- Your first 100 subscribers on YouTube.
Every channel that attempts this major milestone
is going to face its own set of struggles along the way.
But what in particular can gaming channels do
to overcome this first hurdle?
That's exactly what we're gonna talk about today.
- [Man] vidIQ
- [Woman] vidIQ.
- [Man] vidIQ.com.
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- Thanks for checking back in.
I'm Dan, and don't forget to subscribe
because this is vidIQ.
The YouTube tool and channel
that helps educate you along your YouTube journey.
Now before we dive straight in,
let me know in the comments,
how long have you been doing YouTube,
making videos specifically.
And, in that time, how many subscribers
have you gained on your channel.
Now I personally feel like
even if you don't have a gaming channel
that these tips may be interchangeable in some cases,
but if you want some more broad advice,
Rob did cover getting your first 100 subscribers
here at vidIQ very recently,
so be sure to check out that video.
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Naturally as you start on YouTube,
you're going to be asking people to subscribe to you.
Truth be told, if you have a gaming channel
there is one fact that you need to grapple with,
and that is that every year, it gets easier and easier
to record gameplay content from your PC,
and then begin editing it in to a video.
Games are becoming more optimized for lower end machines.
If you play games on YouTube,
you really don't need a face cam,
and let's not forget that fact
that games are just really fun to play.
So as you can imagine,
competition in the gaming space on YouTube is heavy.
And it's my belief that as time goes on
that competition is only going to go up
as YouTube is only taking more and more steps
to attract even more gaming content creators
to the platform.
So as you continue on your YouTube journey
towards that first 100 subscribers
you need to ask yourself,
why should people subscribe to me?
And once you determine that,
that needs to become your value proposition
as we say here at vidIQ.
Your value proposition on YouTube is simply
what makes your channel valuable,
and if that's something you've not done yet,
that's my first assignment for you.
Determine your value proposition
and then make it clear up front.
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So hypothetically speaking,
you have your value proposition
and it happens to be,
I'm gonna make sure you're the best you can be at Temtem.
Watch my channel, stick with me
and you will master this video game.
If you have less than 100 subscribers
what you have to remember about that value proposition
is that now you need to build
some credibility and authority.
You need to put your money where your mouth is
and show us just exactly
how you're gonna help us master the game of Temtem.
You could do this in a multitude of ways.
You could do tutorials,
you could give your take on Temtem
versus games like Pokemon, or you could show highlights
of some of your best moments in the game
where you conquered some
of the most challenging boss fights.
But keep in mind, in the early stages of YouTube
when you've built no credibility or no authority,
it does take time.
It does take time to build that up
and you're gonna need probably a few videos under your belt
before people start seeing that,
oh wow, you actually are the master of Temtem.
Subscribe.
I gotta get good like you.
That last bit of advice I just gave you assumes
that you've niched down your content
to at least one genre of game,
if not one game all together, in this case, Temtem.
I recently did a video on the subject
and I highly recommend checking it out if you get a chance
because I go over exactly how I would go about nicheing down
into at least a genre of a game.
Once you have that genre or that game
that you're gonna play on your channel exclusively,
I'd recommend getting yourself a healthy library of videos.
Even if your plan is just to make one video a week,
I would recommend, if you've made no videos at this point,
starting out with about three to five videos
on the subject that you're covering.
This will do a few things for you.
For one, it's gonna help your potential subscribers
know exactly what kind of content they're gonna get
if they come back wanting more.
Secondly, you're giving YouTube more data
to help better categorize your channel.
The third thing this is gonna do
is give you the opportunity to diversify your content
out of the gate.
Let's say you don't wanna just make Temtem tutorials,
but you do wanna do just some generic let's play content
where it's just you playing the game for 20 or 30 minutes.
You can do a couple of let's plays.
You can mix in a tutorial and a review.
Now your potential subscribers have a really good idea
of what kinds of videos you make around this game
or the genre of games and it helps them better determine,
yeah, I think I want more, I think I'm gonna come back.
This seems like the perfect opportunity
to show you the channel audit tool we offer here at vidIQ.
(clapping)
This is the vidIQ channel audit tool
and I've just done a channel audit of vidIQ's own videos.
As you build up a library of videos,
you're going to be getting a lot of data points.
