1000 subscribers.
We did it.!Woohoo!
Hello everybody.
My name is Morgan Stradling and welcome to my channel where I talk about YouTube and
social media marketing tips and I am so pumped for today's video because I have hit a huge
milestone on my channel, which is 1000 subscribers.
This is one of the very first big milestones that every new YouTuber wants to hit because
it's one of the requirements to get your channel monetize.
So in today's video I thought it would be a really fun to talk about the different things
that led to my success and the reason why I was able to get 1000 subscribers in six
months.
So if you're interested in these tips so that way you can grow your channel and get your
first 1000 subscribers.
Keep on watching.
Now if you are brand brand new to YouTube and a thousand subscribers seems really daunting,
then be sure to check this video out right here.
It's a video I did talking about all the things that you need to do to get your first 100
subscribers and doing these things will really set your channel up for success and help make
a difference to help you start getting that momentum.
There are a ton of tips in that video, but this video, I'm really taking just high level.
The big things that I saw make a difference for me and my channel to get to 1000 subscribers.
So I uploaded my first video on October 18th, 2020 and I got my 1000 subscriber on April
13th, 2020 now some people actually hit their first thousand relatively quickly, much shorter
than this, and other people, it takes much longer, but it really doesn't matter how long
it takes.
It's still a grind because when you are brand new, nobody wants to follow you because you're
a nobody who wants to subscribe to a nobody.
So those first thousand subscribers really do mean a lot because they were the ones that
took a chance on someone small.
As you get bigger and you get ten thousand fifty thousand a hundred thousand or a million
plus, it's easier for people to subscribe because the social proof is there.
They see that 100,000 other people have subscribed, so Hey, it must be good.
They're going to check it out and subscribe to, but your first thousand it's definitely
a lot harder to do that.
So looking back over the past few months, there's a few things that really stand out
to me that helped me get my first 1000 subscribers.
The first one was to just get started.
A lot of people, they hold themselves back because they're afraid their camera isn't
good enough or this isn't good enough.
Their lighting's not good enough, their content isn't good enough, but really no one's going
to subscribe to you unless they have something to watch.
And so the best thing that I did was I just got started and as time went on, I got better
on camera.
I was able to figure out my lighting.
I was able to make my videos a little fancier and more complicated with the editing.
But you don't need any of that to start.
You don't need the camera, you don't need the lights.
You really just need your phone and a window and get going.
So the next thing that led to my success was I picked videos that people were actually
looking for.
My very first video, how do when Instagram giveaways was one that people in my audience,
my friends and family had been asking me to do for ever.
I kept winning tons and tons of Instagram giveaways.
So what I did is I compiled my thoughts and my strategy into a video and I put it out
there and tons of people have watched it.
It's actually at the time of recording, this might number one video on my channel.
It has over 30,000 views, which is crazy to me considering it was my first video.
But that's the whole point because it was a video that people were asking for and searching
for it.
The content was so informative that people watched it and then more people found it and
watched it and more people found it and watched it.
So making videos that provide answers and have really great content was one of the keys.
Because my videos, you knew you could watch them and they would provide you with a lot
of really great information, tips and tricks on whatever that was about.
Now this leads me into my next point about why my videos did so well and I was able to
get 1000 subscribers was I optimize my videos for the search engines.
YouTube is the number two search engine in the world.
And while a lot of people go there and they follow their favorite people and they're subscribed
to all sorts of channels, the majority of people go to YouTube because they have a question
and YouTube provides an answer.
So if you optimize your videos for the YouTube search engine, there is a higher chance that
your video is going to show up in the search results when someone is typing that search
query.
So I made sure that all of my videos were optimized so Google knew what my video was
about.
I knew that as a new YouTube or with less than a thousand subscribers, YouTube wasn't
going to put me at the top of the search results because I was a nobody.
Google didn't trust me.
I didn't have any authority, but what I could control and what I could do is I could tell
you tube what my video is about by optimizing the title description tags.
There's a whole process which I talk about here in this video, which is how I optimize
my video, so if you're interested in that, be sure to check it out.
Now, this really did help with a lot of my videos because even though I had a less than
1000 subscribers, I was still showing up above videos that had hundreds of thousands of views
or even hundreds of thousands of subscribers and that's simply because my content was great
and I optimize the video for search while those other videos weren't necessarily optimized
and so I was able to get a leg up on them.
Two of my videos that really stand out for this is obviously the how to win Instagram
giveaways.
I ranked for that search term.
I also rank for giveaways, which is pretty crazy.
And another one is the second video that I did, which is called "how to budget using
Every Dollar".
