- I would say virtually most creators on YouTube
hold their subscriber count in some kind of high regard.
But if you've watched us for any length of time
in the last couple of years,
you've probably heard us say something like this.
- You need to stop worrying about this.
(bell chimes)
- Now, to be fair, when you reach 1,000 subscribers,
that is one of two big objectives
for actually becoming monetized on YouTube.
But after that, 100,000 subscribers
is the next time you hear from YouTube
regarding your subscriber count when they give you
this cool shiny plaque to hang on your wall,
and then at a million subscribers, you get another one.
And at 10 million subscribers, you get a shinier one.
But nothing really happens to your YouTube account
that makes any material difference
after you reach 1,000 subscribers.
So is it as simple as us sitting here and saying,
yeah, yeah, yeah, subscribers don't matter
and they're just a vanity metric, move on from it.
Personally, I think in terms of mindset,
that is an important way to think about YouTube subscribers.
However, there are still some reasons
to maybe be a bit concerned about it,
and that's what I wanna talk to you about today because yes,
there are a couple of things subscribers can do
outside of monetization and shiny plaques,
but there's also some myths about subscribers
that have been spread around far too long
that we need to address as well.
So first up and on the side of subscribers good,
is credibility.
Psychologically speaking, a lot of YouTube viewers,
whether they're doing it subconsciously or not,
understand that there is some social proof involved
to somebody having a lot of subscribers.
I myself am guilty of this.
A lot of times if I'm looking for a video
on a specific subject and I see one pop up in search,
I'm gonna glance over and see how many subscribers
that channel has.
And another thing that helps with social proof
is if it's an older video, how many views does it have?
Social proof in this context means
that more people are willing to engage with something
because other people in the past have also engaged with it.
Essentially those views and those subscribers
lend to the contents legitimacy.
But on the other side of that argument
is where you get creators really concerned
about having a lack of social proof.
This is where you get creators going in and participating in
really shady practices such as Sub4sub
or straight up buying botted views on their channel.
So as with a lot of things on YouTube,
there is some nuance here.
Channels with larger followings do tend to rank pretty well
when they post a new video,
but that doesn't mean that channels with a smaller following
can't also rank very highly in places like Search.
Take this example here from a channel that has
just over 800 subscribers and they're ranking above a video
that has over a million subscribers attached to it.
So how does something like this even happen
in the first place?
How does a channel with less than 1,000 subscribers
manage to outrank a channel with a million subscribers?
There's no way of saying for certain,
but there's a couple of things we could look at.
For example, people's behavior in terms of the things
they like to watch is constantly changing,
and therefore YouTube is constantly pivoting
to match the behavior of viewers.
It could be something even simpler too.
The video that we're looking at that has ranked higher
does have less views, but the thumbnail itself,
in my own opinion stands out a little more.
This could be a video where the creator
recently updated the thumbnail.
It could be that the larger channel
is actually recommending the smaller channel.
If you were trying to find a new way
to organize your messy diaper bag,
wouldn't you wanna find multiple creators
covering that topic so you can then kind of figure out
the best method that works for you?
So it could be any number of things,
but one thing is clear by looking at these two videos.
In the video that ranks higher,
it has more views than subscribers,
which means people who are not subscribed to the channel
have watched it and the video that ranks one lower
100,000 views, a million subscribers.
That means not everyone who subscribed to that channel
watched this diaper bag video,
and that's because people
are not going into their subscription feeds
and looking for your next upload.
People are going into search to find what they want.
People are getting recommended things
from the YouTube home feed,
and that naturally leads us into a discussion
about the algorithm.
(eerie laugh)
Going into the subscription feed,
well, that's an extra step
when YouTube is already giving viewers
a lot of the things they like to watch
right in front of them on their home feed
the second they get into the app,
or if they're looking for something specific,
why would they go into their subscription feed to find it
when they could just use the search bar
and get an answer immediately?
And you can let me know in the comments for yourself,
go into your analytics and see
where your views are coming from.
Is it the subscription feed or is it browse and search?
The bow I wanna put on this part of the conversation
is that your subscription count doesn't matter in this case.
What really matters is how many views you're getting
and who you're making your content for.
Like a minute ago, we were looking at a channel
who was making content for obviously new parents
who were just trying to get their lives organized
after having a baby.
When you make content for a specific viewer like that,
you don't need subscribers.
So we're back to square one.
Subscribers don't matter, and this was a waste of your time.
Well, not exactly.
If you've been looking at platforms like TikTok
or Instagram reels,
you've probably noticed that really small creators on there
can still go viral and get like millions of views.
The algorithms on those platforms
work a lot differently than YouTube.
So in spite of having like zero followers,
you still have a chance to get tons and tons of views,
but how often do you see that on YouTube?
