- 90% of YouTubers fail
to ever get to 10,000 subscribers on YouTube.
No, I'm not even kidding.
And so if you're watching this
and getting your first 10,000 subscribers on YouTube
has felt like this crucible,
this impossible uphill struggle,
then you're not alone and it's actually pretty normal.
I'll tell you a little YouTube secret,
a little YouTube history.
MrBeast, everybody's favorite content creator,
the guy who's gonna be bigger than PewDiePie?
He had to make over 400 videos
to get his first 10,000 subscribers.
And in his first 100 videos,
he didn't even break 1,000 subscribers.
He wouldn't have even qualified
for the YouTube Partner Program and monetization.
So what are we gonna do
about you getting your first 10,000 subscribers
and how can we make it to where you don't have to make
like 500 videos to accomplish it?
Well, let's get into it.
There are a couple of frameworks
and models that I use to teach YouTubers
how to be successful.
This has worked for my coaching clients.
This has worked for YouTubers for a very long time,
but a lot of times, what happens is,
people don't put this information together
unless it's in a course.
Let's start with how many views
you will probably need to get
in order to get to 10,000 subscribers
so you kind of plan around this and build a goal.
I always use what I call the 1% rule
because every time I go and I look at YouTube channels,
this tends to be true.
For the total views on the entire channel,
usually that translates to about 1%
of their overall subscribers or better.
Now, your mileage may vary on this
based on things like quality, personality,
whether you're being consistent in a niche
or whether you're a variety channel,
but generally speaking, this tends to be true.
The 1% rule holds up.
If you have gotten to 1,000 subscribers on YouTube,
there's a really good chance
that you have roughly around 100,000 views on YouTube.
Now, if you manage to get to 1,000 subscribers
with less than that, congratulations, you're an outlier.
You're actually doing a little bit better
of converting viewers into subscribers.
Most of us mere mortals, you know, we usually do around 1%.
I think I've done slightly better than that
with 35 million views and about 500,000 subscribers.
I'm doing just a little bit better than that,
but not by much.
So if we're getting to 10,000 subscribers,
you wanna target having about a million channel views,
which might sound out of reach,
it might sound far-fetched,
but that's what we're gonna probably need
to accomplish here.
And this is not counting YouTube shorts, by the way.
You're just talking good old fashioned uploads.
So not YouTube shorts and not live streaming.
I won't go so far as to say that either of those things
will dramatically hurt your channel
or hurt your channel growth,
but I do think that when we're talking
about growing a YouTube channel,
we need to be specific
about whether we're doing a short strategy,
a regular video on-demand strategy,
or a live streaming strategy.
Mostly, we're just gonna be talking
about regular good old fashioned YouTube videos.
So now we need to make a plan
and this is a framework that you're gonna use.
You're gonna use a four-part framework to grow on YouTube
no matter how many subscribers you're trying to get.
Whether it's 10,000 subscribers to, you know,
get most of your YouTube features, 50,000 subscribers,
or 100,000 subscribers to get a Silver Play Button.
This is a four-step framework
that I want you to use from now on.
And if you wanna take notes,
whip out a handy-dandy notebook and let's just do it.
Plan,
produce,
publish,
promote.
And I'm gonna say that again for you.
You need to make a plan around your content.
You need to produce quality content.
You need to publish
and package it correctly for your audience.
And then you need to promote it to a community
that cares about the same things you care about.
And that is how we're gonna grow a YouTube channel,
no matter what our goal is.
So our plan revolves around the assumption
that you've at least gotten
to your first 1,000 subscribers on YouTube.
If you haven't done that yet,
then you'll wanna watch my video
on exactly how to get your first 1,000 subscribers
and then come back to this one
once you've achieved that goal.
So our current plan revolves around the idea
that you've gotten that first 1,000 subscribers.
What we're gonna do
is we're gonna go to our YouTube analytics
and we're gonna find which videos
have actually performed the best for us
in terms of getting subscribers.
Not views, but which videos got us the most subscribers.
And now we can make a plan and look at those topics
and look at those videos
and think about why those videos got us more subscribers.
And what you really wanna focus on
is probably your top 10 performers of all time.
Your top 10 performers of all time
are probably the best foundation
for growing your channel in almost any scenario.
For some of you, once you get a deeper content library,
it might even be the top 20, or it might be the top 10%
the more videos that you've made over time.
But for now, let's just focus on your top 10 performers
in terms of subscribers.
These videos are showing us what people want more of.
These videos are showing us what topics people care about,
which titles resonated with them,
and then what their expectations are
and what they are telling us
was a quality video worth subscribing and supporting.
And that's gonna be our key.
And with these videos and planning our topics,
titles, our thumbnails, or even our, you know,
video editing and production
around the best performing videos,
that's actually gonna help us a lot later at the end
to know what we need to promote
and how we need to promote it.
So little hint here, even with comes the step number four,
if you already have videos that are getting you subscribers
and if they are converting, even better,
if they're converting more than 1%
of the people who viewed them into new subscribers,
promote those videos more.
We're not just gonna publish more
and produce more of those videos.
We actually need to promote what's already working.
