The comments section is one of the features that makes YouTube so unique.
There, you can get direct feedback from your viewers, answer their questions
and overall create a community and conversation around your videos.
Of course, some comments are lovely and some are not.
The good news is there are tons of features available
that help you highlight or moderate your comments.
In this video, we're gonna cover two main topics.
First, what features you can use to help you encourage
more of the conversation you want.
And second, what features you can use to address
hurtful or inappropriate interactions in your comments section.
Promoting Quality Comments
First, let's dive into some ways you can encourage more of the conversation
you wanna see in your comments.
An easy and lightweight way you can interact is by using the heart icon.
When you heart a comment to show appreciation
viewers will see your avatar with a small, red heart
and may receive a notification that you loved what they wrote.
This is a quick and effective way to build fan loyalty
and show that you appreciate their thoughts.
You can also pin comments to the top of the feed
to highlight what comment your fans see first when watching your video.
You can either pin your own comment or a fan comment.
Pinning your own comment is a great way to clarify something from your video
ask your audience a specific question
tease a specific moment or Easter egg
or just thank your viewers for watching.
Or you can pin a fan comment that stood out to you.
Maybe they asked an interesting question you think others might wanna know.
Or they said something really funny or encouraging.
Either way, this is a great feature to set the tone for the rest of the community
and keep the conversation going with your viewers.
And, of course, you can also reply to comments.
It might sound obvious, but simply being positive with your own comments
is a great way to keep things friendly.
When you jump in, it shows your audience you're listening
and interested in what they have to say.
This can help them feel loved and may encourage others
to write positive things.
Of course, not all viewers will love every video you post.
So also think about responding to comments that give you constructive criticism.
It's not always easy to hear, but nice to show them
that you listened to their feedback.
There are also now comment filters in YouTube Studio, which is a tool
to help you prioritize your time in managing your comments.
With filters, you can find comments that contain questions
or search for specific keywords.
You can filter by subscriber status and channel member status
by how many subscribers a commenter has, and even by your response status
to only see comments you have or haven't responded to.
We hope these will especially help those who have a huge audience
and lots of comments to sift through.
Most importantly, make sure you prioritize your mental health first and foremost
when thinking about which comments you respond to and how often you do so.
Now, let's talk about how to handle hurtful or inappropriate comments.
As you likely know by now, not all comments will be high quality.
Using a combination of people and technology, we remove hundreds of millions of comments
that violate our community guidelines.
YouTube's priority is to make sure comments provide a safe experience for all users
including protecting creators from harmful comments.
We recognize how important it is for you to help shape the conversation
with your community and for you to maintain your own well-being.
So because of this, we've created tools that can help.
If someone's written something inappropriate in your comments you can
remove the comment and all of its replies.
To do so, you can go to your YouTube Studio Comments tab
and click these three dots, and select remove.
You can also do this from your video's watch page
on either desktop or mobile.
Hide the user from your channel.
Doing this blocks a specific user from posting comments on any of your videos.
Users are not alerted when you block them.
These viewers can still comment on your videos and channel
but their comments will be hidden from public view.
You can block a user from commenting by clicking the three-dot menu
from one of their comments, or in YouTube Studio in community settings.
Flag the comment to YouTube.
Flagging comments helps YouTube protect the rest of the community from bad actors.
If the comment violates YouTube's community guidelines
it will be removed.
Now that you know what you can do to address individual comments
here's some things you can do at a channel level.
Set upload defaults.
>From your YouTube settings, go to the community settings, then Defaults.
>From here, you can choose to: allow all comments
hold potentially inappropriate comments for review
hold all comments for review
or disable comments.
If you choose to hold comments, they won't appear publicly
until you've reviewed them.
The setting you choose here will apply to comments on all of your new videos.
Keep in mind you can also select these defaults on an individual video basis
in the Advanced tab.
If you want to update the settings for your older videos
you can do so in bulk by going to your videos tab in YouTube Studio
selecting the videos you want
then clicking Edit, and Comments.
Hold potentially inappropriate comments for review.
Some creators have told us that they don't review comments
on their "Held for review" tab at all
in order to reduce exposure to potentially harmful comments.
Leaving comments in the tab does not impact your ability to be recommended.
So be sure to focus on quality rather than quantity
when it comes to reviewing and interacting with comments.
Create a blocked words list.
Sometimes, people may use words or phrases
that you don't want associated with your channel.
In your channel settings, go to Community where you'll see a section for blocked words.
Here, you can add words or phrases that you don't want to appear
in your comments section.
When someone tries to comment using these blocked words
they won't appear publicly and will be held for your review.
Add comment moderators.
Trusted community members can be added as comment moderators to your channel
so they can flag comments on your videos for removal.
Comments they moderate are removed from the public comments section
and can be found in your "Held for review" queue
as flagged by moderator until you approve or remove them.
You can add a moderator in your channel settings under Community
or from the Comments tab in YouTube Studio.
Remember, if you're feeling constantly overwhelmed by your comments
and these tools aren't working for you
you can choose to hold all comments for review or turn off comments completely
by selecting these settings in your community defaults.
Keep in mind, doing this will only affect new videos you post
after turning on this setting.
If you want to apply this setting to all of your older videos
you can do so in bulk by going to your videos tab in YouTube Studio
selecting the videos you want
then clicking Edit, and Comments.
We hope these features will help you engage and moderate your YouTube community.
If you have ideas on how we can improve these tools for creators
you can leave suggestions in the comments below.
And be sure to subscribe for more creator tips and tricks—every week.
Thanks for watching.