AI hacks video is there, which you definitely want to watch if you have anything at all to do, and using AI or ChatGPT or any of the other ones, you will be blown away by that video. And it's, uh, it's right there on the, the IMTCVA channel. So you go to youtube.com/@IMTCVA to get there, we'll have a link under the or in the show notes directly to that video for you. But once you get on the channel, click on the posts and you'll see what's going on in the community area there. And, uh, and then you'll see what you can do on your channel and, you know, just say hello or comment on some of the posts I've made.
[00:09:36] All right. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. We'll catch you on the next episode. Make sure you check out my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and save yourself 100 a couple hundred grand. Send in your kid to a four year indoctrination camp instead of a school. That'll give them a great, highly in-demand skill in as little as six months. And that's what my school is all about. IMTCVA.org certified to operate by SCHEV, and that stands for the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning. And I got to tell you, I see so many people just go to supposed guru after guru after guru. You just go through Instagram. Almost everything is an ad for somebody that that's brilliant, apparently compared to everybody else. And they have no scrutiny whatsoever. Uh, I'm in my 14th year of this school where I, where I had to show financial stability and no complaint. We have had zero complaints in 14 years in this school. And these, these people that have no scrutiny can just say anything they want. And and then once they get your money, God help you. So anyway, check it out at IMTCVA.org and I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.