Part 1: Thank You!!!
What’s up, guys? As you know, I’ve been working really, really hard to try to get to 1000 YouTube subscribers… and we did it!
We just hit 1000 subscribers here on YouTube. In fact, we’re probably going to blow that number out of the water in the next few months. I just wanted to thank you for being part of this journey with me, for supporting me, for subscribing, and for liking and commenting.
Thanks To All My Followers
For those of you who I know personally, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, for supporting and sharing these videos with your friends, family, and colleagues.
And I want to thank all the new people, the people who are just seeing this content for the first time. We’ve been working really hard, and we’re providing as much value to the marketplace as possible.
My mission is to mentor as many people as I can, through my videos, and through the people that I’m bringing into my circle, who also are going to become mentors and are going to help people like you. This channel is really dedicated to young entrepreneurs.
We’re Getting Monetized!
So today, I just want to celebrate our success in hitting 1000 followers. On top of that, we’re getting monetized!
I’m probably not going to monetize many of my videos, if any. I’m not doing this for money — I’m doing it because I want to help people as much as possible.
And in return, you guys have helped me. You guys have validated what I’ve been teaching, the things that I’ve been doing, and what I’ve been sharing, and I’m so beyond grateful for that.
This Is Only The Beginning
So thank you guys so much for being along the journey with me. This is just the very beginning. Next step is 10,000, and it’s going to take a lot of work to get there. It may be another 6 months. It may be another year, but I’m not going to stop. I know we’re just starting to gain momentum.
I’m ready to put in the time and continue to work – and I’m just going to keep getting better! I’m going to keep getting smoother. I’m going to keep planning these videos and finding topics that you guys want to hear about.
If there’s something specific you guys want to hear about, please let me know! Is it tutorials? Is it motivation or a business mindset? Let me know, because I need your feedback.
Once again, thank you guys so much. As always, keep looking up.
Part 2: Tips To Grow Your Channel
We just hit 1000 followers. Since then, I’ve just been hitting ‘refresh’ on my page and watching my subscriber count go up. Now we’re at 1,403 subscribers — crazy growth, right?
That doesn’t happen without commitment, creativity, consistency, and community. It’s a big thanks to you, and to all the people that have been following my channel, that I’ve been able to reach this level of success. And we’re going to push it to the next level.
So today, we’re going to talk about how you can crush it on YouTube and get from 0 to 1000 subscribers. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and roll right into it!
The Strategy
Today, I’m going to talk about the two sides of blowing up on YouTube. You can’t have any success on YouTube without having a winning strategy and the right tactics.
1000 subscribers probably seems like a lot. But I went from 1000 to 1400 in a matter of days, so it’s really not as bad as you think. Once you start picking up momentum, you’ll really be able to chug along.
1. Clarity
The first thing that you need when it comes to building your YouTube channel, and wanting it to be successful, is clarity. Without clarity — understanding why you’re doing it, and what your reasons are — you’re going to struggle for a very long time.
I started my YouTube channel back in 2011, when I first started my agency. At that point, all I used it for was to upload client work and video testimonials in order to drive traffic. As the years went by, I started to get the itch to actually do something with YouTube, because I follow so many people who are really impacting people.
I was becoming more and more inspired by these people, but I needed to have a clear “why.” I needed clarity. So it wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that I decided to get more practice as a speaker, both in front of the camera and on a stage.
I’ve been speaking all over the country, hosting a podcast radio show, and pushing myself outside of my comfort zone so that I can get better. I knew I needed to use this YouTube video series as a platform to get better at speaking. So, I started working on it consistently every single day.
My encouragement to you is to find out why you want to do this at the beginning.
Some people just want to be a YouTube star. If that’s your thing, awesome. What does that look like for you? Do you want to do it for the money? Are you going to try to monetize your videos and make money from the ads? Are you doing it to practice and to get better? Or are you just trying to teach people and give yourself credibility?
That was one of the other reasons I started my channel: I wanted to use it as a platform, so when my customers Google my company name, they see this YouTube channel with thousands of followers and amazing content. That way, I have proof that I know what I’m talking about.
2. Creativity
The next important step is creativity. We all have to find our own unique, creative approach to making YouTube videos. Some people like to do the vlogging style. Some people are natural teachers.
Having creativity and understanding the type of approach that you’re going to take with your YouTube channel, and with your community, (which we’re going to get to) is really important. You need to understand your delivery, strategy, and approach.
Are you going to be very natural and just hold the camera? Are you going to have a tripod? Are you going to have a big studio? You really need to get clarity on that, and you need to be creative in the way you do it.
If you’re doing tutorials, for example, you might just want to show your screen instead of yourself. Then you’ll need great graphics and art to show off! Being creative on YouTube is your opportunity to highlight your skills and show what makes you different from everybody else.