And this is a huge thing
that actually keeps a lot of small YouTubers
from growing faster, is they will not go ahead
and take a performing video, a performing asset,
and just promote and market it more
and squeeze just more juice out of that thing.
Milk it.
Don't be afraid to go ahead
and take a video that has already resonated
and performed and done well and got you new subscribers
and put it out there and share it with people.
Use it in your Community tab, put it out on Twitter,
ask people that you know in the same community
that love the content you love,
ask those people to share it on Reddit.
We'll get to promoting later, but just understand.
This is what holds people back.
They don't use what they already have that's already working
and they always want to just be excited
about chasing the next shiny thing.
Now in terms of producing quality content,
a lot of people on YouTube make the mistake
of confusing value and quality.
Value is where the whole topic, title,
thumbnail, and timing comes in
because that's about what we relate to,
what's relevant to us, what we resonate with.
That's important to us because it qualifies
whether we can watch a video or not,
whether we're gonna be a viewer or not.
Value equals views, not quality.
Quality content is important
because that's what converts subscribers, okay?
And then quantity is consistency.
So consistency in what we publish and how often we do it
and when we do it, that actually helps us grow and scale
because if you have something that's quality,
then you probably need to just use it more
and put it out there more and do more of it,
which we already talked about.
So how do you make quality content?
Well, remember, what we value is it all in the topic,
title, thumbnail, to get us to click on the video.
Your next step is you can't have people
clicking off the video in under 30 seconds.
So in terms of things that get people
to click away from a video in under 30 seconds,
bad audio usually does it.
Blurry, out of focus, poorly lit video,
that's another thing that could do it,
but it's not as damaging as bad audio.
The other thing is you gotta jump into the video,
get to the point, qualify the viewer,
reinforce what they're thinking, what they're feeling,
tease their curiosity.
You gotta deliver the goods.
And you actually have to be good at delivering said goods.
Meaning, you're on-camera energy and performance.
You don't have to fake a personality.
You don't have to be an extrovert.
I'm actually very introverted.
I only maybe present slightly extroverted on camera
'cause I'm in my safe space
here in my fortress of solitude,
surrounded by all of my favorite things.
When I was a baby YouTuber starting out,
if you watch my oldest videos, they're very bad.
They're very, very bad.
There's very little chance you can make a worst video
than my first 100 videos.
It's very unlikely.
So good news for you.
So what is a quality video?
Comes in three parts, okay?
Comes in on-camera performance,
which is your confidence on camera.
Your, you know, that ability to be charismatic.
Your ability to communicate clearly
and your ability to emotionally connect with an audience.
So those are the three Cs, okay?
Confidence, communication, and connection.
Those are three Cs that is your performance.
Then, it's down to your production, okay?
This is what they see.
This is what they experience.
So the viewer experience matters.
So I largely put this down to lights,
camera, audio, editing.
Audio, like I said, big turn off if the audio is bad.
Editing is knowing what to cut, knowing what to keep,
you know, maybe you have color accuracy
in terms of your color grades.
That helps a lot, especially with skin tones,
you know, makes it a less off-putting video visually.
Having a camera that has good auto focus.
And you know, that is very important for,
you know, just not being distracting.
Same thing with lighting.
It's about quality, it's about not being distracting,
and allowing them to have a good video experience.
They watch your videos and they don't see that,
they've got plenty of other options
where they're gonna get that.
Like I said, editing, you don't need fancy editing tricks.
It's mostly that you have to be able to, you know,
help correct anything with regard to your audio.
Cut out errors and omissions, cut out fluff.
You know what to cut, know what to keep.
And then color accuracy with regard to color correction
and color grading is probably your best bet.
Don't be fancy.
You don't need all these film lots.
You just need stuff to look natural.
And then finally, there's personality.
And our three Ps.
It's, you know, performance, production, and personality.
As far as your personality goes, look,
people are gonna like you or they're not.
But the important thing is to be authentic
in the way that you, you know,
create your content or be consistent.
If you've created a caricature of yourself
like PewDiePie or Markiplier,
you know, you have to be consistent
and follow through and commit to the bit.
If you're doing comedy or entertainment,
you have to commit to the character you've created.
If you're doing entertainment,
if you're not doing entertainment,
and you're vlogging or you're teaching,
then you have to be authentic.
You have to be accurate
and you also need to make sure that, you know,
this is something that you're not gonna outgrow
and that you're not alienating people for no good reason.
I think all of those things go a long way
in turning a viewer to a subscriber.
They have to feel like supporting you.
And so, when it comes to your authentic personality,
they either like it or they don't.
So we covered planning and production,
let's talk about publishing.
Big thing that a lot of people
are superstitious about is like,
when do I publish my videos?
What's the right day?
What's the right time?
Make sure your audience,
I'll give you a three-part framework.
Make sure your audience is active, aware, and awake,
which for most of us, if you live in the United States,
means don't publish at midnight if you can help it.
I've made 1,500 videos on YouTube.
I've published basically
at every single hour of every single day
when it comes to my main channel.
I've also run experiments with my music channel,
where like I posted for like 28 days
at exactly the same time every day without missing.
