T- Hey creators. This is Tom we are in Sunny Los Angeles,
with Courtney
from the comments team welcome thanks. C-Thanks, thanks for having me Tom! T- So,
Let's talk about like what is your whole job at Youtube right now. What do you focus on?
C- Yes...
I'm a product manager for comments which means that I have the lovely job of listening to all of our creators feedback about comments and
finding ways to improve comments
to take the feedback that we get from you and turn it into new features that make your life easier and improve the quality of
Conversations in your community and on your videos T- Well that sounds super important. C- Yeah, it's a big job, T- Ya C- but it's really fun
There's a lot of work that we've been doing and still a lot more to come
T- There's a lot of comments on YouTube, aren't there C- There are a lot of comments T- As, as the person who works on this channel
You know, one of the challenges, one of the things I've loved about comments
Is you get to feel these like connections like a dialogue. It's not just publishing out, right?
As our videos have gotten more discovered, We've gotten a lot more comment, and then I actually feel a little guilty, because
I don't-- I'm not able to respond to as many of them in I used to
C- Ya T- Like as a percentage I'm wondering like how do you think about that like that problem?
And what advice you have for creators?
C- Yeah,
That's something that we spend a lot of time thinking about and so
Comments exactly as you said is one of the things that make youtube special the fact that you can reach out directly to your audience
They can see that your person is participating in the conversation. They can talk directly to you and
And ..We spend a lot of our resources thinking of ways to make that easier for you because like you said at some point
You can respond to every comment. T- So you've been workout for a little over a year
What are some of the things that you guys have done that you're excited about?
And then what are some things going forward that you'll be working on to make it even better
C- Yeah, in the last year we've been investing in two main areas the first is
Making it easier for you to show love to your fans to be involved in your comment section in a the efficient way
So we introduced Creator hearts which lets you heart your favorite comments
it's a visible action your fans can see that not only do you read comments, you're participating and its a visible action
Appreciating to think that they're leaving you and we also launched pin comments, so you can find your favorite comment?
And it's the top of your feed and we made your username on your channel and out with a colored
Pop around it yes, so that would you comment your fans can find it more easily?
And then the second area is helping you set the right tone of conversation. That's appropriate for your audience. So you know we know that
Comments are certainly not perfect and we also understand that moderating comments has been a lot of work
So last year we release a one click one button way
for you to hold potentially inappropriate comments for your review before they're published and this is in Beta right now and we've had lots of
Great Creator Feedback help us improve this feature
so we're really excited to continue to roll that out and
Continue to improve it and then Beyond those things like really we want to focus on
Making it even easier for you to engage in comments helping you as a creator be more efficient
and helping your viewers better
Understand the
conversation in the comments section and help you as a creator understand like what they're talking about and what's going on like what are the
Things that they like or what are the things that your audience is getting excited about a comment without having to read?
Every single one that's posted. so there would be a lot of new and exciting area T- So you're busy
C- yeah, you know they keep it busy here YouTube
Lot of work to do, Comment it's not a not an easy job. T- No no no no dull moment there C- Yeah
T- What about from the viewers point of view do you think about
their experience?
