We characterize the continuous $q$-ultraspherical polynomials in terms of the special form of the coefficients in the expansion $\mathcal{D}_q P_n(x)$ in the basis $\{P_n(x)\}$, $\mathcal{D}_q$ being the Askey--Wilson divided difference operator. The polynomials are assumed to be symmetric, and the connection coefficients are multiples of the reciprocal of the square of the $L^2$ norm of the polynomials. A similar characterization is given for the discrete $q$-ultraspherical polynomials. A new proof of the evaluation of the connection coefficients for big $q$-Jacobi polynomials is given.