- There's a lot of different strategies you can use
to grow your YouTube channel past one million subscribers.
They have grown multiple channel past one million
subscribers, two billion views.
And one of the things that they used strategically are
giveaways and contests.
- Now today's video is entirely
a giveaway, just for you guys.
So today's giveaway is for this Macbook Air.
- And today he's going to show you guys
behind the scenes what they did with those.
The impact that it had on their channel
so you guys can hopefully do the same.
- Exactly. - Coming up.
(upbeat music)
- Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer
welcome to Video Creators, we're just here
to help you guys grow a YouTube channel
and audience so you can reach them,
change their lives with the message
that you're spreading.
They're reaching billions of people's lives
and changing them all of the time.
Maybe not two billion everyday.
- I wish - So one of the ways that
they've grown multiple channels
Cute Girl Hairstyles, Brooklyn and Bailey
and many others past one million subscribers
is using contests and giveaways.
I'm really curious to hear about this myself
because this is something that
a lot of people do, but they don't see
a lot of results and I have opinions about why.
But how did you guys strategically use
contests and giveaways?
- You know, you don't want to use them too often
because then again, the fans start feeling
like you're trying to buy attention.
It needs to be done more as a reward
to the viewer for being a loyal watcher.
And we probably started using them
maybe four and a half, five years ago.
Is that right?
Yeah, about four and a half, five years ago.
It was strategically only
to give value back to the viewer
and the one requirement that we asked them to do
is something free and it was always
do an act of service for somebody else.
And that's all we wanted them to do.
Now once they completed that action,
there were bonus entries, that included
subscribing to our channel or if we had a new channel
subscribe to the new channel.
Or follow us on Instagram.
But that one action in the giveaway that we wanted
was something that would better the community.
Now, it's on your honor.
I don't know what all one million of them
actually went out and did a good service.
But even if 20% of them did.
- They're still thinking about it.
- That giveaway is actually benefiting
the world in someway.
- So they would come and you would
have a form on a website or something
that they would tell you what they did?
Or they were just like, I helped somebody.
- We use Gleam.io and that allows
you to do a custom entry, which is what
we used as a first one.
And we put in there, do a good
act of service for somebody else.
And then when they complete it,
they have to answer what they did.
Now again, it's on your honor.
But if they feel like they have to put
an answer in, they feel like there
is some degree of accountability
So, hopefully they will follow through
and do a good act of kindness.
- Then they had other options they could do
such as subscribing to the channel.
- Yes once they do that, it opens up
bonus entries and we tell them that.
We're like, there's one thing that you have to do.
And when you do that, you get bonus entries.
We wanted the actual value to us
to come in bonus entries.
We wanted the real driver to be,
make a difference, help somebody else.
And it actually set us apart
from a lot of other YouTubers
doing giveaways because their number
one thing was subscribe to my channel.
- Right? - Yeah.
- It's all about them, but ours was about helping others.
Which made it seem more altruistic.
- Sure yeah.
- And then the bonus entries were where
we gave indirect benefit to the giveaway.
And it's super sweet, the things that they say that
they're doing to help others are wonderful.
And then we also get growth on our
other platforms through the bonus entries.
- So they can do a bonus entry,
could be like subscribe to the channel,
follow on Instagram, like our Facebook page,
comment on a video like basically whatever
you want them to do at that point.
- Today we are doing a giveaway
because we are celebrating Karmi launching
her channel finally and everyone is so excited
and she posts awesome videos.
And so we are giving away an 11 inch MacBook Air and
- A wireless mobile projector.
- There is only one requirement to enter
the giveaway and that is
- You have to be a subscriber of my channel.
- And we were able to, when the girls
launched their mascara in May
we were able to grow in one month's time
a brand new Instagram from zero to 75,000 followers.
To be branded for their mascara.
Which as very helpful in our launch, using a giveway.
- The main benefit you guys got
then was the subscriber from YouTube
would come to the contest page and tell
the good action they did and they are already
subscribed to the channel, so they can't do that.
But now you're getting that same viewer to follow
you on Instagram, like on Facebook.
And so it's kind of like you are using the contest
to grow all of your platforms.
Getting people from one platform over to another.
- And what that does for example,
if we push an audience indirectly in
bonus entries to follow an Instagram page
Instagram sees that as an off platform
person that doesn't follow this page
is now following this page
and not only are they following this page
but so are 10,000 other people.
They start then exposing that new page,
that Instagram page profile to more
people with similar likes. - Really quick growth.
- You're getting organic growth
and a push from Instagram that you
wouldn't have had otherwise.
- Sure, okay, how often do you guys run these?
Do you run these pretty frequently?
Or are they always on going?
- We usually run them once every three months.
So you don't want to do them too often.
We run them for three weeks, so you
get a good amount of viewership.
The longtail of the video the giveaway goes up in.
You're getting some benefit from that.
So three weeks time is about perfect for us.
- And there is a lot of rules on YouTube
regarding contests and giveaways that you
have to follow in order to stay
within their guidelines, put a link to those
down in the description below,
you can go check them out.
But that's why you guys use a third party service
because it keeps everything compliant.
- It is completely legally safe.
We collect email addresses through
the giveaway, we're upfront about that as well.
It's very, very instrumental.
- Just be careful about doing it on your own
without having something like Gleam.io.
- Absoluately. - Not sponsored.
Although maybe it will be and I'll update this if it is.
- Yeah with COPA compliance and everything.
With kids under 13, you have to be very careful
with that kind of stuff.
- And if you do things like contest and giveaways
your channel can start growing
and as it grows it's really exciting at the beginning
But to really get yourself to one million subscribers
you got to really keep that passion going.
And believe me, it's easier to lose it
than you might think it is.
- Yes it is. - And we're going
to talk about that in the next video.
Click the video you see on your screen
to go to the next episode about how
they got to one million subscribers.
We'll see you guys over in the next video.
- See you. - See ya.