And how do you guys think about that C- totally so everything that we do is a balance between
Creator needs and viewer needs and from the viewer perspective we want to make sure that we're surfacing engaging conversation
That's interesting that's not repetitive that surfaces like they're really again great
Contributions of other fan's to help them get more out of the video Beyond you know just the video itself
but we really want comments to be an additive experience
That helps increase that like that viewership and that enjoyment of the content
T- Awesome, so if you are a
creator
And you've seen alot of channels
And how they manage their comments the different strategies and approaches like what are some tips that you have for how people can
Sort of do a better job at managing their their comments on their channel
Yeah, it's a great question so things that I think be really successful
we know that creators who heart comments and pin comments every time you take that action it sends a notification to your viewer and
Viewers open those notifications at a rate that's three times [three] times higher the average of like all other youtube notifications
So viewers love getting that engagement it brings them back to your channel and a helpful filled out loyalty and so those lightweight
Engagements are particularly effective
I've seen created to be really successful
like replying to a few comments beginning
And then even potentially pinning one of those comments so that again your viewers can see that you're present. You're engaged
And then finally on the moderation front
just making sure that you have good filter setup if you have been opted into the beta for a home in potentially inappropriate comments for
Review It can make your life a lot easier
And you can even do things like hold comments with links in them for your review now through moderation
Which is something that people have been really excited about it a little bit of a hidden feature right now
But we're working to make that easier for you guys T- awesome
so this wouldn't be the creator insider channel if I didn't keep it real so I have to ask you some questions like from
My own experience managing comments on this channel andC- These are the tough questions? The tough portion? T- hehe
So hopefully hopefully uh how we'll get some good stuff at you alright, so
the Hearts
I Love the Hearts feature I
I struggle with
The right number of hearting because I feel like if I'm hearting too many
it's like
Sort of diluting the value of the heart, but at the same time now you're saying hey
You know when people get hearts they really really kind of sends a message
Yeah, what's your what sort of the right level of hearting?
C- I mean you want you want to keep it genuine for sure so you should really only heart
comments that you love like I've seen creators sort of abuse or misuse the heart feature where they heart literally every comment and
And you know your fancy that your present, but it takes away the specialness of actually recieving one
so if it were my channel
You know I would give hearts you know to the comments that I truly do love
and that may not be every single one on your channel and that might that might be okay to
T- Now Pins C- yes T- I love the pin feature as well. There are many times where I'm like man. This is great
I'm going to pin this and then I read a little further
I'm like oh this one's really good too, but I think I could only pin one at a time
You're right. So right now
you can only pin one at a time and we do that to balance the
Specialness of a creator pin comment right it one for top comment your best comment with viewers feeling like they have a shot
At you know also seeing their comments mean so right now the pin number is one
But we're keeping an eye on that
And you know you see pin comments are really taking off the quality is super high like you could always re evaluate that the feature
so folks if you are also a member of the Multi pin
Advocacy group
Feel free to leave a comment I'll heart it, and then I'll guess I can only pin one of them C- I love this advocacy group
You'll pin your best one about the advocacy group T- yes, that's right. It will be like a occupied comments club
The other thing that I was curious about is
Aaa...the sorting capability C- yeah
T- So if it were up to me like I would love to focus on the subscribers who
Who've been with the channel the longest or who are like the most active and like are always reviewing our videos
Is there is that something you guys have thought about or C- yeah
so we're always thinking about ways to help you identify the comments
that like you should be interacting with most
So whether that's comments and loyal fans or people who are you know maybe very likely to subscribe if they
Got an interaction from the creator or people who are real influencers
in the community we're thinking about ways to help you be more efficient and finding like who are those people that I really should be responding
to
Another like example is if a top creator posted on your channel you probably want to know so that you could respond to them maybe pin their comment
We're definitely thinking about ways to make that easier for you T- awesome. so the last thing is
We did a video for YouTube analytics where we actually asked the viewers for
feedback on like new ideas is or like helping us figure out which problems
were like the biggest that are causing most pain,C- yeah
T- Are there questions you have for folks out there about how the how you're thinking about comments C- for sure
So like what I would really like to know is what makes a really high-quality comment for you
so if you were a creator and let's say let's say that you could pin as many comments as you wanted you could send an
unlimited number
How would you pick those things like what are the things that are most interesting?
Are you looking for diversity and comments in your channel?
Are you looking for praise or constructive Criticism like what are the things that you identify as making a good comment?
So that we can figure out how to surface so to find those T- awesome
Well, thanks so much for spending time and it will hopefully get you some good feedback in that comment section
C- Please leave a comment in the comments. I promise I'll read to all of them, and we're always looking for that feedback
T- Leave a comment in the comments about what makes a comment
interesting C- this is very meta. T- Yes, awesome. you guys keep it real
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