- If you've been on YouTube for more than six months
and you still haven't hit 100 subscribers,
you're not alone.
If you've published more than 50 videos
and you're still struggling to get more than 17 views,
you're not alone.
That's because the simple truth is YouTube is hard,
just ask this guy
who thinks it's harder than becoming a lawyer.
But if you don't believe him
and the countless creators who work day in and day out
to make a success of their YouTube channels,
let's take a look at some quite scary numbers.
As of February, 2023,
there are over 114 million active YouTube channels.
And of those 114 million YouTube channels,
less than 2% have 10,000 subscribers or more.
Yeah, just let that sink in for a second.
Only 2% of all YouTube content creators
have over 10,000 subscribers.
Are you shocked?
Are you intimidated?
Do you feel like this is impossible?
Let's spin a positive light on this.
If you've reached just 1/10 of that number,
1,000 subscribers, congratulations.
Yeah, this deserves a pat on the back
because you are outperforming
over 91% of all other YouTube channels.
You are almost literally in the top 10%.
We, as creators, tend to be really hard on ourselves.
We feel like we're miles away from our goals,
especially when we publish another video
that gets a 10 of 10 ranking.
It's sad, it's unfortunate, but it's understandable.
You see, one of the problems we all have
is a really bad habit,
comparing ourselves to others.
And because of the way the YouTube algorithm works,
we, as creators, only see our best competition.
And so more often than not,
you're actually underestimating how well you're doing.
Becoming a YouTuber takes a lot of work.
Just look at some of the jobs you need to be doing
to be creating content on YouTube.
You've gotta do all that and do it well
to stand out from your competition.
And trying to master all of these things
isn't even the hardest part of it.
It's finding the time to do it.
Most creators do YouTube in their spare time
when they have a few hours here and there.
Well, let's just imagine for a second
that you could do YouTube full time.
What would it be like?
When you start a full time job,
typically you spend the first month
doing something called onboarding and training.
That's at least 20 days of consistently showing up,
learning and improving.
And after a month,
you probably have at best
sort of an understanding of what you're doing.
And in that first month,
you're probably not being judged on performance.
In the first month,
you are likely in the mindset of I am here to learn.
In short, if it's a good place to work,
there is no pressure on you immediately.
So why do so many people treat YouTube differently?
You ain't gonna be the world's greatest creator
from video one.
So let's take the pressure off you
and treat YouTube as your first month in a full time job.
Just turn up, be consistent,
and create to learn.
Don't judge yourself and don't rush to quit,
and turn those first 20 days on the job
into your first 20 videos on YouTube
because I guarantee you,
the difference between your first video and your,
put a number here, editor,
because I haven't got 20 fingers,
will be astonishing.
And we can't really measure your YouTube success by days
because most people do this as a side hustle.
Let us know in the comments below,
how many hours a week
are you putting into your YouTube channel?
Two, four, 10.
It's not 40, as much as you would like it to be, is it?
And that makes the journey so much longer,
which makes it feel so much harder.
Just how long?
Well, according to data from Tubefilter,
it can take an average of 22 months
to get 1,000 subscribers on YouTube.
For many, it takes longer than that,
but don't sweat it.
Remember, in terms of monetization,
you can take as long as you need
to reach that subscriber milestone.
Focus on smaller manageable goals,
10, 20, 50, 100 subscribers.
You cannot knock these off in days, weeks, months,
rather than potentially years.
These smaller steps will keep you motivated
and build momentum
to the point that you won't even realize
you've passed 1,000 subscribers.
Trust me, that happens to so many creators
on their YouTube journey.
But if we're not talking about subscribers,
we're talking about views,
and the numbers there are just as frightening.
You've likely heard this statistic before,
more than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube
every single minute.
But what you probably don't know
is how YouTube audiences react to all of that content.
According to a study by pex.com,
90% of YouTube videos get less than 1,000 views,
and less than 1% of videos
generates over 80% of total views.
That, my friends,
is all the work of the evil YouTube algorithm.
This is why it is incredibly important to focus on a niche
and to identify your target audience.
Remember that it's YouTube's job
to find the right video for the viewer,
not to find viewers for your videos.
And that is why it always comes back to consistency.
If you're always showing up for your audience,
delivering content that they like,
YouTube is gonna go out and find similar viewers
to the audience already watching your videos.
That's why in your analytics,
if your return viewers are going up
and your average views per viewer are going up,
your channel is healthy and growing.
So is getting your first 1,000 subscribers
or your first 1,000 views on a video
the hardest thing you will ever do on YouTube?
Probably.
Check out some of the biggest YouTubers on the platform,
MKBHD, MrBeast, Markiplier,
they didn't get there overnight.
Here's another slightly made up number
that probably underestimates the problem.
99% of creators who don't reach 1,000 subscribers
give up too soon.
So if you are on your way to your next milestone,
whatever it is, 1,000 subscribers, 100 subscribers,
1 million subscribers,
this is the message I have for you.
If you keep going, you'll make it
because you can't fail if you don't quit.
So we've talked about 1,000 subscribers, 1,000 views,
what number are we missing?
4,000 hours of watch time.
This video will sort you out with that.