You need to use the youtube API to do this. Here is a plunker to demonstrate: http://plnkr.co/edit/lYCJeQBj0Cjl0FuzKTfE?p=preview
var player;
function onYouTubeIframeAPIReady() {
//this is the id of your video
player = new YT.Player('your-video');
}
//call this function from your links onclick
function playVideo() {
if(player) {
player.playVideo();
}
}
//this loads the youtube api
var tag = document.createElement('script');
tag.src = "https://www.youtube.com/iframe_api";
var firstScriptTag = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
firstScriptTag.parentNode.insertBefore(tag, firstScriptTag);
//iframe embed markup, note the enablejsapi=1 portion of the video URL
<iframe
id="your-video"
width="420"
height="315"
src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6yEgcb167k4?enablejsapi=1"
frameborder="0"
allowfullscreen
>
</iframe>
//your button markup
<a href="#your-video" onclick="playVideo()">Go to video</a>