- Everybody, and I do mean everybody, starts at zero.
Hey, everybody, this is Roberto Blake of robertoblake.com,
helping you create something awesome, today.
So today, we're going to talk about getting started
with your YouTube channel from zero subscribers
and five specific tips to help new YouTube creators.
Now, when you're starting out,
it can feel very overwhelming, it can feel difficult,
it may even feel impossible, but it's not.
Every single YouTube creator goes through this.
Everyone starts with zero views and zero subscribers.
These are some of my top five tips
for new YouTubers who are starting from zero
and things that I learned in the process,
things that I remember from starting from zero,
it wasn't that long ago,
and things that I would do today if I was starting over.
So, tip number one,
when you're starting your YouTube channel,
you really need to think about what the message
and the branding is gonna be for you YouTube channel
and how you're going to communicate
and explain it to other people.
Remember, you're asking other people for their time.
You're asking for five or 10 minutes out of their life.
Why should they give it to you?
And, I don't want to hear, oh, you work hard on your videos,
you deserve views and subscribers.
You don't deserve anything, none of us do.
None of us deserve anything.
It is about what other people want
and if we can give it to them,
what other people want and need
and if we can give it to them.
Do not feel entitled views.
No one's entitled to an audience:
not you, not me, not anybody.
Get it out of your head.
Instead, think about what it is
that you are crazy, stupid-excited about enough
that you can convince other people
to be crazy, stupid-excited about with you
that will be worth their time, from their perspective,
not yours, from their perspective.
A primary example would be
if you're a comedian or an entertainer.
Is there something that you can do that means
that someone should watch what you're doing?
How do you make it different?
How do you make it exciting?
How do you make them decide
that this is how they want to spend their day,
or what's going to give them a laugh?
And, if you're doing entertainment,
how do you make it interesting enough for them
to want to share it with other people?
My friend Jason Horton is a primary example of somebody
who's gotten this right on YouTube as a comedian.
His stuff is so funny and it's so share-worthy
and he makes it, you know, something
that lends itself very well to sharing
like his Facebook in Real Life series.
That's hilarious and it makes sense
because immediately, there's kind of incentive
or a reason to share it on Facebook with other people
and that's gonna bring more people into the channel.
A lot of times, he also does stuff
that's, like, based on romance.
That's something that almost everyone can relate to
as far as relationships and, again, it's funny.
It's entertainment.
It's the thing that I want to take a break from
in the middle of my workday.
So, I think you have to understand
what it is other people want
and how you set your channel up in a way that communicates
that you're gonna deliver that value.
Whether it's entertainment or education or motivation
or something else, you gotta know
what's different about your channel
and why people should care about it.
You need to be able to at least explain to people
what your channel is about and why it matters
and why it's different
than the other channels in your genre.
Tip number two, tip number two is
a little bit of a growth hack.
Most of you know that you need like a hundred subscribers
to be able to unlock certain features in YouTube,
including a custom URL.
Well, it's not entirely true.
You actually can unlock that with this little trick:
if you associate a website with your YouTube channel
and you connect the two things together,
by either uploading a verification file
or putting in a snippet of code,
then you can actually unlock a ton of features,
even with zero subscribers, from day one.
So, if you need an affordable website
that can let you do this,
I have some links in the description you should check out.
These are my affiliate links,
but they are web hosting companies I use
and that I love, including HostGator, Bluehost and Wix.
And so, just check those out, see which one works for you.
But yeah, connecting a website is something I did
very early on and it's the smart move if you want
unlock a ton of those features.
It's actually a really good idea to use your website
and your personal blog to promote your YouTube channel,
so I'd do that anyway.
Tip number three, speaking of promoting,
the way that you grow a YouTube channel from zero is
gonna come down to getting people to watch your videos
and be interested and this is what I mean, promoting.
Don't go into other people's YouTube comments
and promote and tell them to sub to your channel
That's rude, it's disrespectful
and people are just gonna delete your comment and block you,
at least, I know I am.
And, if you're lucky, I will ban you forever.
So, that matters.
What you can do and what you should do is individually,
one-by-one, find people who would care about the thing
that you're talking about, build a relationship with them
and then ask them to check out your video
and to tell you how they feel about it.
That could be a great way to do it.
You could also build a Facebook group or community
and you can share your videos there.
You can go to existing Facebook communities,
ask the Admin if it's okay to share a video on occasion.
Do not be spammy about it.
DO not be tempted to try to get
as many views and subscribers as you can as early on.
Understand, you have to earn it and you have to build it.
And, just remember, Marques Brownlee, MKBHD,
biggest tech YouTuber of all time,
like almost 4 million subscribers,
he did 100 videos to get 78 subscribers.
So, don't be soft and whine about you did 15 videos,
20 videos, 30 videos, you worked hard.
A hundred videos to get 78 subscribers, that's work.
