Ty Landercasper
Well-Known Member
Heads up: This tutorial was requested, but its also almost 1am and I'm super tired, so it may not be the greatest thing ever, grammatically speaking. You have been warned. I'll clean it up and add more details as we go on.
About Appreciation:
Appreciation is such a huge backbone of success, the more you appreciate something, the more you'll get of it, and people will often go out of their way just to help you if they know you'll appreciate it.
In fact, that's the way my product works. Instead of relying on rewards and gimmicks, we just make sure that the people who are supporting you, know that you appreciate them doing it.
Comments are much the same way:
You want to create an environment where people feel appreciated for commenting on your videos, because than they'll do more, and you'll have a more active following, which enriches the experience for everyone.
Of course, for some appreciation is easier said than done, and another thread was talking about how hard it is to reply to the "good video" comments.
So with that in mind, I thought I'd make this little mini tutorial on how best:
Show why its important:
With SupportStream, we encourage people to not just say "thank you", but rather, "Thank you, now I can do X because of you" where x could be anywhere from buying new equipment to being able to move to another city. This is important because now, not only do they feel good about you appreciating them, but they also get the satisfaction of knowing they helped.
With comments, we want to do something similar. We don't just want to say thank you, but we want to show them why what they did has value to us.
When you do X, it helps me with Y:
And that helps everyone.
Add some substance:
Ask for help:
If someone is complimenting you, than its showing that they are at least slightly inveseted in your success, which means they may be willing to help you even more. These are the best people to learn from because they'll give you real feedback.
Tips for asking for help:
About Appreciation:
Appreciation is such a huge backbone of success, the more you appreciate something, the more you'll get of it, and people will often go out of their way just to help you if they know you'll appreciate it.
In fact, that's the way my product works. Instead of relying on rewards and gimmicks, we just make sure that the people who are supporting you, know that you appreciate them doing it.
Comments are much the same way:
You want to create an environment where people feel appreciated for commenting on your videos, because than they'll do more, and you'll have a more active following, which enriches the experience for everyone.
Of course, for some appreciation is easier said than done, and another thread was talking about how hard it is to reply to the "good video" comments.
So with that in mind, I thought I'd make this little mini tutorial on how best:
Show why its important:
With SupportStream, we encourage people to not just say "thank you", but rather, "Thank you, now I can do X because of you" where x could be anywhere from buying new equipment to being able to move to another city. This is important because now, not only do they feel good about you appreciating them, but they also get the satisfaction of knowing they helped.
With comments, we want to do something similar. We don't just want to say thank you, but we want to show them why what they did has value to us.
When you do X, it helps me with Y:
- It's nice comments like these that always brighten my day
- I love it when you guys take the time to write something nice.
- Warms my heart.
- When a youtuber is just getting started, comment activity is such a big deal, so thanks so much for doing this!
- etc, etc.
And that helps everyone.
Add some substance:
- This isn't necessarily about the thank you per se, but rather basic conversations tips.
- If, instead of just saying thank you, you also offer some insight into the video, than the person may appreciate the extra bit of knowledge and start a conversation with you.
- Conversations are fantastic for driving user engagement.
- Thank You, I focused on X, Y, Z
- Thanks! I spent all of last night trying to get the script just right, so I'm really glad you liked it!
Ask for help:
If someone is complimenting you, than its showing that they are at least slightly inveseted in your success, which means they may be willing to help you even more. These are the best people to learn from because they'll give you real feedback.
Tips for asking for help:
- Avoid asking for any form of negative
- People just don't like giving negative feedback and would rather avoid the awkwardness, so remember that you're putting them in a tough spot if you're asking them to do criticize you.
- Although if you do get trolled, you can often get constructive feedback from them
- (Just be careful as their opinions might not reflect the common user)
- Instead focus on positive improvements
- Instead of asking them what they didn't like, ask them what they did like, because that way they get to feel good about helping you, and you get some insight.
- People just don't like giving negative feedback and would rather avoid the awkwardness, so remember that you're putting them in a tough spot if you're asking them to do criticize you.
- Anchor it with context and make it as easy as possible for them to follow through:
- One of the things I'm still struggling with is cutting it down to a short length, was there any part that you particularly enjoyed, so I know what kinds of things to focus on?
- Its hard to know what jokes hit when its not face to face, was there a thing you thought was particularly funny?
- With SupportStream, after the initial setup, the only maintenance that's required is once a month you send a thank you message to your supporters letting them know you appreciate them supporting you.
- Obviously, there's a good chance that what you were thankful for last month is probably exactly the same thing as the thing your going to be thankful for this month.
- And that's OK. Because its not about the words, its about the gesture.
- And its the same with comments. Obviously, you're going to appreciate one person's comment for largely the same reason as another person's comment, and that's fine. As long as there's some slight variation, everyone is going to appreciate that you took the time to say thank you.
- Where as if you just copy and paste one message over and over again, it's going to look cheap.
- Try to think about the ideal kind of community you want to build and focus on trying to create that environment by focusing on the things you appreciate that get you there.
