the truth is I love YouTube I love making video
content but you know what I love a million times more being Lucie
hey everyone it's Lucie fink welcome back to my YouTube channel if you're new here and you
haven't yet subscribed don't forget to hit that red subscribe button down below and if you are an
og fink fan follower welcome back it's so great to have you this is where it all started I have
lipstick on so I'm not gonna kiss that over the past few months I've become very interested in
and very invested in educational offerings I love the act of teaching people how I do what I do and
helping other aspiring content creators become full-time content creators I've already done a
lot of private one-on-one coaching and consulting sessions where I help people build their YouTube
channels get started from scratch or from wherever they're at help them come up with serious ideas
teach them everything I know about production shooting editing uploading SEO optimization all
the good stuff that goes into growing a YouTube channel so just wanted to point that out for
anyone here who is interested in maybe more of a private one-on-one coaching and consulting service
I offer that today's video is all about how I grew my YouTube channel by over 100 000 subscribers in
a year I just recently went to the analytics on the back end of my YouTube channel and as you can
see in the past 365 days my channel has grown by over 100 000 subscribers so how did I do this so
number one SEO or search engine optimization understanding the fact that anytime I go to
upload a YouTube video I'm essentially tagging this video with words and tidbits of information
that is telling YouTube what this video is about and those bits of information that I give YouTube
that's the only way YouTube knows what my video is about and that's the only way YouTube knows
who to serve it to so that it can help the video get more views you don't want to just upload a
video to the number of subscribers that you have and hope that all of the views come from your
subscribers you actually want a large number of your views to come from people who are not
following your channel already and that's how you are introduced to new eyeballs and new people
so when it comes to SEO there's the title of the video there's the description box and then there
are also those keywords that you tagged the video with on the back end of YouTube all of these work
in conjunction to tell YouTube what your video is about and to help serve it to the appropriate
audience one of the things that has really been life-changing for me when it comes to YouTube is
doing this SEO research before I pick up the camera to shoot a video so a lot of people try
to do this backwards they think about what videos they find interesting what they want
to make a video about and then they figure out how to SEO optimize it on the back end to help
it perform best the thing is though if you do that SEO searching before you shoot a video
you're already optimizing your chances that your video is going to perform better and I'm not
saying you have to completely shift your content to fit the SEO but here's a perfect example if you
are a fashion blogger or a fashion vlogger and you want to make a video about styles and your
favorite styles in a certain time of the year say you're trying to decide between fall outfit ideas
or winter outfit ideas one of the best things to do is just go on to google actually like google
owns YouTube so a lot of the search engines overlap go on to google and type in both search
terms fall outfit ideas winter outfit ideas as soon as you press enter you'll see a number coming
up showing how many items show up in that search so just from that one search you can see that
millions and millions more people are searching for fall outfit ideas as opposed to winter outfit
ideas so now when you're deciding when should I make this video should it be in the fall or winter
you can choose fall because you know more people are going gonna search that and it's gonna help
your video appear in more searches there are also other softwares that can help you figure out
SEO numbers directly on YouTube because the truth is google is not the same thing as YouTube some
of these are free some you have to pay for in my private coaching and consulting services I
walk you through my favorite one and I teach you how I use it it's pretty incredible it gives each
of your videos an SEO score out of a hundred so you know before you go live if your video has a
chance of performing well or if it's likely gonna perform poorly when it comes to SEO you want to
make sure that what you're titling your video is actually something that people are searching for
so if you're making a how-to video you do want to make sure that the title is pretty much exactly
what people are searching for how to tie a tie how to change the oil on your car you don't want
to make it called changing the oil on my car or tying a tie even though it still has little bits
of the SEO in there the more SEO search terms that you get in that title the more likely your video
is to be served to people same thing with the description box so I used to completely neglect
this box I used to write in it something like this video is about growing YouTube views enjoy follow
me on instagram at luciebfink my description boxes were short they did not have a lot of information
and they basically were not helping my video at all when it comes to SEO what you want to make