That's what it takes, bottom line.
So, again, promote appropriately.
Use other social media platforms.
You're gonna have to build those relationships one-by-one.
It's the virtual equivalent of knocking door-to-door.
I mean, that's just how it works.
That's something that you have to just really take seriously
and you have to be committed to.
Obviously, you can also encourage the people
who are watching your content and commenting,
encourage them to share with other people
that they think that would enjoy it.
Tip number four, do not be tempted
to buy fake views and subscribers to boost your own ego
and to encourage you when you look at that number.
That's silly, and don't think
that it really is going to make such a huge difference
or matter to other people
and that, oh, well, if no one's watching,
then this can't be good.
People understand that you're new.
I mean, if the content is good,
then they're going to watch it anyway.
I don't look at people's subscriber counts
before I click on a video.
It's about an interesting thumbnail,
a title that mattered to me
and the thing that I searched for
or it being on a website that I go to all the time
and that I trust or that I like
or that was recommended to me by a friend or a family member
or something like that.
Those things matter to me.
I don't care about your views or your subscriber count
when I'm clicking on a thumbnail, I just don't.
The far majority of people don't.
People say, oh, well it makes it, you know,
be taken more seriously.
Like, that might be true on some level,
but it's still stupid and silly.
It's be the equivalent of you deciding that,
you know what, I need to be popular, so I'm gonna pay people
to be my friends and to walk around and talk with me
and that's what's gonna make you popular.
If there are people who like you because of that,
then that's really shallow and that's really lame,
to be honest, and so, I don't believe in that nonsense.
What I will say is that if you want a better way
to grow your YouTube channel and you want to invest money,
buy better equipment if you're gonna spend money.
Don't buy views, don't by subs, buy better equipment.
That can help your production values.
That can make your stuff look really good
and that could matter.
Or, take that money and go and get some online training.
Go and take a course with CreativeLive or lynda.com
or something like that,
that could help you market more effectively.
Invest in yourself.
Spend money on something that has long-term value,
not something that YouTube's gonna delete your account for
or is gonna purge through the system eventually.
You know, those things actually matter.
So, invest in things that actually matter,
like your equipment, that works forever,
or your education, that lasts you forever.
So, you know, just do those things.
And tip number five, make more videos.
More videos are more opportunities for views,
more opportunities for discovery in search,
more subscribers.
The more videos you make, the more you can scale.
Don't go ham on that right away, but understand,
that when you have, like, five videos,
what people are seeing is you haven't been consistent yet.
When you have five videos, it's like,
"Well, are you gonna make more?"
When you're here for, like, one month,
two months, three months, you might feel,
"Well, I've been working hard for three months
"and I don't see any results, so I want to quit."
You've been here for three months.
There are people who've been on this platform for 10 years.
The more videos you make, the more opportunities
you're giving yourself to win.
So, I would just say, do that thing.
Take more shots.
Like, sports players talk about this all the time.
Take more shots.
That actually does count.
And so, if you're consistent and you're showing up,
it makes a real difference.
I mean, I've done, like, almost a thousand videos, now,
on YouTube.
That's how I got the, you know, subscribers that I have.
Jared Polin, FroKnowsPhoto, he's done, like,
I think, like 3,000 videos at this point.
David Di Franco, he's done, like,
you know, thousands of videos at this point.
Gary Vaynerchuk, across multiple channels, has done,
like, a thousand videos per channel.
These things add up over time, and it might take years,
but you have to be committed.
You know, if you say,
"Well, how long does it take to be successful?"
It takes as long as it takes.
You know, if someone told you flat out,
"Hey, you've got 40 more years of work,
"but when you do that 40 more years of work,
"you'll be billionaire,"
are you going to give up at year 28?
You know, I mean, I'm being dead serious, here.
So, I mean, just keep that in mind.
Anyway, I hope these five tips were something
that you guys enjoyed.
This is something that, again,
if I was gonna go back in time and tell myself anything,
this is exactly the speech I would have given myself
about how all this works.
But, it's also the mentality that, you know, got me
to where I am, in general,
and it doesn't just apply to YouTube.
I think that you could apply
the far majority of this to everything.
Anyway, if you have questions
about growing a YouTube channel, well,
one, there's like 150 videos on the channel
specifically about that,
so make sure you're checking that out.
You can ask me questions in the comments section.
There are resource links below.
Also, I'll throw in a sixth tip:
there is a tool that I use that actually does help
grow this channel and it is TubeBuddy.
I wish I'd had it in the beginning.
It would have helped me with search optimization
and things like that.
And, there's a lot of productivity tools.
There's a link to that in the description,
probably one in the info card, up here,
so make sure you're checking that out.
Anyway, like this video if you like it.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome content on the channel.
Remember, YouTube Tip videos are usually on Fridays.
As always, you guys, thanks so much for watching
and don't forget, create something awesome today.