- [Announcer Voiceover] Dun dun dun dun!
This is a special YouTube announcement.
We are pleased to announce that vidIQ
has reached an incredible arsenal of 300,617 subscribers.
What's so special about that?
- [Multiple Voices] vidIQ, vidIQ, vidIQ.com.
- Alright, let's start with an apology first.
It is not easy tracking milestones on YouTube.
Especially views or subscribers
because they change so rapidly.
Just like I've got another 10 subscribers
since I edited at that first bit.
And vidIQ has a habit of breaking milestones
in the middle of the night.
100,000, 200,000, 300,000.
All done at around about 3 a.m. in the morning.
Fortunately, however, even though I was asleep,
I was able to record the exact moment
vidIQ hit 300,000 subscribers all thanks to
everybody's favorite subscriber race.
Oh look, another 40 subscribers.
Yeah, you may have noticed this screen
one some of our other videos we've been making recently.
PewDiePie versus T-Series.
Every night I'm recording this stuff
and turning it into time lapses.
A handy side benefit of doing this,
however, is that I include our sub-count.
So if we get rid of all the fis-fler-bish,
we can see exactly when vidIQ hit 300,000 in our timezone.
(group yelling)
Now I'm sure you're all aware that
when you've reached 100,000 subscribers
you get one of these awesome play buttons,
and to be honest, I love this new design.
But what you might not know is that YouTube
has changed the way they award these.
Now for every 100,000 subscribers...
you get another one.
How awesome is that?
Alright alright, cards on the table, you've got me.
That is a complete lie.
But people have asked me often
how I've come into possession of
three silver play buttons.
So let me tell you the story.
This first one comes from my old channel
le Video Gadgets Journal.
So whenever people ask me, are you Felix?
Or did you run VGJ?
The answer is yes I did.
But nobody likes to talk about it around here.
The second one is from when
vidIQ passes 100,000 subscribers,
but can you see that in the light?
That happened when I took the plaque to VidCon.
Scratched it completely, whoops.
But fortunately what you can do
if you do damage one of your play buttons
is ask YouTube to send you another one,
at a cost, and that is (bleeping).
So that is the story of how we got three silver play buttons
and 300,794 subscribers.
But what did we learn in the process?
Now this is not going to be a perfect list
of how-to tips and tricks to get to 300,000 subscribers.
These are my personal views and opinions
from a YouTube enthusiast.
But before I start, to be honest, I'm a little peckish.
So I'm gonna go for some lunch and when I come back
the subscriber count is gonna look like this.
That's just damn cool.
Let's start with this,
I have made a lot of YouTube videos.
I think around about 1,500 at this point.
But for a very long time there is something
I always neglected because I wanted to make the video
and just get it out there onto YouTube.
What I didn't spend much time on was thumbnails.
We talk about this a lot during our weekly livestream.
A lot of channels have questionable thumbnails.
And I've got one person to thank for really
improving my own thumbnails and it's this chap over here.
And yes I have used my thumbnail skills
to make him a little more interesting.
This is Jeremy Vest and he taught me
how to do the liquefy effects that
he's currently suffering from right here.
Bu he also taught me a lot more useful stuff
about the art of thumbnail making.
Such as zooming yourself in to bring out emotion,
that YouTuber look.
Sharpening the image, over saturating it,
make sure that the colors coordinate with each other.
Before Jeremy came on board here vidIQ,
my thumbnails looked like this.
And now they look like this.
Now I happen to think the quality of our thumbnails
has increased a hundred percent and you agree.
This time least year, click-through rates
on the vidIQ channel was 2.5%.
Today, it's 5%.
That's a whole load more views for effectively
the same amount of work, just doing it better.
Readers judge books by their covers,
viewers judge videos by their thumbnails.
And as I said, from the weekly live streams
Jeremy and I do where we audit your channels,
thumbnails is always the biggest topic.
If you can improve your thumbnails
that can have a massive and positive
impact on the entirety of your channel.
Oh and fair is fair, let's give Jeremy a right to reply.
Nothing like me.
But you know what, I'm not finished with thumbnails.
I know there is still a lot of work
that can be done to improve mine.
And I'll continue to do that with every single
video and thumbnail that I make.
And that is something I am a strong advocate for,
striving to improve with every video that you make.
Whether it is thumbnails or whether it is lighting
or whether it is on camera presence,
whether it is voice narration or editing,
you should always be looking for that
1% where you can get better.
Trying to improve 100% every single video
is going to drive you insane.
But if you can come away from every single video
thinking, I like that new thing that I tried there.
Or that was some really tight editing,
or I like the way I presented
at that particular point in the video.
Really make sure to take the time
and celebrate those small wins
because they do stack up.
