YouTube introduced Stories, an Instagram-like stories feature, but in the form of short, mobile-only videos back in 2018 that can be viewed for up to 7 days. Now, YouTube has announced that it will be shutting down the Stories feature on June 26th.
The company recommends using Community posts to share lightweight updates, start conversations, or promote the YouTube content. It said that YouTube Shorts are great alternatives that can deliver valuable audience connections and conversations.
YouTube added that creators who use both posts and Stories, posts on average, drive many times more comments and likes compared to Stories. It is removing stories to concentrate on Community posts and Shorts.
YouTube said that it will keep adding new features for both Shorts and Community posts throughout the year.
Other than Instagram and Facebook, other social media giants didn’t find a success with the stories feature. Twitter launched a similar feature called Fleets back in 2021, but it shut it down the same year due to lack of engagement.