If you're growing your YouTube channel,
you've probably noticed that it's
very hard to get those first 100 subscribers.
Today, I want to tell you guys why that is
and then also give you seven different things
that you can fix, address, think about on your channel that
will help you get those first 100 subscribers even faster.
That's coming up.
Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer
and welcome to Video Creators.
This channel is all about helping
you guys grow your YouTube audience so that you can reach
people and impact them with the message that you are spreading.
Alex wrote and asked this question.
Tim in your opinion, why is it so hard to reach your first 100
subs?
Great question.
I think there's two things that make this difficult,
especially for those first 100 subscribers.
And then I'm going to give you some,
seven different ideas of how to fix a lot of this stuff.
So number one-- I think it's hard
because it's probably the first time that you're doing this.
Anything that you're doing for the very first time
is difficult.
Any athlete, any business entrepreneur knows this.
It takes a lot of repeated practice
over and over and over again.
It takes a lot of failures.
It takes a lot of learning what works
and learning what doesn't work, and then evaluating
those failures and correcting them and moving forward.
It takes a lot of pain, a lot of energy
until you finally start growing and getting that success.
And in the case of an athlete, you start winning your races
or your competitions or music is the same way, learning music
like all these things, being a creator is the same thing.
You don't get Olympic gold overnight.
But as any musician or actor or athlete or business
entrepreneur, any of them will tell you
though, the key is not to keep repeating
your same mistakes over and over and over again
that are holding you back.
Persistence is important, but continue
to learn from channels like this one.
Go through the YouTube Creator Academy course.
It's free.
I'll link to it down in the description below.
Make sure you're talking with other YouTube creators,
learning from their experiences.
You're digging into YouTube Analytics
and seeing what information Google can provide
for you and a whole lot more.
And this also kind of then goes into my second reason
why I think it's really hard and that
is because there are so many different skills that you
need to learn and acquire to really successfully grow
your channel.
For example, there's storytelling, there's pacing,
there's YouTube thumbnail design.
There is video editing.
There's body language and nonverbal communication
to learn to use on camera.
How to write really good, enticing titles
and then once they click, you have
to learn how to hook that viewer and keep them watching.
And not to mention all the lighting and sound and camera
angles and the equipment that just
goes with video production in general.
And then there's a whole business
side of a YouTube channel and branding that goes into this.
Guys there's so much to learn.
And no one becomes an expert at any of those things
overnight or very quickly.
Growing a channel does take time.
The first 100 subs does seem to take longer,
but then once you get it you've probably figured a few out.
Then 1,000 will come a little bit quicker and then 10,000
and then 100,000 coming in.
Once you kind of start learning these skills
and applying them to your channel,
you do start to grow faster.
So let me give you guys seven different things to really
consider and think about and the mistakes
to avoid on your channel that could hopefully,
help you get that 100 subscribers even faster.
Number one is you need to have a clear value proposition
for a specific target audience.
What does that mean?
Well, I work with hundreds of YouTube creators one-on-one
and this is one of the most common mistakes
that I see is that they aren't pitching
any sort of specific value to anyone in particular.
In fact, if I asked them, hey, complete this question for me.
You guys should subscribe to my channel because--
and most of the time these creators don't even
know how to finish that.
Because I'm funny.
Because this is a cool channel.
You got to be very specific.
What value do you propose to deliver
to a very specific person?
You need to craft and create all of your content.
Your channel-- and everything needs
to revolve around delivering that value
to that specific person.
So that when that specific person finds your channel,
they're like oh, where has this channel been all my life?
This is what I need.
They subscribe.
and they watch every single video you do.
That piece is so important, guys,
that it's actually how I start my e-book, 30 Days to a Better
YouTube Channel.
You can download the first few days completely for free.
That really will help you dig into determining your value
proposition for a target audience.
Give you some exercises work through to help you out.
So link to that in the description
below and go download the free sample
and get started with that today.
Number two-- I highly recommend that you research your videos
before you shoot them.
I work with a lot of creators and their process
for coming up with ideas is just I think
this would be a good idea.
But I really think it's a good idea to go to YouTube
and maybe do some searches for your idea.
How much competition is there?
Are there a lot of search results for this?
Is there very few?
Are these videos that you see that are
relevant to the type of topic that you
want to make videos on-- Are they getting a lot of views?
Are they getting like a low number of views?
And just start kind of evaluating
each of the video ideas that you have.
And the idea is to make videos that you see ahead of time
have the potential to get views.
So when you do those searches ahead of time on YouTube,
a few tips for you.
Number one is you want to look for videos
that have a high view count on channels that have a relatively
low subscriber count.
Finding a video that has five million views on a channel that
only has 10,000 subscribers is really good.
But if that channel has 10 million subscribers,
then you kind of know OK that's why they have that many views.
You can also go to google.com/trends and see how
some of your topic ideas are trending over time.
Are they picking up steam and getting more and more momentum?
Or are they kind of dying off?
