If you run an active YouTube channel for your brand, you WILL come across negative, harmful, or offensive comments. It’s just how the Internet works. But it doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about it. You can – let me show you what to do and how.
- Yes, negative YouTube comments will happen
- So, should you even bother moderating annoying YouTube comments?
- How to deal with annoying YouTube comments using an external tool
- Let’s look at how that could look like in real life
- A few extra tips on moderating negative, offensive, or just annoying YouTube comments
- YouTube comments are less scary than they might seem
Manage YouTube comments from multiple channels in one place
Monitor and manage your YouTube comments from multiple channels – all in one customizable view. Try NapoleonCat for free:
Try NapoleonCat free for 14 days. No credit card required.
Yes, negative YouTube comments will happen
And you should be aware of that from day one. Just like they happen all over other social media channels. It’s like the more active you are on social media, the more attractive you are as the target for haters, spammers, bots, etc.
Plus, there’s the occasional upset customer who will also find their way to your YouTube videos to complain about their experience with your product or service.
And it’s not like you can prevent those from happening.
Haters gonna hate. That’s already established.
Spammers gonna spam. The larger your audience, the more spam you can probably expect.
Same with bots, who are gonna bot no matter what you do.
So, maybe you should turn off your YouTube comments altogether?
Well, yes, if you do disable YouTube comments, you will avoid the annoying lot. But you will also prevent engaged viewers and happy customers from participating in conversations under your videos. And, you will avoid building an engaged YouTube community. Or at least it’s going to be very hard.
So that’s not really a long-term solution, is it? (It might work in the short term, for example, when there’s some sort of a crisis going on for your brand on social media, and the sheer volume of negative comments is overwhelming. Although, by doing that, you’re sending a clear signal you don’t want to talk to your audience, and that might rub some of your customers the wrong way.)
A better solution is to manage YouTube comments and moderate them. Yes, I know it takes time. And even more and more time as your YouTube channel grows (which is a good thing, right?) Especially if you actively run other social media channels with equal volumes of interactions with your audience. And often equal volumes of annoying YouTube comments.
So, should you even bother moderating annoying YouTube comments?
Preferably, you should. Because what likely happens when you don’t is:
- You’ll have spam links all over your comments
- There will be hate speech or harassment towards your engaged commenters who came here to have an actual discussion
- All this creates a hostile environment that might actually kill genuine engagement (or at least result in the kind of engagement you don’t want.)
And you want your social media channels to be a safe, friendly space, right? That’s how you build a community around your brand. And when you take an active part in those conversations, replying to each comment, you actually increase engagement and visibility for your brand. That, plus you’re showing your audience you care. And that alone can go a long way for your brand reputation.
So yes, you should bother moderating them. But, since I know first-hand the amount of time it can take you and/or your team, I’m not just going to tell you to “Deal with it”. Let me show you how to actually deal with it.
Manage all your YouTube comments from one place
Monitor and manage all your comments from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Google reviews. Try NapoleonCat for free:
Try NapoleonCat free for 14 days. No credit card required.
How to deal with annoying YouTube comments using an external tool
First of all, get yourself a proper social media management tool to get on top of all the comments on your social media channels. Because clicking around between notifications from your YouTube app, your browser tabs, and different devices is not the most productive way to handle your social media engagement (and your workday). And there are much more efficient ways to do it using dedicated YouTube management tools for business.
One of them is NapoleonCat’s Social Inbox (available for both desktop and mobile).
With a single dashboard, you and your team can:
- View your YouTube comments on all your YouTube accounts (however many you have).
- Reply to them straight from that very same dashboard.
- Easily hide and delete comments.
- Filter your comments by time range, channel, assigned moderator, YouTube user, comment sentiment, comment type, and individual videos.
- Delegate comment threads to different team members (think of each comment as a separate customer service ticket), helping immensely with customer service workflows.
- Leave internal notes for your team members if there’s anything they should know, for example, about prior interactions with a given YouTube user (including when that person commented on a video that’s now been deleted).
- Automatically translate YouTube comments from other languages.
