Comments on your Youtube channel are an important indicator of content quality. They also help promote videos – videos with a lot of comments have priority in ranking.
We’ve compiled a detailed guide on how to deal with comments on YouTube – how to accept, delete, filter comments, what to reply and how to react to negative comments.
A guide to working with comments on YouTube
When you develop a blog or run a company’s YouTube account – it imposes certain limits in terms of dealing with comments. For example, you can’t delete all negative comments and leave only positive ones – it’s suspicious. At the same time, too much negativity can damage the image of the company or the blogger.
Some tips for dealing with comments on YouTube:
- don’t leave questions unanswered – people lose the desire to ask questions or write comments when they are ignored;
- don’t delay in responding if the question is about the company;
- Respond to all comments, not just positive ones;
- Try to provide comprehensive answers, do not write in templates;
- Check your messages for literacy;
- Communicate with your audience in a language they understand;
- Learn to deal with negative messages;
- Make anchored comments.
How to anchor a comment
To secure a comment under a YouTube video, click the 3 dots to the right of the comment and select “Secure.
Whose comments can be pinned, what to post in them:
- your comment with a link, a call to subscribe, important information about the video – to get clicks and other actions from your subscribers;
- your comment with a question – to get additional comments from your viewers;
- subscriber feedback;
- the most original comment from a viewer – you can promise to secure the most original comments, this will motivate subscribers to write under the video more often;
- winner comment – you can invent a contest with a question, the viewers will have to write the answers in the comments. Fix the right answer under the video and award the winner.
Closed comments
If you don’t want to bother – you can close the comments under the YouTube video at all. But remember – this way you deprive yourself of an additional promotion tool.
How to close comments under a video – you can close comments right away when publishing a video or in an already posted one. We’ll show you by the example of a published video.
Go to the Creative Studio – “Video” section.
- Select the desired clip and click the pencil icon to edit.
- Go into the advanced video settings.
- Scroll down to the comments section. Here you can turn off comments altogether, or you can turn on a feature where comments are first sent for manual moderation.
When to close comments:
- Under videos where provocateurs may appear and write unethical comments;
- under the tragic videos, videos on the topic of illness, death, when the hero of the video has flaws in appearance;
- under the videos with political or religious overtones.
Comment Filter
How to set up a comment filter on YouTube to prevent spam and more. We’ve already written that you can turn off comments in the video settings. In the same section, you can set up comments so that they are first sent to you for review and then you can publish them manually. This will help avoid spam and hitting.
- Go to “Video – Advanced Settings”, go down to “Comments and Ratings” and highlight either “Send potentially ineligible comments to check” or “Send all comments to check”.
- You’ll also need to go into the general channel settings.And find the “Community” tab there. Here in the default settings, you can configure all comments, not a specific video.
In the automatic filters, prescribe a black list of stop words and check the box for “Send comments with links to check”. Comments with the specified words and links will be sent to you for moderation. This section also displays blocked users and subscribers that you have designated as moderators.
How to respond to a negative comment
Of course, it’s easiest to delete all negative comments or disable comments below videos altogether, but this way you’ll never learn how to deal with objections, and this is important if you’re running a YouTube channel to promote your brand. If there are only positive comments under the videos, this can scare away potential subscribers/customers.
Note: there are two kinds of negativity online – justified criticism and ordinary trolling (swearing for the sake of swearing). If you see that they are just trying to get you emotional or the troll is provoking other viewers, you can delete or reply briefly.
Example of valid criticism – a customer bought a product from you, but it’s damaged or doesn’t match the description. Or a person came to a place and they didn’t serve him well. He wrote a comment about it under the video. Or you get asked the same question in the comments, and you stubbornly ignore the subscriber. This kind of negativity needs a healthy response from you, so that other viewers see that you care about your customers/subscribers. Also, the viewer can simply offer advice to help improve the video.
How to deal with valid criticism – a few tips to avoid damaging your reputation by responding to comments:
- respond with restraint, don’t get emotional;
- If the client is right, admit it and apologize; if he is wrong, provide a counterargument;
- Do not resort to personalities, do not engage in long correspondence, trying to prove your case;
- do not provoke even more negativity;
- do not ignore negative comments;
- provide a solution to the problem.
How to remove a comment
To delete a comment under a YouTube video, click on the 3 dots to the right of it and select “Delete.
You can also delete a comment from the general list of comments in the Creative Studio (below you can see how to view all comments on the channel).
When should I delete a comment and when not?
You can delete if:
- trolls, haters, provocateurs write;
- the information in the comment does not correspond to reality;
- the comment is intended to incite hatred;
- the commenter insults other viewers.
It is not worth deleting if:
- the person shared a negative experience of interaction with you or your product – here you need to learn to work with objection and negativity, provide counterarguments or admit your mistakes;
- the comment contains a valid criticism or advice which could help improve the quality of your videos.
Where to see all your comments
How to view all comments on your own behalf and on the entire channel. Go to the Creative Studio and find the “Comments” section in the left column.
All comments on the channel are displayed here. You can filter published, checked and marked as spam.
If you click on the “No response from me” filter, you can select comments that you have not responded to or vice versa – only comments with your responses.
Three horizontal lines – additional filters, you can select comments with questions, filter the authors by the number of subscribers, show comments from channel sponsors.
Comments are displayed in a list, you can immediately give a like/dislike and a heart. If you click on the three dots opposite a comment, an additional menu appears – you can delete a comment, complain, block a user, publish his comments without checking them in the future or appoint a viewer as a moderator.
If you click on the arrow opposite the video, you can go to the selected comment.
Conclusion
To promote your channel, it is important to know how to work with comments, especially to properly respond to negativity. Proper work with comments will help promote videos, but mistakes can harm the channel.