YouTube Now Lets Users Link to Google+

Google has announced that users can now link their YouTube channel with their Google+ page. Users will now be able to use their channel name as their Google identity.

Since last July, YouTube has been asking all users who were operating under nicknames, to start using their real names. Now, it has urged users to link their Google Plus profiles with their YouTube channel and so all users will now have to use their real names by default.

Even well-known creators like Michael Buckley and Philip DeFranco have chosen to use their Google name as their identity on YouTube, by linking their Google+ profile with their channel. This has helped them access engagement and social features like ‘Hangouts on Air’.

“In the coming weeks we’ll launch the option to link your channel with a Google+ page, which will allow you to use your channel name (even with spaces in it!) as your Google identity. And yes, the advanced Google+ page management features that enable up to 50 people manage a single Google+ page, or a single person to manage up to 50 Google+ pages, will also work for channels that are linked with Google+ pages,” wrote YouTube’s David Boyle in a blog post yesterday.

YouTube is planning to make this feature available to all creators in the coming weeks.