sure your description box contains is all of the SEO search terms that people might be searching
in relation to your video so for instance for this video I'm going to make sure that in the
description box I have phrases within sentences that are like growing a YouTube channel becoming
a YouTuber how to grow on YouTube how to gain subscribers I'm going to make sure
that I write out all these phrases that people might be searching and that they're all visible
in my YouTube description box and last up are the keywords or the tags that you add
these are basically words or phrases where you're basically telling YouTube all the various
iterations that people might be searching where you want your video to show up in it's important
here to think about every version of a phrase so for instance when I did my plant propagation wall
video the tag said things like DIY plant wall DIY home decor plant wall at home plant wall
at home planter plant propagation plant propagation station water propagation
water plant propagation glass test tube DIY every version that could possibly be searched of course
up to 500 characters because that's all you have is necessary to include in those tags and really
optimizing your video on the backend so that YouTube knows what it's about and YouTube knows
all the keywords that you've tagged it as so anyone searching for something similar
can see this video in their up next bar they're so much deeper that I could go on SEO and I
really think that the back end tool that I use is really great so if anyone's interested in that
send me an email the second thing I did was diversified my content it's really easy to try
to identify a niche and say that you need to stay in that niche because that's the best way to grow
and here's a hot take I don't know how many people are gonna agree with this but I actually think
diverting from your niche every so often is a really great way to gather new eyeballs perfect
example of this would be on my channel I created a lot of lifestyle vlog style content and then
one day I decided to post a dance tutorial I was not a dance channel I'm also not a dancer
I just did a dance video with a choreographer I thought it was fun so I uploaded it to my channel
and it is the most viewed video on my channel to date it currently has about 10 million views
and it has brought me so many new subscribers and as soon as I posted that video and I saw that it
performed well I realized that I should probably make more dance videos even though I'm not a dance
channel and that's not my standard content I just sort of started branching out and creating content
in this other area that seem to be performing well and pretty much all of my dance videos are my top
performing videos on my channel here's the thing now if I wanted to just grow my channel really
quickly and hit a million subscribers I probably should convert my channel to a dance channel but I
don't want to do that because that's not really my passion or interest that was just kind of a
fun side project so I'm not going to completely convert my channel to a dance channel but that
being said I am going to continue to upload dance content every so often and if I had never uploaded
that first dance video just because it didn't fit in with my lifestyle niche I probably would
not be where I am today with my channel so keep in mind you don't necessarily have to stick to
a very rigid niche even a video like this where now I'm creating a little bit of content about
my job and my business and content creation this isn't really in my niche either and the truth is
this video is likely going to perform a little bit worse than the normal content on my channel
because most people are not here for this type of content but I do think it's important to just
create content that is relevant to your life that speaks to where you are in the moment
and that's the stuff you're really interested in because you just never know what's going to stick
you never know what's going to bring you that whole new audience the third way that I've seen
success with growing my YouTube channel has been through adding call to actions or CTAs at the
start and end of every video so you might remember but I'm just gonna rewind here and show you what
I said at the start of this video if you're new here and you haven't yet subscribed don't forget
to hit that red subscribe button down below and you will hear me say that again at the end of
this video this one kind of seems obvious but you really don't realize how many more people hit that
thumbs up button or hit that subscribe button just because you've called it to their attention
I even find myself doing this when I'm watching other creators videos there are loads of times
when I'm watching a video and I'm loving it but I just don't think to give it a thumbs up it just
doesn't cross my mind but then the moment they say if you're liking this video give it a thumbs up I
think oh wow I am liking the video I'm going to give it a thumbs up because I've just remembered
so call out in your content if you're liking this video give it a thumbs up make sure to call out in
the beginning and end if you're new to my channel or if you're old and you haven't subscribed don't
forget to subscribe tell them what subscribing does it helps keep them abreast of new videos
every time you have a new video it will show up on their home page so before we move on
to the fourth tip give this video a thumbs up if you're liking it the fourth way I've grown
