I've gained over 300,000 subscribers in the last 30 days
by making just three YouTube Shorts.
This is the fastest subscriber growth
my channel has ever experienced.
And in this video I'll be breaking down
exactly how I did it
and also giving you a couple of tips and tricks
that you could potentially try yourself.
So, let's just jump straight into some analytics.
I've known for a few years now
that anytime you make a video
that is about subscribers in some way, for example,
"Which of my subscribers has the most subscribers?,"
you will gain a disproportionately high number
of subscribers just because you're literally
planting the idea of subscribing
into the viewer's head over and over.
So, for example, this
"Which of my subscribers has the most subscribers?" video
got 1.6 million views and gained 56,000 subscribers.
Whereas this other video of mine
that was not about subscribers
got the same number of views
but only gained 6,000 subscribers compared to 50,000.
So, now let's talk about my first YouTube Short.
I saw this graph a while ago,
it was created by a fella called MaxData,
and it shows that I once had more subscribers than MrBeast.
So, I knew if I was to react to this graph
in a comedic manner
and turn it into a beautiful YouTube Short,
it would have potential to go viral
because MrBeast is in the title,
and it would hopefully get me a lot of subscribers
because it's a video about subscribers.
So, that's exactly what I did.
It's only 20 seconds. Let's watch a bit of the Short.
- It's 2012, MrBeast makes his YouTube channel,
sticks at around 25 subscribers.
- Nice and intense buildup music.
- Six months later I make my YouTube channel.
- Tension's building. Watch time's rolling.
-...subscribers before he even got to a thousand.
And now I've got like well over 150K, and he just hit 2000.
- Here we go, something's about to happen...
- ...way, way ahead, and, oh-
Oh, oh, right. (Jack laughs)
Oh, okay.
Right.
Cool. (Jack laughs)
- That's it, that's the Short. As simple as that.
So, I knew this Short would do well
because it would just be fantastic for audience retention.
People like watching numbers go up,
and because everyone that watched the Short
would know the outcome before it happened,
they're all gonna sit and wait for MrBeast to take over,
which led to very high watch time.
You can see that the start watch time,
due to people watching more than once, is 192%,
which is the highest starting retention I've ever seen
on one of my videos.
So yes, this retention graph trickles down
just like all retention graphs.
But you can see that it doesn't go below 100%
until right towards the end,
and we finish off on an impressive 94.
So, of course, with audience retention like that,
YouTube's gonna push it all over the place,
and we got 13 million views, which is amazing.
It's now like one of my most viewed videos
on this whole channel.
But the question is how many subscribers did I gain
from this 29-second Short?
Presumably, it is quite a few,
seeing as we got so many views.
The video is about subscribing
and a lot of empathetic people will end the video
feeling kind of sorry for me.
And I am more than happy
to take a bunch of pity subscribers.
And that's exactly what happened.
85,700.
One 29-second video that I recorded
in literally three minutes,
gained almost enough subscribers
to earn its own silver play button.
That is mental.
It also earned 600 pounds
which, for a Short, is pretty good.
But I'm not making Shorts to make money,
I'm making Shorts to grow my channel,
and also 'cause it's kind of fun to mess with.
But this is where things get interesting
because this video, suddenly exploding about a month ago,
seemed to create a catalyst across my entire channel.
Let's move on to Short number two.
- PewDiePie's 100 million play button
was given to me in January, 2022.
- Okay, cool. Very interesting.
- His name is right on the back.
- Immediately within four seconds,
we've captured the audience's attention.
"Is that really PewDiePie's 100 million play button?
But you're not PewDiePie, how did you get it?
I guess I'll keep watching to find out."
- PewDiePie reached a 100 million subscribers
in August, 2019.
- And then I throw a load of info at them.
- A couple of weeks later, the red crystal centrepiece broke.
In June, 2020,
the briefcase the award came in ended up on eBay,
and obviously I'm the guy
that bought it. (Jack laughs)
- Okay, we don't need to watch anymore,
but basically it's a Short
talking about PewDiePie getting his award
and the award eventually ending up with me.
Side note, I understand that not everyone has access
to a PewDiePie a 100 million play button
in order to use to grab the attention of Shorts viewers
but the principles are the same.
And side, side note,
I'm really annoyed I used the wrong microphone in this Short
because it ends up doing really well,
and the audio sounds terrible, listen to this.
- In October, 2021, PewDiePie
sends his 100 million- (Jack groans)
- Anyway, you can see this Short has 1.6 million views.
So, you already know that it did really well.
But the analytics on this Short are very interesting
because this video was released 450 days ago.
So, why am I talking about it?
So, the video was released 28th of January, 2021,
it got 70,000 views.
That's nice. Thanks, guys.
We have a little slide along,
and after a week, we were on 2.6 million.
That's good.
After two weeks, 3 million. Go on.
Slide all the way over to a month, we're on 5 million.
After 100 days we are on about 6 million. That's epic.
Skip forward another 100 days,
and we've now made it to 11 million.
Very nice.
And then it kind of slowed down
and sort of stuck for another 100 days at 11 million
and then another 100 days at 12 million.
So, the Short's now 1 year, 32 days old. 12 million views.
I'll take it. Thanks very much.
But then a couple of weeks ago
when my MrBeast subscriber battle video started going viral,
I guess the YouTube Shorts algorithm was like,
"Hey, people are quite enjoying this Short.
