So YouTube are changing goalposts. As well
as needing 4,000 hours of watch time you
also need 1000 subscribers to monetize
your content. So here's 10 tips to help
you get there.
Hello everyone welcome back to vidIQ.
My name is Rob, if this is your first
time here we are the YouTube tool and
channel that aims to help you get more
views in less time. Our tool is of course
free to download, a link is in the
description, and while you're at it
subscribe to our channel and click on the
notification bell to make sure you don't
miss any of our content. And as by way of
an introduction, that's our very first
tip: appeal directly to your audience
for a subscription. Now there is a school
of thought that suggests asking for
subscribers may sound a little desperate,
cheesy but it's simply a part of the
Youtube fabric. People ask you to smash
that like button to improve the
YouTube algorithm and engagement rates
now we're simply asking you to subscribe
to our channel for two reasons.
Obviously you want these viewers to come
back for future content on your channel
but if you're open and honest and say
that I need to get to 1000
subscribers to monetize my content and
help sustain the channel
I think subscribers and viewers would
accept that. I've never had a single
comment on one of my videos complaining
about asking for subscribers and if you
never ask you may never know. Another way you
could encourage your viewers to
subscribe is to do something a little
exciting and animate on screen like this.
You can get all sorts of resources from
all over the internet. Simply try what
fits for you and you may see an upsurge
in subscribers. Our next tip is to take
advantage of this icon down here which
is your watermark branding. When viewers
click on this icon it takes them to
your channel where they could subscribe
after watching more of your content. It's
edited and created via the branding page
on the creator studio. Now we have a two
pieces of advice for this little icon:
first of all put the words subscribe in
there just to encourage people to do
exactly what it says and don't introduce
it right at the beginning or the very
end of your video. You want it to act as
a visual distraction maybe 30 to 45
seconds into their video. Now you can't
put subscription links in video cards
but you can put a subscription
button in the end screens like this. Now
I know this is going to look a bit weird
don't worry the video is not ending here
but as you can see I'm trying to be
creative with the way I draw people to
that subscription button so give it a
try yourself. Next up we have what you
might call a dirty little web trick.
Whenever you share your YouTube channel
add this to the end of your link and
this is what happens. When users click on
it they are prompted to automatically
subscribe to your channel before
actually visiting your YouTube channel
page. As I say it's a little dirty that
might annoy some users who get this
pop-up and then click off your page but
I bet the majority of them will be
happily cancelling and looking at your
channel or subscribing outright. Another
way to directly appeal to your audience
for a subscription is to write a comment
and then pin it to your videos. When you
do this that pinned comment appears at
the top of the comments list. Now again I
feel as if honesty is the best policy. Be
open and transparent, tell your audience
why you're pinning these comments, why
you're asking for subscriptions.
Maybe it's because you want to invest
some of the money you earn back into the
channel with new equipment or products.
You could also add a similar message to
the video description of all of your
videos. If you have the bulk
campaign manager from vidIQ available
for boost and pro users it's accessed
from the video manager page of the
creator studio and as you can see
on-screen you could add a message either
before your current video description or
after and add it to certain videos or
all of your videos. All of this is
explained in a lot more detail in our
dedicated video so check it out. Another
thing you can do is reach out to an
entirely new audience by adding value to
other channels. That might be watching
their content and posting awesome
comments that get pinned or liked by
the channel creator and create a
conversation. When people get involved in
those conversations they're gonna think
Hmmm this video creator perhaps has
value on their own channel and visit
your stuff and perhaps subscribe to your
channel so think of it on a wider scale
beyond just your current audience try
and attract a new audience who may
really enjoy your content and subscribe.
As an example
we get all sorts of awesome comments
from you on our videos. I'm sure many
other video creators have read those
comments agreeing or disagreeing
generating a conversation perhaps
visiting your channels and subscribing.
In a recent example we had a video
creator who got an audit on one of our
live streams and that drew in a
significant number of new subscribers to
his channel. He increased his subscriber
base by five percent just by
contributing to our live stream so thank
you very much for that. Our next tip may
sound obvious but it does need
reinforcing: post new content on a
regular basis. For some viewers it may
only take one video to convince them to
subscribe to your channel but for others
they may watch a video, enjoy it, but they
don't subscribe. Then on their YouTube
homepage they see another new video from
you, they watch it enjoy it and say yep
I've seen a couple of videos from this
person now I enjoy their content I'm
going to subscribe. And following on the
theme of encouraging viewers to become
subscribers make sure that your channel
homepage is very welcoming. A channel
trailer, a good description about what
your channel does including a good
channel banner, and of course, plenty of
playlists that tell the viewer exactly
what your channel is about. In fact when
you're sharing videos share the playlist
video link. That means that when a
viewer is watching your video they're
within your playlist environment. They
may see more videos that they like from
your channel and eventually subscribe. So
those are ten tips to help you get up to
1000 subscribers. So why hasn't this
video ended just yet? Well we have an
eleventh tip, a controversial, one we're
not even sure we should suggest this but
everybody else is going to do it so you
might as well know what it's about.
Pstt. Sub4Sub. We can't avoid this
subject. Now that youtubers need to get
up to 1000 subscribers it's almost a
legitimate reason for youtubers to post
Sub4Sub. They're actually helping out
each other to get to a numerical value
in order to satisfy YouTube needs. But
this comes with a lot of caveats. If you
do Sub4Sub there's a very small
chance that you're actually going to get
any valuable watch time from those
subscribers and if there's a lot of
Sub4Sub going on from channels that
have no
intention of actually producing any
decent content or indeed any content
whatsoever- they might be gaming the
YouTube system - those channels could get
deleted by YouTube and then you lose a
slew of subscribers. The main thing you
should be doing is spreading a message
of value that convinces viewers to
become subscribers and not through
some simple transaction to get to a
target. And as a final note on the
subject of Sub4Sub if you do follow
YouTube by the book it breaks their
Terms of Service and you could receive a
strike on your channel so you have been
warned. And that's it for this video I
hope you found it enjoyable, informative
and useful. If you did smash that like
button and up YouTube algorithm, and of
course if you want more content just
like this subscribe to vidIQ. You see
it's easy. Enjoy the rest of your video
making day bye for now.