my channel is by uploading regularly consistency this is nothing new this is what you will hear
from any successful YouTuber you cannot grow a YouTube channel without being consistent I upload
every single Friday there have only been a couple of times when I've taken time off and it's okay to
take time off I took the entire month of January 2021 off from YouTube but I made it very clear
at the end of December that I was posting around Christmas and then taking a month off and then I
came back in at the end of January early February and I was back and it's okay it's okay to take
time off it's okay to reset I actually think it's great when I took time off it was a great time to
just like reset my mind figure out what I wanted to create content about and just reinvigorate my
creativity spark so it's okay to do that but once you are in that groove do not stop remain
consistent and make sure you're uploading weekly or every other week the next thing I want to talk
about is avoiding burnout I have read far too many articles talking about YouTubers and talking about
this epidemic amongst YouTubers it's kind of like a known thing that a lot of really
really big really successful YouTubers are just miserable and the reason that they give for this
is doing YouTube as a full-time job can definitely be draining in more ways than one emotionally
there can be this heavy burden of always trying to make your new content outperform the last piece of
content you uploaded you can get to a point where you're sort of living your life through metrics
through views and likes and comments and you're really internalizing everyone's feedback about you
and the way you look and the way you talk and a lot of these YouTubers are working against trends
so they're trying to upload videos that are really relevant to the moment to go viral and get as many
views as they can and just blow up so for anyone out there who wants to do YouTube full-time you
want to make this into a career my tip is do not get to a place where YouTube is your life
the truth is I love YouTube I love making video content but you know what I love a million times
more being Lucie being a human living my life being married having friends having family taking
care of my plants I love all of you so much but I also love myself and my normal life more than
I love my life on the internet so I'm not going to completely burn myself out just for the internet
you know I I think in order to have a sustainable business on YouTube you need to make sure that
you're in the right mindset making video content for the right reasons that you're not chasing
views and likes you don't really care too much about how your last video performed you're just
creating content for the art form and because you love telling stories and connecting with people
once you get into that mindset your content is going to flow a lot easier you're not going to put
as much pressure on your channel and your growth and your views you're gonna just start to enjoy
the process more of being a content creator and speaking from the heart one way that I've combated
this burnout is first of all I'm never making videos that are based on a trend of the moment if
you scroll back on my video content pretty much all of my video content is what I like to call
evergreen content meaning if you watch this video today or if you watched this video five years
ago or 50 years in the future it will probably still be relevant and interesting I'm not trying
to create videos that are based on you know viral trends of the minute or things that in a week will
no longer be relevant some people you know more news related channels or pop culture channels have
to do that but with a niche like lifestyle you can just create content about whatever is interesting
to you at that moment in your life and it will probably be interesting to someone else in five
or ten years down the line another way that doing this has helped me avoid burnout is that I don't
have to be shooting a video in a week and having it go up that same week living in that cycle of I
need to get this video shot and edited before the end of the week or else I'm not going to be able
to remain consistent that is a nightmare the best way to live I believe for a sustainable long-term
YouTube channel is to be three to four weeks ahead of your content at any given time so I'm shooting
this video today on march 16th and let's see what day it is when this video goes live kind of in
the same world but a little bit different another way that I've been able to grow my channel is by
not obsessing over the views not every video is going to go viral actually most of your videos
are not going to go viral I would say that the meat and potatoes of your content you know like
the bulk of your channel is going to perform probably pretty average some videos are going
to do really well some videos are probably going to tank and end with way fewer views than most
of your other videos but the good news about YouTube is remembering that all of this content
has a really long shelf life it's not really like instagram where when you upload a piece of content
24 hours later it's pretty much done getting views and likes on YouTube your content can resurface
and recirculate at any given time especially if you go back to those older videos and you
re-optimize them with new titles new description boxes and new tags your content can be popped into
