Stop asking people to subscribe! I'm serious! Before I tell you why I think asking people
to subscribe is a dumb idea in 2021, if you're new here make sure that you hit
that subscribe [alarm sound]. So, first we'll get into the five reasons why I think it's not
smart to ask people to subscribe. And then I'll tell you what is really happening in the title
of this video and in the content. So, reason number one is it doesn't work. People are so sick
of hearing “hey! If you're new here, make sure you hit that subscribe and that bell notification.”
We just hear it so many times, it falls on deaf ears. Number two is that it's too self-serving.
You may want them to subscribe because that's going to help your channel but what's in it for
them? It would be much more powerful if, instead of you asking them to subscribe, you gave them
a reason to binge watch a few of your videos. Number three is that it looks desperate.
“Hey, I've got a party. Nobody wants to come. Would you please come to my party?”
Give people a legitimate reason to subscribe first. The fourth reason is that it doesn't
really matter. Sure, you've got to get to your 1000 subscribers if you want to turn on ads,
but there are plenty of other ways to grow your channel and there are plenty of other metrics
to grow your channel other than just the subscriber count.
And reason number five is that focusing on your subscriber count can slow down your momentum.
You are in this for the long term. Everybody says that about YouTube. It's not about getting
viral videos and it's not about getting a sudden influx of subscribers or just striking it rich.
It's a systematic way forward. Step by step, based on the data. The YouTube algorithm is smart.
I know you think it's a beast that you just have to feed but that's not what it is. It's there to
get videos in front of the people who want to watch them. YouTube has plenty of other ways
of making sure that your videos get viewed and get seen by people who want to see them. There's
tons of great advice out there on YouTube about how to get your videos watched even by people
who will never subscribe to your channel. You see, if you've clicked on a video that says
“Stop asking people to subscribe”, then chances are subscriber count is very, very important
to you. There's a very good chance that for a channel as small as mine with 3000 subscribers,
you're probably just a little bit behind me or maybe just a little bit ahead of me. But there's
a very good chance that if you've got a million subscribers on your channel, you are not watching
this video. So, that already narrows down who my audience is. And that says “this video is meant
for you because you were looking at asking people to subscribe as a tactic to grow your channel.”
Chances are that in clicking on this video you have felt that frustration of trying to grow
your channel and that's really what this video is about; is “how do I grow my channel without
doing the asking people to subscribe (because it's not working)”. Because you're creating videos and
they're not getting in front of the right people and therefore you're not getting subscribers.
And then, even if people do subscribe, they don't come back or they don't watch your videos again.
Now, the problem is that as you're growing your channel, if you use subscriber count as
your metric of success then you're setting yourself up for failure. What I found in
growing my channel first, and my first 1000 subscribers (which I thought was going to be
just impossible) and now to 3000 and it's going to go on. You can see what the number is right now.
There was something more important than subscriber count. I realized that if I was going to run
a marathon I had to set myself some milestones along the way; milestones apart from subscriber
count. Like “how many videos have I uploaded?” “How many likes did I get?” “How many dislikes
did I get?” That was a big achievement when somebody actually clicked dislike on my YouTube
video because then I said “okay, somebody has noticed me and doesn't love me and that's okay.”
And I was able to look at other things such as how long people are staying. How many are coming back.
I was able to pace myself as I was growing to my first thousand subscribers. And that's
what I'm going to encourage you to do as you are growing your channel. Don't use subscriber count
as the only metric or even as the main metric. It's a great shortcut, but I think these days
YouTube is just so smart at getting the videos in front of the people who need to see them that
those people may or may not have bothered to click that subscribe button or the bell notification.
So, what this video is really about is to tell you not to be chasing subscribers but
to be building your momentum in other ways. And as you start to improve little things along the way,
your channel will grow...including the subscriber count. I'm not going to ask
you to subscribe (obviously!), but I am going to ask you to comment what is one other metric
apart from subscriber count that is important to you as you are growing your YouTube channel?
Let me know in the comments. And hey! If you disagree with this video give it a dislike.