- So you wanna be a YouTuber
and you wanna get your first 1000 subscribers.
What if I told you one of the biggest
content creators of all time, MrBeast,
was a small YouTuber just five years ago
with 8000 subscribers?
What if I told you, even before that,
MrBeast had to make 100 videos to get less
than his first 1000 subscribers?
He actually didn't even get 800 subscribers
from his first 100 videos here on YouTube.
And that was actually his second attempt
at becoming a YouTuber.
Today I'm gonna talk about how you can get your first
1000 subscribers on YouTube a little bit faster,
especially if you're feeling stuck as a small YouTuber
and you're on the verge of giving up.
And spoiler, this is not gonna be
like the other YouTube tips videos.
This is gonna have content that you've actually never seen
or heard before, because I'm gonna tell you
a couple of things that I think you really need to know
if you want your first 1000 subscribers.
I'm gonna break down how many views it actually takes
to get your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube,
and why you need to use the 1% rule,
something you've probably never even heard of.
I'm gonna tell you how you can script and structure
your videos in order to get more of your viewers
to convert into being subscribers in the first place.
And because I know some of you wanna monetize
your YouTube channel, maybe you wanna invest
in some better camera gear so you can make better videos,
or maybe you just need some extra cash,
I'm going to tell you how to get
the 4000 hours of watch time that you need
in order to monetize your YouTube channel
and activate YouTube AdSense
and get your first YouTube paycheck.
And then I think we'll end the video with telling you
exactly why most YouTubers never grow, why they're stuck,
and why they aren't getting any more subscribers.
Let's jump into the video.
Hey, everybody, this is Roberto Blake
helping you create something awesome today.
Welcome back to the channel.
So today we got another YouTube tips video for you,
and we're gonna be telling you how to get your first
1000 subscribers here on YouTube,
and how to actually grow as a small YouTuber.
Now, I know, I know what you're thinking.
How the hell can I tell you how to grow 1000 subscribers?
I'm so out of touch.
You're a big YouTuber, you don't know how it is.
Well, you know what, back in my day, back in my day,
YouTube was actually a lot harder than it is today.
Back in my day we didn't have all this fancy camera gear,
my first camera didn't even have a flip out screen.
And I'm joking, I joke, I joke.
I've actually helped coach and train a lot of YouTubers,
big and small.
We've actually done Q&A live streams here on the channel,
and I've done YouTube channel reviews
for people here on the channel,
and helped them grow significantly.
A lot of those people have 100,000 subscribers today
and have Silver Play buttons.
And the funny thing is, the simple fact
is that there is a common sense approach to YouTube.
Even today, a lot of the tried and true methods
are really there for you,
because human behavior doesn't change.
And as much as we talk about the YouTube algorithm,
when it comes to your first 1000 subscribers,
it really doesn't matter that much.
The most important part of YouTube always remains true,
you have to create value for your viewers,
you have to be able to resonate with them,
you have to relate to them, you have to be approachable.
You have to make quality content,
which doesn't always require
the fanciest camera gear in the world.
They are gonna subscribe partly because of your personality,
but also because of the performance, the delivery,
and the care that they see that you're putting into
the production and editing of your content.
If you make a good experience for viewers,
and if you are talking about things
that they also care about,
if you're trying to build a real community,
you're gonna be able to grow as a YouTuber.
You don't need to live in fear of the shadow
of the wretched YouTube algorithm.
Your feeble skills are no match
for the powers of the algorithm.
And again, I'm kidding here,
but you don't have to think about that stuff
if you're just trying to get 1000 subscribers
and meet those first milestones.
So, joking aside, let's talk about the 1% rule,
and let's talk about how many views
you need to get 1000 subscribers.
Now, I came up with some very interesting math
in auditing YouTube channels big and small over the years,
and I came up with an interesting conclusion
that makes total sense to me
as somebody from the business world.
For those of you who don't know,
I'm a creative entrepreneur.
I run a lot of online business ventures.
And the funny thing is, in sales and marketing,
we usually see a one to 2% conversion rate.
If we have a bunch of traffic,
the odds are that of all the people who came to a website,
of all the people who got shown an ad,
one to 2% of them act on it.
And me, I like to just assume the worst,
so we're gonna go with 1%,
1% of all the people will do what we want them to do.
And if what that is for you
is you want them to subscribe to your YouTube channel,
and the odds are for every 100 views,
you get one subscriber.
For every 1000 views, you get 10 subscribers.
For every 10,000 views, you would get 100 subscribers.
And if you want 1000 subscribers on your YouTube channel,
it's probably gonna mean that you need to get
100,000 lifetime channel views
in order to hit that threshold,
assuming that 1% of the people who see your content
decide that they want to see more of it,
decide that they actually like your personality
or they like the way you present information
or they were entertained by the delivery, the performance,
the way you edited, your sense of humor, whatever it is,
you've got to assume that 1% of the people
who come in the door
are gonna decide to stay and join the club.
Now, I know what you're thinking.