an algorithm months after you upload it or even years later and sometimes the only way that you'll
know this is happening is that you'll start to get a lot of comments on a particular old video you'll
see it in your notification section and you'll think wow this video is now gaining traction
years after I uploaded it and the reason I tell you not to be discouraged by low views is because
a lot of your videos especially your earliest videos are going to get a low number of views
and I feel pretty confident saying that because there are very few people who upload videos to a
new empty channel and just blow up and go viral so I think many people watching this probably
have videos live already that have not performed well and I'm telling you if you look at that and
then you stop creating content because you've been discouraged by the low views your channel will not
go anywhere but if you keep uploading and you keep remaining consistent despite low views you will
have a chance of going somewhere and it's just the chance that's just what we need it's just a chance
and my last tip for growing a YouTube channel is engaging with your community remember that YouTube
is not just a one-sided conversation where you are speaking at your audience and then disappearing
you need to be present in the comments responding to people's questions posting on the community tab
whenever you go live to let your followers know that a new video is live and also posting on all
of your other social media platforms to drive people to that YouTube video I think a lot of
times people who have an instagram following just assume that their instagram audience and
their YouTube audience is the exact same when really there is often not a lot of overlap and
there are totally two separate audiences I have not always just managed my own YouTube channel I
have come from the more traditional media company route I started my career at refinery29 I started
working for their YouTube channel back in 2015. I helped grow their channel from around 100 000
subscribers to over 2 million subscribers in the four years that I worked there and ever since I've
gone off on my own my own channel has seemed to take on a mind of its own and just grow so
I feel like I have a lot of information about the technical back-end aspects of YouTube as well as
the more fun front-end creator-friendly aspects of YouTube today YouTube is a major pillar of my
media company Lucie think media it's one of the main ways that I bring in revenue both through
the back-end ad revenue that YouTube provides as well as sponsors that sponsor my videos and pay me
per project and I just have always been the kind of person who feels like this world of content
creation and creativity is wide open and ready for new people I do not believe it's fully saturated
I don't believe there's no chance of anyone new blowing up on YouTube or instagram in the coming
weeks months or years I think in fact there will be lots of new people that blow up and emerge over
time so maybe that could be you if you're out there and you still haven't even started your
channel yet there is plenty of time don't listen to the people that say you've passed the window
for anyone who does want to create YouTube videos full-time and be able to monetize their channel
through ad revenue you do need to join the YouTube partner program in order to get in
you have to meet the requirements which include 1 000 subscribers on your channel and at least 4 000
valid public watch hours in the past 12 months if anyone out there saw this video and is interested
in working in a more personal one-on-one way once again I do offer private coaching and consulting
services for people who want to build and grow a YouTube channel I actually have a really cool
six-week custom offer where we can work together weekly over video call and we can dive deeply into
your channels and I can help you flesh out a plan and help you get that channel to where you want
it to be I hope you found this video helpful it has been such an incredible journey to watch my
channel grow over the past couple of years I am so excited that we are so close to 300 000
subscribers although I know that YouTube doesn't give any more awards or plaques until I think
it's 1 million so we do have a little ways to go but the truth is I'm loving this experience
I just love showing up and making video content both for you and for myself I'm really excited
that I'm going to have this video content in my future that I can look back on already at
age 28 I love looking back at baby videos of me so I can't imagine when I am you know 50 or 60
being able to look back at these videos from my early 20s and early 30s it's going to be really
really interesting and an incredible thing to have thank you for coming back to my channel and as I
promised i'd say earlier don't forget to hit that subscribe button down below whether you're new or
old as always give this video a thumbs up if you liked watching it and if you haven't already click
that thumbs up from earlier in the video and drop a comment down below to let me know what other
types of videos in this vein you want to see more content about I'm really interested in creating
content for aspiring content creators sharing content all about my business
and how I create content and how I shoot videos so let me know what else you want to see thank you
for coming back to my channel and I will see you next time right here in my new york city apartment
bye