I've done all these experiments and what I can tell you
is that videos are on demand experiences.
So people click when they want to,
but you can take advantage of trends and timing.
The big focus when it comes to publishing your content
really should be on topic, title, and thumbnail.
That is what generally is gonna get somebody
to click on a video 'cause it's about what they value
and what is relevant to them and what they relate to.
I think it's important to have topics
where you feel very confident about the audience
that you're making this for.
That's why I'm telling you to lean into videos
that've already performed for you
and things where you basically stay in your lane.
I know that a lot of people want,
ah, I wish I could make anything and get views for it.
It doesn't typically work that way,
at least not when you're a small YouTuber
and you're starting out.
So focus a lot on topic consistency.
If there's something where you do believe
that you can bring value, it's okay to publish that.
It's okay once in a while to make a video
that's more or less just for yourself,
but you should have no emotional connection
to how that video performs.
If it does well, great.
If it doesn't, you knew what this was.
Prioritize around optimizing your click-through rates
to get more viewers.
If you're making quality videos, this has the best chance
of then those viewers becoming subscribers
and that's what's going to help grow your channel.
Try to publish as consistently as you can.
I know that every single topic
doesn't lend itself to you publishing weekly videos
on YouTube, but what did grow my channel
and helped me and it helps most people on this platform
is publishing at least once a week.
Every time that I have not done that,
I've kind of paid a price for it.
Even as a large YouTuber,
taking massive breaks or infrequent uploads
has always slowed down the growth
and momentum of my channel.
So basically, you could look at it
like filling up your gas tank,
which is getting very expensive.
You could look at it like,
I need to put something in the tank
to keep this thing moving.
I need to keep this engine moving
so I'm just gonna keep putting things into the tank.
That doesn't mean
that you have to make massive compromises on quality.
If you are coming with the same energy on camera
and you got the same light, same audio, same microphone,
it's like the quality isn't necessarily gonna go down.
Unless we're talking about the quality
of your ability to come up with ideas
and just do that in advance.
Brainstorm more than one idea at a time.
That will help you with content.
Even if you can't batch record, you have a plan,
you have a series, you have a playlist, you have a theme.
So that's gonna help you a lot.
And then finally, number four,
you need to be promoting your videos to the right people.
Now I'm not saying
you have to have all these other social media platforms.
Sometimes, it helps.
Sometimes, for most of you, it is a distraction
if you're trying to specifically grow YouTube.
However, I do think for some of you,
having the ability for your audience
to connect with you in Reddit or Instagram
or Twitter could be beneficial.
I usually tell people to have one main content platform
and then one networking platform,
where their audience can connect with them
and where they can also be part of a larger community.
And in my experience, that's what's helped people the most,
is to probably just focus on two platforms at a time.
One is for content, one is for communication,
building a community and a network.
So that's what I think really helps.
As for promoting content,
you also have ways to do that in YouTube,
like using your Community tab is a really good example.
And once you get to 10,000 subscribers,
you'll have more options.
You get the community tab at 500 subscribers,
but once you get to 10,000 subscribers,
there are other features that open up to you in YouTube.
So you'll be able to take advantage of those.
At 30,000 subscribers,
currently as the making of this video,
you get YouTube stories, very similar to Instagram stories.
I really want them to bring that number down.
I'm hoping they bring that down to 10,000 subscribers
or even 1,000 subscribers.
I don't know why 30,000 is what gatekeeps that,
but I digress.
But just remember, you can be promoting
in the YouTube Community tab.
And so you could be running polls
to help figure out what your audience cares about more
in the moment and what you can make.
You can actually promote your old videos
in the YouTube Community tab.
And if I were you, I would be promoting the ones
that have gotten you the most subscribers in the past
and I would be promoting those.
In terms of how often to use the YouTube Community tab,
I would be using it everyday
and I would probably use it twice a day.
I'd probably use it in the morning
and then in the afternoon or evening,
and you can use that for polls.
You can post images, you can post image polls,
you can do text post, you can share videos,
and you can share playlist.
So that is a strong built-in promotional tool
for you in YouTube.
And the good news is it reaches beyond your subscribers.
It reaches beyond your subscribers,
so you should treat it
like it's its own form of content itself
that you can use to promote yourself and grow your channel.
If you were trying to make money,
you could use it to promote merchandise
or affiliate stuff or your own products.
But the key for a lot of you,
since you're watching this video
is you want more subscribers.
So I would promote the videos
that have gotten me the most subscribers.
That is the thing that I would probably be doing
if your goal is growth.
You already know this content works,
so just help it reach more people
so that it can do more work for you.
And then in terms of what to make going forward,
again, using the Community tab is a good way
to get a feel for your audience.
And then you're knowing instead of guessing.
And there you go, that's exactly how you can get
to 10,000 subscribers on YouTube.
If you enjoy this YouTube advice and my tips,
make sure you're checking out my other YouTube tip series.
I'll link that playlist in the description down below.
Also, if you want to get to 100,000 subscribers,
there's probably a couple of videos on the show,
you could watch about that.
As always, thank you so much for watching.
And don't forget, go out there
and create something awesome today.
Take care.