- Let's be honest with each other.
You as a creator didn't start your YouTube channel
to get 10, 50, or 100 subscribers, right?
You want to make money, don't you?
And you clicked on this video
because you want to monetize your channel.
And in order to do that, you need 1,000 subscribers.
That is the only reason anybody wants
1,000 subscribers, money.
And I ain't got a problem with that.
So in this video, I'm gonna share with you
the tactics that are going to help you
get to 1,000 subscribers and beyond.
10,000, 50,000, maybe one of these
or maybe even one of these.
Yeah, I'm just showing off at this point.
But remember, and this might be the most important thing
I tell you all video, I'm going to give you the tools,
the tips, the strategies to succeed.
However, it still requires your hard work and application.
And you won't hit 1,000 subscribers tomorrow.
But it will start to happen.
So let's find out where we're all at.
How many subscribers have you got?
How many videos have you made?
How long have you been on YouTube?
Let us know in the comments below.
And the first tip is if you haven't got 100 subscribers,
you are watching the wrong video.
My good colleague Dan here at vidIQ
has already made an excellent video
on how to get 100 subscribers,
which you can watch over here,
after which you immediately return to this video.
Don't go anywhere.
But if you are already over 100 subscribers,
that means you've already got a decent amount of content.
And that's what you should focus on.
When you find channels with similar audiences,
you've likely got some crossover
in terms of a shared audience.
So go to their channel, go to a video tab,
and this is one of the oldest tricks in the book,
but sort by most popular videos.
Now, of those videos, check which ones
are still getting views today.
And you can do this through our historical views tool
on the vidIQ video scorecard.
If the video is still getting a decent number
of views right now in terms of views per hour,
then what you can do is add value to that existing
piece of content in your own voice.
And if you wanted to take this a step further,
you could add that channel as a so-called competitor
in the vidIQ tools to keep track of them in the future.
By making content based off of popular videos
within your video topic, you're establishing
a algorithmic connection.
If a viewer likes video A from a popular creator
and video B, which happens to be yours, is related,
that could result in a recommendation from YouTube.
And that's what you're after.
And new audiences means new potential subscribers.
However, one single video might not be enough
to convince a viewer to subscribe.
So what do you need to do?
Get 'em to watch more of your videos.
The best and easiest way to do this is to leverage
one of the most underrated and yet powerful tools
there is in your YouTube toolkit, end screens.
If a viewer gets to the end of a video,
they are likely very satisfied
and very engaged with the content.
And so at the end of all of your videos,
you should be recommending one video
they should watch and why.
If you stick around until the end of this video,
I'll demonstrate how to do it.
Now, in the previous 100-subscriber video,
Dan talked about retention graphs and how you can find out
if your audience is enjoying or not enjoying your content,
which is really handy.
But how do you find out if your audience
is converting into subscribers?
Well, if you go into the advanced mode
of analytics in the YouTube studio
and select subscription source, you can see where
all of those red button clicks are coming from.
For example, subscriptions that come from watermarks
or end screens fall under interactive features.
Anyone subscribing on your YouTube channel page
will be tallied up through your YouTube channel source
and so on and so on.
Any subscription that comes in while somebody
is watching a video is directly attributed
to that video's watch page.
So why don't we put this to the test, yeah?
If you wanna get more subscribers, great channel,
monetize, we wanna help you get there.
And the best way to enable us
to help you do that is by subscribing
and clicking on a notification bell.
(bell dinging)
See if that works.
And a super quick way to check which videos
bring in the most subscribers is to switch
this data point to by subscribers.
These are all of the videos
bringing in the most subscribers to your channel.
Make more content on those topics.
Now, if you feel as though you're getting plenty of views
but none of them are converting to subscribers,
stick around to the end and I'll show you why that might be.
Now, this is a bit of a generalization
but the longer a viewer stays on YouTube,
the more satisfied they are likely to be by the content.
So rather than focusing on optimizing your videos
to gain more subscribers, optimize your videos
to gain more watch time.
That is a guaranteed way to get YouTube to recommend
your content more often to more people.
Now, yet again, would you believe it?
We've already done a dedicated video on this topic.
But here's a quick fire round on getting more watch time.
Make the beginning of your video, the hook,
as engaging as possible.
Increase audience engagement by directly addressing
your target audience and asking them questions.
Did you notice I asked all of you one
at the beginning of this video.
Always find opportunities to link to more of your content,
be it through end screens, video cards,
pinned comments, playlists.
Write emotion-led, curious titles.
Create bright thumbnails that someone can understand
in less than two seconds.
And tap into the trending topics your channel represents.
So as you move from 100 to 1,000 subscribers,
you wanna start to think about a channel banner.
This should clearly communicate to someone
that light bulb aha moment, instantly telling the viewer
who that channel is for and why.
You don't wanna leave any confusion
or any doubt in that person's mind.
If someone can't figure out within five seconds
of landing on your channel page what's it about,
then you're failing at your messaging.
And so your channel banner, along with your channel trailer
and the about section of your channel, which you set up
during your quest towards 100 subscribers,
should ensure that more and more people
are clicking on that red button more of a time
throughout the life of your YouTube journey.
I would say a good benchmark to work from is getting
at least 10% of your subscribers from your channel page.
And now it's time to remember,
you're not alone on this YouTube journey.
There are millions of creators out there just like you
and probably hundreds of creators just like you
in your video topic, working on similar videos.
And that is an opportunity for collaboration.
Now, some viewers will never have heard of creator A
and some viewers will never have heard of creator B.
But the idea behind a collaboration
is that all of the creators involved
and their combined audiences share these same beliefs,
same interests, same passions.
And through that, they discover new creators
and new channels to subscribe to, including yours.
And now a quick word on playlists.
They are definitely underused and definitely underrated.
Playlists do show up in search results,
so treat them like videos in terms
of their titles and their descriptions.
And you wanna try and keep playlists fairly short,
no more than 10 videos typically.
Don't just throw everything into one playlist
because somebody's gonna look at that and say,
"I ain't watching 674 videos."
My general rule of thumb is this.
If a video can't go into an existing playlist
or doesn't create a brand new one for your channel,
then why did you make that video?
It feels like it's straying away from your channel focus.
Now then, back to why your viewers
might not be converting into subscribers.
A lot of the time, a person won't subscribe
after just watching one video.
They need to watch two, three, four, maybe more.
You need to build trust and establish
a relationship with that viewer.
And you're not really going to do it
if they only watch one video.
Now, the two metrics that will reveal this
are return viewers and average views per viewer.
If this purple line in this graph is flat
and this number is low, say under 1.5,
then you're not doing enough to convince your viewers
to watch more than one video.
In fact, in terms of current channel size
and actual channel health, I think these two numbers
are far more important than subscribers.
But that is a conversation for another video,
which I've already done.
Now, another key and very easy way to get more subscribers
is to simply ask your audience during the video.
But you wanna try and do it in such a way
that respects the viewer.
For example, in this very video, did you notice when,
how, and why I asked you to subscribe?
I explain all of that in this video over here.