YouTube is rolling out a bundle of new features and tools to help with your channel’s comment moderation. They are designed to make your conversations with your viewers and fans easier and more engaging. Read on to learn more about each of the new features.

3 New Features

There are 3 new features and tools YouTube is rolling out for comment moderation. They are: pinned comments, creator hearts & creator usernames. Pinned comments will allow channels to feature a viewer’s comment by pinning it to the top of the discussion feed. This can be used to encourage viewer engagement and gives creators the ability to acknowledge specific fans and viewers. Creator hearts will allow channels to add a heart emoji to any comment on the channel. Similar to liking a post on Facebook, this gives creators an easy way to show appreciation for their viewers and let them know they are reading their comments. The new creator username feature adds a color outline to the channel’s username when commenting on the channel. This makes it easy to see when the channel is participating in the conversations on the channel.

Existing Tools, Plus A New Beta Feature

Earlier in 2016, YouTube introduced a comment moderation tool that lets channel owners give certain moderators the ability to remove comments from their videos. Channels are also now able to blacklist certain words and phrases. When those words or phrases appear in a channels comments, they will be immediately flagged and held for review. YouTube is also introducing a new beta feature that will hold potentially inappropriate comments for review. YouTube has an algorithm in place that will detect words and phrases that it thinks may be inappropriate. The channel then has the option to either approve or disapprove those comments.All these tools and features are designed to help you engage with your fans more effectively. On more ways to increase viewer engagement, check out our blogs on YouTube Poll Cards and YouTube End Screens.