The Secret to YouTube Success: Reply to More Comments!

On average, how many comments do you get on your YouTube channel every single day? As your channel grows, you’re only going to get more of them, so let me show you how to answer them efficiently so you can stay better connected with your audience.

YouTube has rolled out a new feature called ‘Smart Replies’ which should help you answer at least some comments with automated text. But we have an easier solution that you can use via the free vidIQ tool.

New! YouTube Rolls Out Smart Replies

But first, let’s take a look at the new YouTube Smart Replies set up. You need to access the comments page first. To do this:

• Click on your profile image in the top right-hand corner of most YouTube screens
• Then click on ‘YouTube Studio.’
• Click ‘Comments’ in the left-hand navigation bar to display the most recent comments that have been posted on your channel, whether they be for your videos, community posts, or YouTube stories.

Underneath some of these comments, (but not all), you will see some smart reply boxes. To add these as a reply to the comment all you need to do is click the box which will populate the reply line, which you can edit if you wish before publishing.

When smart replies appear, you don't always get the same options as they are context-specific to the comment itself. Presumably, YouTube is picking out common phrases and predicting comments you might use as stock answers. Hopefully, over time this will improve, giving you more smart replies to more comments.

Reply to More YouTube Comments with vidIQ

Now while this is a step in the right direction for YouTube, I wouldn't exactly call them "smart" replies. First of all, they're fairly infrequent, and I would also say they're pretty dumb replies since each one only contains a few words and a smiley if you're lucky.

Well, there is a tool that can do this a lot better and it's absolutely free. Let me show you what it is.

Let's take this as an example. On a video about how to get 1,000 subscribers we see a person who has posted a comment, but they only have six subscribers. We know this because we have vidIQ installed and along with the sub count, you will see this vidIQ button:

If you click it, it opens up the ‘Comment Template’ tool where you can create stock answers to questions and comments you get that are specific to your channel.

So, in this case, we can reply with some videos that will help the creator get to a hundred subscribers before they even tackle a thousand subscribers. And we've done all of this in a matter of seconds.

Over the years, the vidIQ YouTube channel has received over 2 million comments. So we know we get asked all the time about Playlists and custom thumbnails and how to get 4,000 hours of Watch Time - that's a big one.

But we also have a lot of ways to say thank you, which courtesy of the vidIQ's tool, also populates the commentor's name to personalize the response.

Our general recommendation is that you respond to every single comment on your channel but eventually, as your channel grows that’s going to become impossible.

But YouTube's Smart Replies, in combination with vidIQ's comment templates, all which, to remind you, is 100% free, at least gives you a fighting chance of responding to a lot more comments than typing out each one by hand.

Want To Get More Views on YouTube?

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and get more views on YouTube then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps click here to install now!

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the vidIQ Academy and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.