Well, Roberto, if I could get those kinds of views,
I wouldn't have a problem.
Well, I understand.
Views are going to come down to five really important things
that I've talked about in other videos,
I'm gonna link to a lot of other videos that can help you
grow a YouTube channel down below.
It's not the only thing we talk about on this channel,
we talk a lot about making money online.
YouTube is a really good way to do that
if you do it properly, so if you like that kind of stuff,
go ahead and subscribe,
go ahead and just take care of that right now.
And we'll move on, hit the notification bell.
Let's keep going.
So here are the five things that ultimately
help you get more views on YouTube,
and I've done other videos about that, like I said.
You need to obviously have good titles and good thumbnails.
I think that's obvious to a lot of people
because if we don't see you put effort into that,
we don't know that relates to us and what we care about,
but we also are gonna make an assumption on the thumbnail,
especially the thumbnail,
that the quality you put into the thumbnail
reflects the quality that we can expect from the video
and whether it's gonna waste our time or not.
The title is gonna say what we are interested in
and it's gonna tell us whether
we're wasting our time or not.
And then you also have to pick a topic.
If you pick a topic that nobody's interested in,
that nobody cares about, or doesn't have
a broad enough audience, then you're not gonna get
the traffic that you're looking for,
and therefore you're not gonna get
the attention that you're looking for.
It's obvious that there are some things
that have more attention than others,
but you also have to be realistic
about where you might be competitive
when it comes to that attention.
That comes down to choosing the right niche,
something I'll talk about in another video.
I'll also talk about the most profitable niches
that make money on YouTube, so subscribe.
So yeah, that's three, topic, title, thumbnail,
probably what you would say are the big three.
But then there are two other important things,
timing and targeting.
Timing is everything,
whether it's the best time to upload your video
because your audience is actually awake,
or timing because you are using first mover advantage.
Everyone knows that being early to YouTube,
being early to a trend or being the first one
to get out a video on breaking news
or doing it in the first day, that timing all matters.
It can be the difference between a video going viral
or a video being stagnant, okay?
So, we all know that timing is important,
but I don't think you know how important timing is,
and that timing has literally made
some of your favorite YouTubers.
And the last one's a little bit harder.
This is targeting, it's picking the right target audience.
And frankly, it comes down to figuring out
who you want to attract.
And the easiest thing I say even though
I know it sounds boring as hell,
it's probably something your parents told you,
is you have to really be yourself,
but you have to know yourself,
and then I would say make content for people like you.
Make something that you would want to watch.
Become the content creator you would want to watch.
Ultimately, when I talked to MKBHD, Marques Brownlee,
one of the biggest creators on this platform,
he's been here over a decade, made over 1000 videos,
has over, what, 15 million subscribers now?
Marques told me that he created the YouTuber
that he wanted to watch.
And I thought that was one of those powerful things
I think I've ever heard before.
So, I think that that's really good advice
for the rest of you.
If you want to get more viewers
and if you want those viewers to become subscribers,
make valuable content that they would care about.
Make the content that you yourself would wanna watch.
Let's talk about structuring and scripting your videos.
Guess what, guys? I don't use scripts.
I don't use scripts. I improv everything.
And it's hard as hell.
I would probably make better content if I used scripts,
except for, I think, my delivery would suck,
because I'm bad at memorizing things.
Horrible at memorizing things.
I'm horrible at reading scripts.
When I do courses,
the teleprompter is my sworn mortal enemy.
I hate it.
It's necessary for those things,
necessary for tutorials, and I hate it.
But what I do is I cheat.
I use bullet points in my phone,
and I literally reference them in between my takes
and my water breaks
while I'm filming this video in one shot.
So there you go, that's my cheat code.
I just use my phone, hacks on hacks on hacks.
But seriously, I outline my content
so that there is some structure
and there's some sanity to it,
and so I don't just end up rambling,
and so that I can make sure that I'm hitting
all of my important talking points.
Sometimes I'll even remind myself
to make these stupid jokes.
But since this is an education channel,
I have to also make it edutainment,
I have to make it at least somewhat entertaining,
and I do that with my authentic personality.
And since I know that I can't read scripts,
I know that I have to use bullet points
and I have to use structure.
And I use that to create a better flow for my videos,
I use it to show off my personality.
And so I think that you really have to have
a clear beginning, middle and end for your videos,
and you have to know what points you wanna hit,
and you have to be able to showcase that personality,
you have to deliver value for people.
And you need that if you're gonna keep them watching
long enough in order to make up their mind
and decide that they want to subscribe.
It's also gonna help you when it comes to
the watch time you need.
Now, earlier I told you that MrBeast made 100 videos
and he did not even get to 1000 subscribers.
And I made a video talking about him, PewDiePie, and MKBHD,
and it's really a powerful video
if you feel like you need motivation as a YouTuber.
I'm gonna link to it down below.
It's called "Make 100 Crappy YouTube Videos."
