Subscriber Number is Not Everything: YouTube Community Engagement Measurement

Abstract

This study developed a method for measuring engagement in YouTube user-generated content (UGC) communities. To date, subscription number has been the most important index to measure YouTube Channels’ value; however, it cannot tell the quality of the channel in terms of community engagement. The main goal of this paper was to develop a measurement method to calculate an engagement index of UGC channels. Using this method, I analyzed 31 YouTube UGC channels and their 2.7 million comments. The result is that engagement index does not have positive correlation with the subscriber number. Some channels have community engagement levels not reflected by their subscriber numbers. This analysis method adds to the sociological literature on community and can serve the interests of businesses and agencies looking for marketing opportunities on the UGC YouTube channels.