How to find YouTube video ideas in the comments

Why comments are an idea list

Every comment is a viewer telling you something they wanted and did not get. Some are questions, some are requests, some are complaints about a missing step. Together they are a to-do list written by your audience.

The same is true of videos that are not yours. The comments on a competitor’s best video show you what that video left out, and that is what you can make.

Where to look first

Start with your own recent videos, since those viewers already like what you make. Then move to the top videos in your niche and to the channels your viewers also watch. Pick videos with plenty of comments, because a handful of replies tells you very little. On your own YouTube channel, YouTube Studio shows the comments from all your videos in one place, so you do not have to open them one by one.

Sort by top comments first, because they show what other viewers agreed with. Then sort by newest to catch what people are asking now.

How to come up with YouTube video ideas when you are stuck

When the comments on your own videos run dry, widen the net. Read the comments on a rival’s best recent videos, especially the ones that did far better than that channel usually does. The competitor analysis guide shows how to spot them. Those comments come from viewers who already care about your topic.

Next, type your topic into the YouTube search box and read the suggestions that appear as you type. They are phrased the way viewers phrase things. Keep any suggestion that matches a question you have seen in the comments, because two sources agreeing is a stronger sign than either one alone.

Finally, go back to the comments on your own older videos. Questions people asked a year ago may still be unanswered, and you already have the audience that asked them.

Comments worth saving

Save direct questions: “how do I…”, “why does…”, “what happens if…”. Save requests such as “can you make a video on…” or “please do part two”. Save comments that describe being stuck, like “I followed this and it still doesn’t work”.

Pay special attention to a comment that other people have replied to with “same” or a thumbs up. That is a small vote for the idea, written by the people you are trying to reach.

Comments to ignore

Skip praise, jokes, spam and self-promotion. They are pleasant but they are not ideas. Skip one-off questions that only apply to a single person’s situation, unless the same situation keeps coming up.

Be careful with very specific complaints about the video itself, such as audio levels or editing. They are worth fixing, but they are notes on this video, not a new one.

From a comment to a title

Keep the viewer’s wording. If people write “starter smells like nail polish”, a title that says exactly that will match what the next person types. Add the outcome the viewer wants, such as how to fix it, and keep it short enough to read at a glance.

Then write one sentence that says what the video will answer. If you cannot, the idea is still a topic, not a video. Narrow it until one sentence fits.

A worked example

Say you run a houseplant channel. Under several of your repotting videos, viewers write things like “leaves started turning yellow a week after I repotted it” and “same thing happened to my monstera, did I kill it?”, and other viewers reply “same”. That is one question, asked many ways, by people who want to save the plant.

In their words, the title might be “Yellow Leaves After Repotting: What It Means and What to Do”. The one-sentence promise: why leaves turn yellow after a repot, and what to check before you panic. That sentence fits, so it is a video, not just a topic.

How to research a video idea before you film

Search for the question yourself. If the first results answer it clearly, look for an angle they missed, or move on. If they answer something close but not the question, you have found the gap.

Look at a few of the videos that came up. Are they recent? Do their own comments still ask the same thing? If viewers are still asking under the best existing answer, the answer is not working for them, and there is room for yours.

Keep a running list

Ideas from comments do not expire quickly, but the best ones are the ones you act on. Keep a simple list with the question as written, the video it came from, and how many people repeated it. Review it before each planning session and film the one that is most repeated and least answered.

A twenty-minute weekly routine

You do not need a big research day. Once a week, open the comments on your three most recent videos and the three best-performing videos from channels you admire. Spend ten minutes reading, saving every repeated question and every request as you go.

Spend the next ten minutes sorting what you saved. Cross out anything already answered by a recent video, circle the questions that appear more than once, and pick one to turn into a title. By the end you have a next video chosen from what viewers asked, instead of what you happened to feel like making.

Let Gapstronaut do the reading

If reading every comment feels like too much, Gapstronaut does it for you. Give it a niche or a channel and it reads the comments under the videos that are working, then shows the questions nobody has answered with each one linked to the real comment behind it. You can see a sample report before signing up.