- And automatically translate your replies.
Translating a YouTube comment in the Inbox.
Plus, you have the entire YouTube comment history at your fingertips in one place. Even if someone commented on a deleted video, you’ll still be able to access that conversation.
All this happening alongside the interactions on all your other social media channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Oh, and your Google reviews, too.
Let’s look at how that could look like in real life
So let’s say you manage social media for two brands with two separate YouTube channels. And in addition to that, two different Facebook Pages, two Instagram accounts, and multiple Google locations because you sell physical products in a store.
You’ve built an engaged audience and post regular content on each of the channels several times a week. And each YouTube video page and post on your other channels get several comments a day. Plus, each of your locations regularly gets reviews from customers – say, a dozen every week.
The volume’s not huge, but if you’re on your own, handling the comments along with content creation takes most of your time. So much so that not much is left for any kind of strategic work or new content ideas.
(And by the way, here’s a list of YouTube video creation tools that might come in handy.)
And if you manage a team of a few people, you might not have to create the content and reply to the comments yourself, but you still need to ensure all of them are answered. And with six social media channels and multiple Google locations, that already becomes a challenge.
You know, checking each channel for notifications, making sure people are not answering the same questions or comments while missing others (for example, under Facebook ads). Not really having one command center to keep track and get all of it under control.
And then there are the spam and troll comments to start your day with, removing all of them from each channel, one by one, over your morning coffee (or two.) Every morning (if you know what I mean.)
Now, if you use NapoleonCat’s Social Inbox, that all happens in one dashboard and one view (yes, even the Google reviews.)
So, you get your coffee, log in to NapoleonCat, and see what’s happened since yesterday. Assign the most urgent comments to other team members (or reply to them yourself.) Get rid of spam and hate comments (you can do it automatically for Facebook and Instagram, using auto-moderation. That’s even more time saved.)
And then keep an eye on what’s happening during the day with just one tab open – while you can keep working on new content (NapoleonCat also includes a social media scheduler, so you can schedule and automatically post content to your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google accounts in the same tool.)
All this means your work is much more manageable, and opening your laptop (or, most likely, unlocking your phone first thing in the morning) causes much less anxiety every single day. (Of course, that’ll also depend on how much coffee you have ;))
And you can do it all from your phone, too:
A few extra tips on moderating negative, offensive, or just annoying YouTube comments
- Try not to leave comments unanswered – especially if they’re questions. You’ll show people you care about your community while simultaneously boosting engagement under your YouTube videos.
- If comments are plain spam or coming from bots, don’t hesitate to delete them. They’re not helpful to anyone and might actually discourage others from engaging in a conversation with you. Unmoderated spam comments can be a clear sign no one’s really handling the comments section for the brand (which can often mean – no one really cares at all whether you comment or not.)
- On the other hand, if you get a complaint from a customer, don’t just delete it. Instead, see how you can help. Reply to the customer and try taking the conversation somewhere private, like your customer service chat or emails. And never ever communicate publically using sensitive information like the order number, email address, or customer ID.
- Have a policy in place, so all your moderators know when to delete comments, how to prioritize them, and what to do when a comment (or comments) is a clear indication of an incoming social media crisis.
- Get yourself a tool to help moderate comments – and not just on YouTube. I know, I’ve already said it. Yet here’s me saying it again. And that’s because it can be a game-changer for you and your team. Making comment moderation much more straightforward and less time-consuming. And simply helping you get through your workday in a much more enjoyable way. We all want to have a nice day at work, right? 🙂
Manage YouTube comments from multiple channels in one place
Monitor and manage your YouTube comments from multiple channels – all in one customizable view. Try NapoleonCat for free:
Try NapoleonCat free for 14 days. No credit card required.
YouTube comments are less scary than they might seem
And that’s because you have tools to stay in control – even if you can’t control where and how often they appear. You can quickly deal with them in a way that works for you and your audience. Don’t forget, your engaged audience is in your comment section, too. And they’ll certainly appreciate knowing you’re doing your best to make it a nice place for everyone.
