What Does a Highlighted Comment Mean on YouTube?

YouTube is one of the biggest social media platforms and one of the most popular streaming services. However, even if you’ve been on YouTube for a while now, some of their features are confusing. One of those is definitely the highlighted comment, and even long-term users are still not aware of what it does.

When you see a comment tagged with the Highlight feature, what does it mean? Will that comment on YouTube become more popular, attract more attention, and help the user gain more YouTube subscribers? Find out all there is about these highlighted comments by reading this article.

What Does Highlighted Comment Mean on YouTube?

The highlighted comment tag has been a part of YouTube’s features for several years now. But the question that most users have is what it means and what its purpose is.

If you’ve never seen highlighted comments, you’re probably wondering how they look. Don’t expect to see a comment that is highlighted in yellow or another color. Instead, it’s a label located right above the name of the person who wrote it. The tag is in a light gray color.

There are several purposes behind these comments. First of all, they are YouTube’s automated feature that helps channel owners navigate through their comment section much more effortlessly.

Another reason why a comment becomes a highlight is that you clicked on the notification or email you got that said someone left a comment on your video. In other words, when you click on that notification, that comment goes in the top part of the section, and it makes it easier for you to reply right away.

Next, if another user replies to a comment you left, you will receive a notification. When you click on it, you’ll see the comment on top, labeled as a highlight. Once again, this feature makes it straightforward for you to find a comment.

Who Does the YouTube Highlighting?

YouTube is responsible for comment highlighting, it’s not done by the video creator. So, if you were wondering whether you can do the highlighting yourself when you upload a YouTube video, the answer is no. You can only manage the comments on your YouTube channel in terms of deleting them, marking them as spam, hiding them, or approving them.

This is an automatic feature by the platform, and it’s their way to improve the navigation through the comments section, helping creators optimize their content and engage with subscribers. 

Another interesting comment feature is a pinned comment, which prioritizes that comment and takes it on top of the comments list. However, highlighted comments are even more prioritized and will appear above the ones you pinned.

Viewers and content creators can also highlight comments, but in that case, the highlighting only serves for browsing purposes. In other words, when you highlight, you will find comments on any video easily, and you’ll also receive a notification when someone leaves a reply. To create the highlight tag, all you need to do is to click on the timestamp located right above the comment and next to the commentator’s name.

How to Reply to Highlighted Comments?

You may not be the one who will choose to highlight a comment, but you are the one who will choose whether to reply to these comments or not. Thankfully, YouTube has paid a lot of attention to making things easy for its users. As a result, the process is quite simple, and it only takes a minute.

You can find a highlighted comment in your YouTube Dashboard or your email’s inbox section. When you open your email and read the message, you’ll see a Reply button that will lead you straight to the specific comment.

You will also get a notification, and you can find it when you open the Dashboard. Go to the comment section, and you’ll be able to follow who comments, which comments are highlighted, and leave a reply.

Remember that when you type a reply, the person who left the comment will receive a message that notifies them they got a highlighted reply.

Tips to Create Comments that Will Be Highlighted

Next time you want to comment on a video, keep these tips in mind:

• Go over the already existing comments on a video to figure out what people are saying. If there is something that you noticed in the video, but no one is talking about it, this can be a good chance for you to score a highlight tag.
• Opt for short comments that are straight to the point. Avoid long paragraphs and fluff.
• Praise the content if you like it! Remember to leave a nice comment for the creator, letting them know they’re doing a great job.
• No grammar mistakes! Double-check your comments for grammar mistakes, and correct them if there are any.
• Don’t expect your comment to be highlighted right away. YouTube will analyze it, and it might take some time. But, if you score a good one, then it will be the first one viewers see, and you can get more potential subscribers. 

Are These Comments Beneficial?

You can’t expect these highlighted comments to boost your following numbers significantly, but they can positively affect your presence on this platform.

People love reading comments on videos. When they scroll to this section, the first thing they see is highlighted comments. If yours is the first one, they might decide to open your channel and subscribe. Highlighted comments aren’t the best way to grow your YouTube channel, but they can help.

Conclusion

What does highlighted comment mean on YouTube? These comments have several purposes, but their main goal is to help you navigate through the comments section. Although YouTube generally creates highlighted comments to attract your attention and initiate engagement, both creators and viewers can easily highlight a comment on any video to help them browse through this section.

Highlighting is very close to bookmarking. This feature can definitely have certain benefits, including making your channel more visible to others and potentially boosting your brand’s presence.