Well, the reason folks with smaller follower accounts
are able to get success so much faster on TikTok
is because of the nature of the app itself
and how it was built.
This means that TikTok can take a lot of risks
when it comes to smaller content creators.
If you don't like what you see,
chances are you're not about to rage quit the app
and throw your phone in a ditch,
you'll probably just swipe away.
Those risks pay off when the viewers stick around,
they interact with the video somehow.
Maybe they hit the like button, they leave a comment,
they watch it a couple of times, and TikTok knows,
Hey, this video is pretty cool.
It doesn't care about the follower count.
Now this video is going to start spreading
around the platform.
And the YouTube algorithm does do a lot of similar things.
If people click on the video and they watch
all the way through, if they hit the like button,
all of those are positive signals that,
"Hey! I have a good video on my hands," says YouTube,
"and now we can share it out to more people."
The difference is though,
that YouTube is gonna have a lot more emphasis on the length
of that content, the audience retention, the watch time,
and the engagement.
That is because we're talking about content
that is a lot longer in length,
unless you're talking about YouTube shorts, which we're not.
So imagine it from YouTube's perspective, right?
Someone logs into YouTube,
they see their home feed and they have to make a decision
about what video they wanna watch.
They have all these incredible thumbnails in front of them,
all these convincing titles,
they're gonna have to choose to commit
to one of these longform videos.
If that viewer happens to see an ad
before they can even watch the video.
And if that viewer is not satisfied with the content
that they chose to watch,
it's a lot harder to earn back their trust.
They are more likely to do what I suggested before
and take their phone and toss it in a ditch
and walk away from YouTube for the day.
Enter the subscribe button.
So if you continue to build up a larger and larger fan base
on YouTube of people who have subscribed to,
who have watched a number of your videos,
then YouTube is going to surface your new uploads
to those people first.
When this happens, those fans will watch your content
and they will give YouTube a lot of initial data.
How do your biggest fans react to this video?
Are they still hitting the like button?
Are they watching all the way through?
This is why on YouTube,
at least in terms of longform content,
you see that snowball effect of viewers
as somebody continues to grow on the platform.
Put simply its risk versus reward
as far as YouTube and your viewers are concerned.
A viewer has to ask themselves,
how long into this 12-minute video am I gonna need to watch
before I get what I came here for?
In Shorts and on TikTok and on reels?
Stakes are pretty low.
I'm just gonna swipe if I'm not interested.
So with all of that in mind,
should you as a content creator,
be making sure that people subscribe to your videos
by at least asking within the content?
The simple answer is absolutely, but within reason.
More subscribers does not automatically mean
you're gonna get more views on any given video,
but what it does do is help give you an understanding
of the size of your core audience and the kind of community
that is developing around your videos.
If you can build a solid community of fans
around your content, it's gonna be so much easier for you
along the road that is YouTube.
Brands will be able to look at you as somebody
who is an influencer and will be more likely
to partner with you in the future
leading to more income streams on your channel
beyond YouTube monetization.
You'll also be able to understand that audience over time,
which will help you understand what kinds of content
you can be making as you look to branch out
as a creator in the future.
And then of course, another signal that you're getting
whenever somebody subscribes
is that you are obviously doing something right on YouTube.
So where we're at so far in this conversation
is that you should be building up a community of people
who enjoy your content so much they subscribe
and they're here to watch any video that you post.
That community aspect, that same viewer coming back
for more and more content from you is so important
because what you don't wanna have happen
is for one of your videos to go viral
that happens to not really resonate with your core audience.
We see this happening all the time in YouTube Shorts too.
People will make content about topic A,
but they'll decide to test out YouTube Shorts
and they'll do a short about topic B.
Well, topic B happens to go viral,
and then a whole bunch of people subscribe to the channel
thinking, man, this person talks about topic B,
I love topic B.
What they don't know is the topic B was kind of a one-off.
You just happen to get a new kitten,
and even though you have a cooking channel,
you decided to make a YouTube Short about the kitten
because kittens are adorable.
So are these new subscribers hurting
this hypothetical channel?
They're here for topic B,
and YouTube keeps trying to serve them topic A videos
because they did just subscribe
to a topic A channel, after all.
Well, it's hard to say.
I would say this hypothetical channel isn't doomed forever.
They might want to consider taking the kitten video
and putting it on a separate channel,
but ultimately, if they continue making content
about topic A, they should be fine
after some time passes by.
So in that way, subscribers are incredibly important
to your channel, but it's not really the subscriber metric
we're talking about.
It's the type of people who are subscribed to you.
So it's important to keep those specific viewers in mind
day in and day out as you make new videos on YouTube.
The other thing you need to worry about though
is if you're still not monetized,
you gotta get 4,000 hours of watch time.
This video right here will help you do that.