You could check the channel audit tool
and take a look at videos
that are getting decent views, decent engagement,
and go back and maybe, if you can,
double down on that kind of content.
Give your audience more of the things
that they're coming back for.
You'll see here that we practice what we preach.
Our videos about starting a gaming channel
and about getting your first 100 subscribers,
both doing pretty well.
We wanna deliver more value
to that audience who wants this type of content.
So, here we are.
Alternatively, you can also use this tool
to determine videos that could use a little more work,
and you can go into these videos and determine
why did people only watch these
for only a little bit of time,
how come I'm getting lower like ratios,
I wonder what's going on there.
This is an opportunity for you
to learn from your old content and in the future,
make videos that are better and better.
These videos are already proven
and if you can double down on that content
you're going to hit that 100 subscriber goal a lot faster.
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So you've picked your game and you're genre
and you know exactly how you're gonna cover it
and you understand
that this is gonna get you your first 100 subscribers
because now you're giving them value
on a very specific topic
that you know they're gonna come back for.
So with that out of the way,
the next thing we need to focus on
is your thumbnails.
Now generally speaking, I've seen countless creators
do one of two things.
Either they take a screenshot from the game
and let that be their thumbnail.
Nothing special about it.
In fact, sometimes I've noticed
YouTube just chooses it for them
and it's kind of a scene
that doesn't really match the title of the video
and I'm not really sure what I'm gonna get.
Alternatively, I've seen a lot of over-produced thumbnails
where people try to cram as much text and tiny images
into an already tiny thumbnail
in order to try and communicate
what the video's about in just one little picture.
I can't stress enough,
please don't skimp on your thumbnails.
As gamers, we have a lot of awesome opportunities
to make really colorful, eye-catching thumbnails
because video games have already done half the work
by basically allowing you to play in a work of art.
Now I do understand that some games
make this a little more difficult than others.
Like Temtem is a very visually appealing game,
but what about a game like Braains.io?
Braains.io is kind of a zoomed out, top down game
and taking a screenshot
and trying to make it a fun clickable thumbnail
is little bit tough,
but as you can see here a lot of creators
have kind of found a way to make this work for them.
Now as we scroll through these thumbnails,
you can probably pick out that ones
that you, yourself would like to click on
versus the ones that you might simply just skip over.
The fact of the matter is
even if your game doesn't really allow
for nice screenshots to be taken within it,
be sure to put in that effort yourself
and find a way to make your thumbnails clickable
and eye-catching.
Take a character from your game,
make it the hero of your thumbnail, front and center,
but make sure that people visually connect with your game
rather than just simply taking a top down screenshot
and calling it a day.
So up to this point, if you've been following this advice,
you now how a strong value proposition,
you have amazing thumbnails,
you have a clear idea of exactly what your channel's about
and you've communicated that to your audience.
You're starting to build up that authority
and that credibility by posting a number of videos
that identify you as an expert
on whatever it is you're covering.
Now that you've honed in on that value
that you're offering your viewers,
I can't stress this enough,
it never hurts to ask people to subscribe.
Think of it this way,
they've already clicked on your video out of interest.
They saw your thumbnail and thought oh wow, that looks nice.
They looked at the title and said,
"Oh wow, I actually need to know
"how to beat that boss fight in Temtem."
They've clicked.
Let them know, you do this thing kind of a lot
and you would like them to subscribe.
When you watch videos here at vidIQ
you'll notice that right at the bottom of the screen
we always put something that indicates,
hey, don't forget, you can subscribe.
We make videos like this all the time.
It never hurts to invite people
to explore your library of videos a little bit deeper
and decide if you're a creator
they would like to visit again.
Getting your first 100 subscribers on YouTube
is probably going to be, I would imagine,
the hardest uphill battle you'll have on the platform.
But once you get that first 100,
you may find that 200 isn't far off
because by now, you've built up a lot of credibility.
You have a library of videos.
You have an upload schedule
and your audience is coming back for more.
YouTube is a marathon, not a sprint.
So enjoy the time it takes
to get your first 100 subscribers.
Learn with every video you make
and you'll get there, I promise.
If you haven't answered my question already,
don't forget.
How many subscribers do you have,
and how long have you been doing this whole YouTube thing?
Thank you so much for your time.
We'll see you in the next one.