I recently celebrated reaching 100,000 subscribers on YouTube by traveling to Europe. I visited the
windmill park in Holland, took a cruise boat ride down the Danube in Germany, and visited
my wife's hometown on the Danube in Austria. In this video, I'll show you what's inside the box,
the steps you need to take to redeem your silver play button, how to add the 100,000 verification
badge to your channel, and five secrets to grow your channel to 100,000 subscribers.
To be eligible for YouTube Creator Award, you must pass the following guidelines. For the silver
award, you need to reach 100,000 subscribers. For the gold award, you need to reach one million
subscribers. For the diamond award, you need to reach 10 million subscribers. Your channel must
be active, which means you've uploaded videos in the last six months. Your channel has received a
community guidelines violation in the last 365 days, which was a worry for me because
I received a community guidelines warning over a year ago and it still remains on my channel.
You're in compliance with YouTube's terms of service. You haven't been suspended from the
YouTube Partner Program. Your channel isn't terminated or linked to a channel that has
been terminated. You don't have content that is deceptive, spammy, or a scam. Your main content is
original, which means that your channel may not be eligible for YouTube Creator Award if it focuses
on compilations, mixes, curation, or heavy use of someone else's copyrighted content or characters.
Claim your silver award. You'll receive an email from YouTube on how to redeem your silver award.
"You did it. Your hard work paid off and you're now eligible for a Creator Award. Reaching this
milestone is something to be proud of. It's no easy feat. Redeem your award and start celebrating
by following these steps." You simply go to this website called societyawards.com/youtubeawards.
Enter the redemption code you received in your email, then click redeem your award.
It says your status is under review. You're almost there. "Congratulations on reaching the
subscriber milestone for a silver award. We're still reviewing your channel's eligibility.
Our review can take up to 10 days. If you only recently met this milestone, try back here later.
Once our review is complete, you'll receive an email and notification in YouTube Studio from us
with instructions on how to redeem your award." Well, I didn't receive a notification in my
YouTube Studio on how to redeem my award, so I chat about YouTube to find out what to do.
After you've entered your information, click "Approve & Checkout." You'll then receive a
summary of your order. After you've submitted the online form, you'll receive a message that says,
"Thank you for your order." Keep in mind, your Creator Award takes several weeks to ship.
I was on vacation when I received mine in the mail. Let's unbox the Creator Award together to
see what's inside. [music]
Open up the box. It has a nice foam protector. Let's take this off. I also received a nice
letter from the CEO of YouTube. I'll read it to you later. You also get this card from YouTube.
"Congratulations on your subscriber milestone. We are honored to take part in recognizing your
achievement and want your experience to be exceptional. Here's my silver play button.
Let's see what it says. "Presented to Drost Video for passing 100,000 subscribers." It's also got a
couple of holes on the back so you can hang it up on your wall. Thank you for helping me reach
100,000 subscribers. Later on, I'll give you my five secrets on how you can achieve the same.
Let's read this letter together that I received from the CEO of YouTube.
"Do you remember your first subscriber, your 100th, or your 1,000th subscriber? Chances are
you do. We know you'll definitely remember your 100,000th subscriber. Your fans may have found you
while searching YouTube, learned about you through a friend, or maybe you showed up as a recommended
video. No matter how they came to your channel, fans stayed and the numbers increased because
of your unique voice and the excitement of being part of a growing community that you established."
"We are thrilled to see the development of your community and are proud to honor your impressive
milestone of reaching 100,000 subscribers with the Silver Creator Award. Congratulations. We
know that you have many more stories to share with your community and we know that your fans
can't wait for you to engage and amaze them even more with your commitment and creativity."
"Keep creating, keep building. We can't wait to see what you do next.
We're here to support you along the way. Who knows? When you reach your millionth subscriber,
we may just write to you and ask, 'Do you remember your 1,000th subscriber?' Yours sincerely,
Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube." Thanks, YouTube, for sending me the silver play button.
I really appreciate it. [music]
Approximately, 306,000 YouTube channels have received 100,000 subscribers
as of January 2002. That's only 0.62% of all YouTube channels. There's 51 million YouTube
channels as of 2022. Only 29,000 YouTube channels have over a million subscribers as of 2022.
That's increasing every day. This is the verification badge you'll receive on YouTube
channel when you reach 100,000 subscribers, but you need to apply for it from YouTube.
Visit this Google address to submit your channel verification application.
You'll receive this email after you've submitted the verification form
and they say it'll take several weeks, but I received mine right away as you can see here.
Number one, know what interests your audience. If your audience is not interested in the topic
you chose for your video, you're not going to get many views or subscribers.
Use the research tab and YouTube analytics to explore the search terms relevant to your channel
based upon what your viewers are searching for on YouTube. You can also poll your viewers by
posting a poll on your community tab or answering questions that appear in your comments. Number
two, differentiate yourself from your competitors. Instead of trying to copy or compare yourself
with your competitors, try to approach the topic from your own unique angle. This will make your
video stand out from your competitors' videos. Number three, be consistent. Try to maintain an
upload schedule of at least uploading one new video every single week. If you upload more,
then you'll grow faster. If you want to avoid the stress of maintaining a regular upload schedule,
batch script and batch film your videos. If you do this, you'll always have videos
automatically scheduled to be published whether you're on vacation, you're not motivated,
or don't have time to create a new video. Here's another secret to being consistent.
When you're not motivated to create a new video, just do it. Within five minutes,
the creative flow will kick in. Number four, don't obsess over views and subscribers. Most of your
videos won't go viral but will accumulate views and subscribers weeks, months, or even years after
you've uploaded them. Instead, focus on improving one new thing for every new video you upload,
whether it's a new hook, a better thumbnail, or improving your watch time.
Number five, and this is most important, enjoy yourself. If you're not having fun
creating and uploading new content on a regular basis, you'll suffer from burnout
and your channel will suffer. Try to upload content that not only your viewers enjoy,
but you enjoy making as well so your channel will grow for years to come. If you want to see
more tips on how to get 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, watch this video on the screen
right now on how hard is it to get to 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. You'll be glad you did.