Let's show those people his other Shorts."
And then this happened. (laughing)
A year after its upload,
it literally went from 13 million
all the way up to 30 million
in the space of, like, a couple of weeks.
That is ridiculous.
This is my most view video by far.
"But hold on a second, isn't it a video about PewDiePie's
100 million subscriber play button?
That means it's talking about subscribers,
and Jack's probably gonna gain
a bunch of subscribers from it."
Well, that's exactly what happened.
Another 95,000 subscribers gained
from one YouTube Short that I made ages ago.
And this weird graph where it just suddenly goes up
can be seen across many of my YouTube Shorts
but just to a less intense degree,
here's another example of an old Short
that suddenly started gaining more views.
Now, when all of this was happening
and my YouTube analytics were going crazy,
I saw an opportunity.
95,000 subscribers from one YouTube Short is delightful,
but I bet I could beat that with a direct call to action.
Now, if you don't know what a direct call to action is,
it's basically when someone in a video goes,
"Hey, by the way, while you're here,
subscribe to the channel, thank you so much."
Now what's interesting is anytime you do that,
about 30 to 40% of people go,
"Ew, how dare you ask me directly
to subscribe to your channel for free
so I can enjoy more free content!" (retching)
And they immediately slide away,
or they click away, whatever.
So generally, a call to action
will harm your audience retention.
Here's an example, you can see this shot was doing well,
and at this point I asked people to subscribe,
and my audience retention plummeted quite a lot.
And if your audience retention isn't very good
then YouTube are gonna share the video with less people.
So, generally you have to kind of be smart about it
or just avoid it altogether.
But I knew that as my videos were skyrocketing
throughout the Shorts algorithm,
this was my opportunity.
'Cause if I upload another YouTube Short right now,
it will just be pushed to a bunch more people than usual.
So, that's exactly what I did.
- Mr. Jack Massey Welsh tweeted out-
- "That's DanTDM saying Jack's name?
Who's this Jack guy?
Well, DanTDM knows him, so he must be worth watching.
Let's keep going."
- [DanTDM] Custom 20 million subs award.
- "Marvel? I like Marvel.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe? Let's keep watching."
- After seeing my tweet, Dan tweeted YouTube
asking where his 20 million award was,
and then he also made a YouTube Short about it-
- Listen to that buildup music, something's coming...
- Then Jacksepticeye saw DanTDM-
- "Jacksepticeye? He's a famous person."
- ...ages ago, I don't have one.
- Even MatPat saw the Tweet.
- The zooms in. It's really intense.
- [MatPat] YouTube is willing to give us regular creators
the same respect that they show those mega franchises.
- People love being mad at stuff, by the way. (laughing)
So, I knew this would do well.
- I definitely agree that if YouTube's giving companies
like Marvel and America's Got Talent
20 million subscriber play buttons,
then they should be giving the eligible YouTubers
those awards as well.
- This was it, this was my chance
for a big, fat call to action.
If I've hooked people in enough
to watch for the first 40 seconds,
a lot of them are gonna watch the last 10 seconds
and see it through.
And those that aren't still watch the loads of the video.
So, hopefully the algorithm won't kick off too much
at the dip in retention.
So, let's watch my direct call to action
because I tell you what, it is direct.
- However, I'm nowhere near 20 million subscribers,
so I can't really complain about it yet.
- Here we go.
- [So I guess] if all of you subscribe to this
right now then I would (Jack exclaims)
be able to pass 20 million,
and then I could also moan about not getting a-
- I'm still going on.
- Please subscribe. Please, please, please. Thank you.
- (laughing) Normally, that would be criminal
in a YouTube Short.
Like, I didn't just say it quickly.
I said, "Please, please, please,"
and I whacked a bunch of subscribe animations
all over the screen, which is exactly when the dip happened.
Like, you can see here
if we watch it with the graph.
- But I guess if all all of you subscribe-
- Oh, down it goes.
Down, down, down, down, down. (laughing)
It's really interesting to see, isn't it?
So, because all of my other Shorts were doing well
when I released this,
the video was immediately pushed to more people than usual.
And you can see that after a week,
we started really climbing.
And after a couple of weeks,
it started accelerating quite quickly.
And so far, I've ended up on a very nice 6.3 million views.
Now, keep in mind my most popular YouTube Short ever,
with 29 million views, got 95,000 subscribers.
How many subscribers do you think I gained
with five times fewer views?
Well, let me tell you.
142,000! That is absolutely crazy,
and I am very glad I took seven seconds
to tell people to subscribe over and over.
But it is worth noting
that if you are gonna attempt a call to action
as intense as mine,
you need to make sure you do it
towards the end of the Short.
And you also need to make sure
that your Short is really good at keeping people's attention
up to that point.
And it helps if your other Shorts are doing well
at the time.
A YouTube strategist called Paddy Galloway
put together a load of data
and found that the longer the YouTube Short,
the more likely that it will go viral
which obviously makes sense, but it is good to confirm.
And that's exactly what happened with me.
This Short was 54 seconds long,
and this one was like 45 seconds long.
Now, I understand, of course,
that the topics of your own YouTube Shorts
will be different from mine,
but I do hope you can replicate some of these methods
in terms of structure and apply them to your own content.
Thank you for watching this video,
and thank you very much for subscribing to this channel.
All right, I'll see you later.