• by Colin Kirkland , April 16, 2025

In an effort to boost the in-app presence of emerging creators, YouTube is expanding its “Hype” program to more creators in testing markets.

The Google-owned social-media company is also sharing advice to marketers awaiting the May launch of mid-roll ad placements.  

Originally launched in September, YouTube’s Hype program is designed to help lesser-known channels grow by connecting them with new audiences.

If a video has been posted for less than a week from a creator with under 500,000 subscribers, viewers have the option to “hype” it -- a process the company describes as going “beyond liking and sharing.”

“When viewers ‘hype’ a video, they’re helping it climb the ranks of a new leader board and potentially get noticed by a wider audience,” a company spokesperson explained on Tuesday. Viewers can hype videos up to three times a week, helping videos rank among the week’s top 100 hyped videos. 

In the first month of beta testing across Turkey, Taiwan, and Brazil, YouTube says users hyped over 5 million times across more than 50,000 channels, with 18- to-24 year-olds making up over 30% of all beta users. 

Now, expanding its limited beta to more creators across these three regions, YouTube says eligible creators may see the option for viewers to hype their videos appear on long-form videos for the first seven days, “with no action required from you.”

To further boost engagement, the company says that it applies automatic bonus points for creators with lower subscriber numbers, and that the hyping process does not impact organic search ranking or YouTube’s discovery algorithm.

YouTube is also trying to make its mid-roll ads less disruptive and more lucrative for creators. On May 12, the company will begin showing users more mid-roll ads at natural break points, prioritizing pauses and transitions in videos, not forced mid-sentence or action sequence breaks. 

This “automatic ad slots” feature is designed to find breaks in additional manual mid-rolls “that won’t be interruptive to make sure viewers have a balanced experience,” the company said in February. 

YouTube hopes this update will increase creator earning potential and viewership. However, if creators choose to opt-out of this automatic feature, they can do so in the “Earn” tab in YouTube Studio before May 12th.