And using some of that data, you can then
decide which topics that you really
want to invest your time into making a video,
and when you make it, you already
know ahead of time that video has potential to do well.
Number three-- another common mistake
that I see a lot of small channels making
is that I highly recommend that you
spend more time crafting better titles and better thumbnails.
And it's not like an unknown secret, but a lot of people
don't consider that a lot of top YouTube creators
actually spend almost as much time crafting their titles
and thumbnails as they do the videos themselves.
And the reason for that is pretty obvious
once you think about it is that it doesn't matter
how amazing your video is if your title and your thumbnail
don't entice them to click in the first place.
I highly recommend you watch some videos here
on YouTube that just kind of go on some basic design
principles, as far as a graphic design is concerned,
and then also make sure that those thumbnails are
very clear, discernible even from a very small size
for mobile devices.
Number four-- I think it's really important
that you simply ask your viewers to subscribe.
Someone gets to the end of your video,
hopefully they've enjoyed it.
And you want to tell them what action
do you want them to take as a result of watching your video.
Well, encourage them to subscribe.
Not everyone is familiar with YouTube as you or I might be.
And might not naturally think oh, I could
subscribe to this channel.
So just asking them, giving them a little bit of a reminder
is often a good idea, too.
Number five-- pay close attention
to your audience retention graphs
in your YouTube Analytics.
That graph can teach you so much.
It will reveal patterns.
If you study them over time across all your videos,
you will start to notice patterns.
OK, why are people abandoning my video at certain points?
What are some of the common themes and trends
I see about when people abandon my video-- when their attention
starts to drop off.
And the more you do that, the more you'll
be able to craft future videos going forward
to hook those viewers better and to keep
them watching longer and longer periods of time
on your content.
Which will give you more watch time, then session watch time,
which will boost how your videos perform
and search in suggested videos and how YouTube exposes you.
And then your channel starts to get a lift and more exposure
overall.
If you're not familiar with audience retension and graphs,
I'll put a link in the description
and that will teach you more about that.
Number six-- I recommend finding ways
to tap into existing communities to get exposure.
It's really hard to grow a new community from scratch.
So consider making content that taps into other people's
communities.
For example, maybe make some videos
that tap into the Harry Potter community
or maybe into a movie that's coming out
or is popular or celebrities or even
tapping into other YouTube creator's communities.
I actually did that here on the Video Creators channel.
I made a video that reviews Casey Neistat's blogging set
up.
So people who are familiar with Casey Neistat
are more likely to watch that video
and thus, get introduced to this channel.
And get content that's relevant to them as creators, which
is my target audience here at Video Creators,
as well as sharing a common interest in Casey Niestat--
kind of pulls them in.
And number seven-- study everything you can.
When you watch other people's videos on YouTube,
try to reverse engineer what's working well for them, what's
not working well for them.
Pay attention to what titles and thumbnails
you feel like you're most attracted to clicking on.
And then ask yourself why this one and not that one?
Pay attention to how different creators hook their viewers
in the first 15 seconds of their videos
to keep them watching more.
Learn design layout principles.
Learn camera production and video production and editing,
and work on your on-camera presence and personality
and so much more.
It just takes time and you can do this.
Guys, I know it feels frustrating
and I know maybe sometimes some of you guys are like,
you know what?
I don't think it's possible anymore to become a YouTube
star and grow a YouTube channel, and that's absolutely not true.
I work with channels that have gone
from zero channel to 60 million views
a month in only like three or four months.
Others have gone to 20 million views in nine months.
Guys, you can do this.
It's still possible.
What those channels did to accelerate their learning curve
is some of them were publishing three, four, five videos a day.
That's right, every day.
I can't do that.
Not everyone can do that, but that's what they're doing.
They're just accelerating their learning process
as fast as possible.
Each of them had done crazy amounts of research.
They had Excel spreadsheets, all mapped out with ideas
and I want to encourage you guys.
Keep going and if you feel like you want to quit,
I actually have a guide-- a YouTube guide to not quitting
on your YouTube dreams.
Because I've been there and I made this video
around that same time when I was feeling some of the pressure,
too.
So that link is in the description
below to go to that video or a card will pop up here
and you can click on that, too.
One of the awesome things about the Video Creator's community
is that there are a lot of creators here
who have passed a hundred subscribers.
And so if that's you, I would love
for you to share some of your tips, some of your advice.
What did you do that pushed you past that first 100
subscribers?
And if you don't yet have your first 100,
read the other tips and advice other creators
are leaving for you in the comments.
You will learn a ton from them.
I always learn from them every single week we do this video.
So thank you guys for helping each other out, supporting
each other down there.
If this is your first time here at Video Creators,
I would love to have you subscribe.
Why?
Because this channel is going to help you grow your audience.
It's going to help you spread your message
and reach people who really need to hear what you have to say.
So thank you and this awesome community
be a small part of that.
Subscribe and I will see you guys again next Thursday
for another YouTube training video.
See you then.
Bye.