It's basically a tutorial where I walk you through how to create a budget using this
app called Every Dollar.
I saw the other videos on the search page for that and I thought, "Hmm, I could make
a better video."
And so I created great content.
Then I made sure to do the SEO for the video to make sure that it stood a chance in showing
up in search.
And it has now my next tip goes along with both of those videos.
And another reason why I think they did so well and the reason I was able to gain subscribers
as a result is because I anticipated trends.
The Instagram giveaway video was released in October and lots of companies end up doing
giveaways in December during Christmas time.
And so in December there was a huge spike of people searching "how to win Instagram
giveaways" because they wanted to win.
And since my video had already been established for a few months on the search page and in
YouTube, my page showed up and as a result I was able to ride that wave of the new searches
that were coming in.
The exact same thing happened with my budgeting video.
I released that video in October and it did so bad for the first few months like, and
I was so sad cause I was like, man, I really thought this video was going to do well.
I did the SEO like I, it should be showing up, people should be watching it.
And there were some days where I had zero views like one or two people were watching
it.
It was embarrassing.
So I kind of just wrote it off until January when people's new year's resolutions were
happening.
People wanted to start saving money, get out of debt, and people started searching how
to budget.
And finally my video was able to get more views that way.
And as a result, I've been able to get more subscribers because my video provided them
value.
Now, if I would have done each one of these videos and release them in the months where
the spike was going to happen, I probably wouldn't have stood a chance and my videos
wouldn't have been showing up.
So in addition to providing great content, you have to anticipate and release that content
ahead of time before the big trend hits.
So the next thing I did with my videos is I was consistent in releasing new videos.
I wasn't a one hit wonder where I released that first video and I just said, okay, this
is the one video that's going to do it for me because YouTube doesn't like that.
And potential subscribers don't like that.
If they see you have one video on your channel and it was from three months ago, they're
not going to subscribe.
They want to subscribe to someone who's going to provide new content and valuable content
on a regular basis.
So over the past six months, I have released 15 videos.
It's around 2.5 videos a month.
But it really, I kind of EBD and float and this is where I could have been so much better
because I was really consistent every week I was releasing videos in October, beginning
of November, and then in late November I had a personal situation that I had to deal with
and as a result I didn't release any videos in late November and December, which is such
a bummer because I was really gaining momentum and then suddenly it just stopped.
So any new subscriber who was coming to my channel, maybe at the end of December would
have thought.
So I did shoot myself in the foot a little bit.
But in January I picked back up.
I had seven or eight videos and then February, unfortunately I had just one video.
I'll be honest, both of my kids got sick, but not at the same time.
They got sick back to back and so I couldn't take them to the sitter.
And anyone who has small kids knows that it is very difficult to get stuff done with little
kids, let alone film a YouTube video.
So I was just unable to record in February, but I picked it back up in March and in April,
so now I have this catalog of videos that people are able to watch.
I don't have just one video on my channel.
I have 15 is that a ton?
No, not really, but it is a start and so that is the thing that you need to do is you just
need to be consistent and let your audience know when you're going to be releasing.
If I would have been ridiculously consistent and done two videos per week, no doubt I would
have hit this probably by January, but I live in the real world.
Things happen.
People got sick.
It's okay.
I'm super happy that I was able to hit this within six months and really the last month
is where it had this exponential climb.
It takes time with YouTube to really establish yourself as an authority, but then there will
be a tipping point when suddenly all that work that you have done really pays off and
off you go and that's really what happened this last month where I was just gaining subscribers.
At a much higher level than I was before and I've doubled my watch time within the past
month as well.
And I'm hoping to continue that momentum and success and that doubling into the next month
and then the next month.
So really just to recap the big items that led to my success to help me get my first
thousand subscribers, who was just getting started, having valuable informational content,
optimizing my videos for the search results, anticipating trends, and then just being consistent.
Like I said, I wasn't the most consistent person in the world, but that doesn't matter.
Some videos are better than no videos.
Really the name of the game is momentum.
You have to start and then you have to keep going, keep that ball rolling and eventually
it will start going down the hill and you won't be able to catch it.
And that's exactly what happened with my subscribers.
So again, thank you so much for subscribing and especially you, my first 1000 subscribers.
If you're one of my first 1000 let me know in the comments below.
And if you haven't subscribed yet, what are you waiting for?
Subscribe to join the tribe!
Be sure to like this video.
If you are on your way to your first 1000 subscribers, and let's try and get this to
1000 likes in honor of 1000 subscribers.
That's all I have for today, and I'll see you next time.