My 1% in this video is this little sub counter here.
I think it's going to add more watch time
to the video because you're quite intrigued
to see where this is going to end up.
I mean how many subscribers have we already put on here?
About 500? Who knows where it's gonna end.
Let us know in the voting poll up here.
Or is it up there? I can't remember.
Now I've had a quick look around the channel
and I found this video from exactly one year ago.
If you got time check it out
and do let me know do you think I've improved at least 1%?
This next tip may fly in the face of
YouTube experts and indeed myself recommend.
And that is to experiment as often as possible.
Now the reason I say this is because
it comes from a foundation of consistency.
If you are a regular visitor to vidIQ,
you should have a general sense of the
type of content that we create.
We want to help educate you on your YouTube journey.
Get more views, more subscribers, grow your channel,
ultimately and potentially earn an income from it.
I've been doing that for a couple years now here at vidIQ.
Showing you how to use all of our tools
and general tips about getting more views and subscribers.
But we decided to do last year was to follow
YouTube news stories a little more closely and report
on them if we found them interesting to our audience.
It's why we jumped on the YouTube hashtags
as soon as they came out and the reason
we rank number one for that search term now.
It's why I did an experiment with YouTube premieres,
setting a video 50 years into the future
to see what would happen.
That video didn't quite do as well.
We did a little bit of experimentation
with gaming specific videos
and some of them ae doing very well.
Search for how to start a gaming channel on YouTube,
yep, we're near the top.
And then we come to PewDiePie versus T-Series.
This started out as an experimentation in fame hacking.
Seeing if we could latch on to a trending topic
and add our own unique analytical spin on things.
We didn't realize it at the time
but we'd stumbled on some viral content.
Now while we we're experimenting,
we also practice what we preach.
We when those videos started to do really well,
what else could we do but double down on them?
Make more content on the already
successful stuff on our channel.
And yeah, things got a little crazy, and they still are.
We started to experiment in February
of last year but only really kicked it
into high gear in July after VidCon.
As you can see the results are, well,
you can't really calculate the results.
They're almost off the scale.
Now people may say that it's all down to
PewDiePie versus T-Series stuff.
And while I agree it has helped a lot,
it's not what we are banking our channel on.
These are the baseline numbers I'm more interested in.
The day-to-day watch time hours that have increased
around 75% in the last nine months.
Outside of the viral hits, this is our bedrock.
Our subscribers, our fans,
the people who are watching this video
and are invested in a channel at a much deeper level
than anything our PewDiePie versus T-Series
content could ever achieve.
Now as is always the case,
when you start to create alternative content
to what your community is used to,
you will get push back.
And we have here at vidIQ.
But here's the ironic thing,
we haven't produced less content
than what we normally would do,
in fact we're doing more content.
We're doing videos on a Monday,
live stream on a Tuesday, news on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
And beginner's guides on Fridays.
What's changed is we're creating a lot more content
that includes stuff about PewDiePie versus T-Series.
And that is bringing in a lot more exposure
for the channel and building a bigger community
for the stuff that we're really interested in.
Which is helping you grow your channel.
Not all of our experiments have worked.
That one about jack Black, fwoof, an absolute stinker.
I think the lesson learned there
is never go after a very popular Hollywood personality.
But, as I think they say in basketball,
you fail every shot you never attempt.
And some experiments that come all the way from downtown.
(group yelling)
Make sure to stick around until then
to see the bloopers on that one.
Now I know this video is not full of
really useful tips and tricks.
Make better thumbnails, make viral videos.
That's hardly gonna help you day to day.
Consider this my open letter to the vidIQ community.
This is the type of stuff I learnt
in my last nine months getting from 200 subscribers to
301,175 subscribers.
If that's what you put in the voting poll,
very well done.
You know, I think how can best sum up
these last 100,000 subscribers.
I've just had a lot more fun making videos,
it's as simple as that.
And I think you've had more fun watching these videos.
And I can only thank you 300,000 times.
Because you take valuable time out of your day,
the most valuable currency in the world,
and you spend a small amount of time of it with me
more or less every single day.
Thank you from the bottom of my YouTube heart.
And of course, vidIQ for life.
Now just before we go, I wouldn't be doing my job
if I didn't tell you about a vidIQ tool
you can use to celebrate success, such as this.
If you have the vidIQ Chrome extension installed
you can click on the achievements tab,
check all of your latest YouTube milestones
and click on each one to generate a certificate
and share it with the world.
Oh and I almost forgot to tell you,
this is one of our many free tools.
Download vidIQ, check out the link
in the video description.
Alright then, let's put this back up here.
Next up, 400,000 subscribers.
Let's do this.
Oh I didn't think it was gonna be this hard.