I think it's important to have an experimental phase
in YouTube where you're just trying to learn things,
whether you're trying to learn your camera gear,
learn how to get comfortable on camera,
or figure out what works for you and what your style is,
what you like doing.
I think that's important,
and you shouldn't worry about growing fast
if you are in that phase and you don't know what you want.
Or you don't know who you are.
But what you would have to do to get 1000 subscribers
and to get that watch time is you are gonna need
to get at least the 100,000 views,
unless you have the most dynamic personality in the world,
which I do not.
And that would do it faster.
But you're gonna see this ratio plays out.
I think I'm up to about 30 million views on this channel,
I have, what is it, 450,000 subscribers.
So guess what, 1.5%, 1.5%.
So, this math tends to even out.
It's not a hard and fast rule,
but it is a really good guideline,
and here's why I think it matters.
4000 hours of watch time that you need to monetize
your YouTube channel comes out to 240,000 minutes, okay?
So that's almost a quarter million minutes.
Now, when we think about 240,000 minutes,
I mean, look at getting 100,000 views.
If you could average three minutes of watch time
on those videos, then your channel
has a really good shot at meeting the requirements.
Because then you'd have about, on average,
300,000 minutes, 300,000 minutes of watch time,
so you would translate that, like we said,
4000 hours is 240,000 minutes.
So if you're averaging three minutes of watch time
over the course 100,000 views, you're gonna make it.
And if 1% of the people of those 100,000 views
decide to subscribe to your channel, you're gonna make it.
Now, I don't know how many videos you'll have to make
in order to hit that threshold.
If you got 1000 views on every video,
it might take you 100 videos.
That's why you can't put the pressure on yourself
to just do this as fast as possible.
You may not be able to fit doing those videos into your job,
your school, your family, whatever your lifestyle is,
you need to figure out a common sense approach to YouTube
where you don't get overwhelmed
and where you don't compare yourself
and where you don't fall into this trap
of just trying to race to the finish line,
because YouTube is a marathon, it is not a sprint.
And I guess that finally brings us to why
most YouTubers never grow.
And even if they hit 1000 subscribers,
why they struggle so hard to get beyond that.
And I think a lot of it comes down to taking shortcuts.
I think a lot of it comes down to simply not
putting the audience first.
Once people get a few subscribers,
once they get 1000 subscribers,
they start trying to do YouTubery things.
They start trying to play the YouTube metagame,
and they stop realizing that
most of the people who see your videos
are experiencing you for the first time.
They're not gonna know about the inside jokes.
They're not going to be a part of what you're doing.
And you're alienating them by saying,
well, I'm making videos for those 1000 subscribers.
You need to make videos those 1000 subscribers will enjoy,
but you also need to make videos that someone could enjoy
and somebody could like and someone could want to share
even if they've never heard of you before.
Even if they've never heard of you before,
even if they have no clue who you are,
which most of them will not,
then you need to respect that
and you need to make content that is a gateway for them.
Most YouTubers stop growing
because they stop making videos to grow their channel.
They start making videos that they wanna make exclusively.
They start making videos based on what they're interested in
without testing it or seeing if anybody else is.
They make videos for that small tight knit community.
Which is fine, but that's not what grows a channel.
And so if you wanna grow a channel,
you're gonna have to put the audience first.
And not just the audience you have,
but the audience you want to have.
Because that's how growth happens.
In business we call this new market share,
new customer acquisition,
we want to keep growing the market,
we wanna keep introducing our brand to new people
and converting them and bringing them in,
making them part of the family, making them obsessed,
making them a cult if we possibly can,
and always buy our overpriced products
and our incremental upgrades.
Yeah, I said it.
But in all seriousness, you need to think about
how you can put a new viewer first
without disrespecting the viewers you already have.
And if you can accomplish that,
then you're gonna keep growing as a YouTuber.
And if you get too comfortable,
which is what most people do,
then you're not gonna grow, you're gonna stagnate,
and you're gonna wonder why.
Because you're gonna say to yourself,
well, I'm doing what got me here this far,
and you may or may not be doing that.
But the reality is what you're not doing
is you're not thinking like a fan,
you're not putting the viewer first,
and that always has to matter.
You have to create value for the viewer
or nothing else happens.
They don't click, they don't subscribe,
they don't smash the like button for the YouTube algorithm,
they don't do any of it
if they don't feel that you're respecting their time.
Question of the day.
Did you learn something new today about YouTube?
And what else do you want me to cover
on the YouTube channel?
Do you want me to do a video on budget gear
that you can actually afford as a small YouTuber?
Do you want some tips on how to do keyword research?
What do you want to know?
And also, again, what have you learned on this video
or from the channel?
Let me know in the comment section.
Also, do me a huge favor.
Please get this video to 2000 likes,
because I'm running experiment with whether likes
affect the YouTube algorithm, and it's gonna help me out.
So, like I said, like this video if you like it,
don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome content here on the channel,
playlist down below.
As always, you guys, thanks so very much for watching,
and don't forget, go out there
and create something awesome today.
Take care.
(upbeat music)