That’s what’s going to help you establish your brand. What do you do that nobody else does? Maybe you do impersonations. Maybe you make funny faces. Maybe you’re really good at drawing. Find your thing and stick to that.
If you need help finding your creative edge, reach out to me. I’d love to help you find your creativity and figure out what makes you different.
3. Consistency
about posting. I started posting in about October of last year. I was only doing it about once or twice a week, and then I realized that I needed to pump out more content than that.
So right around the beginning of the year, I started heavily focusing on pumping out three or four videos every single week. Now I’ve compiled hundreds of videos and tons of content.
What that’s allowed me to do is to gather a bunch of important information on each of these videos: what am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? I’ve been able to learn, adapt, change, and grow through all of these different videos I’m making.
Consistency is key. Not just for yourself, but also for the YouTube algorithm. If YouTube knows that you’re posting on a regular schedule, that will help your channel.
I would recommend that you post at least 2-3 times a week, if you want to make traction and progress. It’s going to help you move things along a lot faster. Once you’ve reached 10,000 or 20,000 subscribers, you can scale it back to one video a week, but I would encourage you to start off with at least 2 or 3 times a week.
And do not skip videos! I think I’ve only missed 2 videos in the entire 7 months that I’ve been consistent about this. That, I believe, is a big part of why I’ve gone from 0 to 1000 so quickly.
Posting consistently is going to help you build better habits and create a rhythm. Whenever I stop doing graphic design for a week or month, it takes me a lot longer to get back into my rhythm. So if you just stay consistent, you’ll have a groove, and you’ll be able to get good feedback from people, and find that content that you need and what you don’t need.
4. Community
You cannot forget that YouTube, even though it’s like a search engine, is also a community. There are people commenting on videos, people on live feeds, people who are sharing their stories, their life, their passions, their joys, their heartbreaks, philanthropy… all of these things.
There are so many great channels that you can find on YouTube. You have to remember that this is a community of people, and you can use YouTube to build yourself a tribe.
Tribes are key. If you can find like-minded individuals and find 1000 raving fans, you’ll be blown away at the difference that it makes for your business.
Over the years, since I started to use YouTube more and more, I’ve been getting phone calls, emails, and even Facebook messages from people who enjoyed my content. I’ve made thousands and thousands of dollars from building a community. These are people who I’ve built my reputation, my authority, and trust with. Now they trust me to provide services that are high-ticket.
So, commenting and interacting with people is a very important part of YouTube. A lot of people who talk about gaining subscribers on YouTube don’t cover that. You need to make sure that you’re connecting with other people who are also commenting on videos of your favorite YouTubers.
The more you get engaged, the more YouTube sees you engaging on their platform, the more they’re going to reward you for that. That’s one of the secrets that has helped me get from 0 to 1000 so quickly.
5. Call To Action
In every single video I make, I ask people to subscribe. I’m going to ask you to comment and introduce yourself. Tell me who you are and what you love about my channel, or just hit the subscribe button and the like button.
I always put out a call to action. If you’re going to make YouTube videos, and you’re going to start your own channel, you need to have a call to action in every video. Otherwise, people aren’t going to take any action.
Don’t give too many options for action. If you give people too many choices, they’re not going to make any. Have one or maybe two calls to action at the very most in each video, at the beginning, middle, and end.
The Tactics
Now that you have the right mindset and strategy, you can start applying some tactics to help your growth on YouTube. That’s the meat and potatoes of getting to 1000 subscribers on YouTube. So, let’s get into it!
1. Commenting
The very first thing you’re going to need to do is to start commenting on other YouTube channels. You need to start interacting and building a tribe. Even if you just have your channel, and you haven’t uploaded a single video, it’s important to start going onto other people’s channels and commenting.
Start building relationships with people, and start building that familiarity with your channel name.
There are some YouTubers, like Gary Vaynerchuk, Peter McKinnon, Andre Jikh, who get thousands of comments on each video. And some of those commenters get 200-500 likes on their comment. Just by doing that, they gain subscribers. How amazing would it be if you could start a YouTube channel and already have 300-400 subscribers? Talk about a trick, right?
That’s something I wish I had known at the beginning. I didn’t know I needed to build a community. Once I started commenting on videos, I could gain the edge I needed. Imagine having a captive audience, even just 100 people, watching your videos from the day you post your first video. It’s such an easy way to build awareness and get people to subscribe to your channel.
Once again, you have to make the call to action. Make sure your comments bring people to your channel, so you can build anticipation for your videos.
2. Posting
You have to post to your YouTube channel consistently. Posting at the right time of day is also very important.
You can Google this: “what is the best time to post on YouTube 2020?” Most of the statistics and the data that I’ve read recommend posting first thing in the morning, in the middle of the day, or in the evening between 6-8 PM.
If you post at an odd hour, you’re not going to get as much traction. If you try to post at 10:15 or 9:45, you’re probably not going to get as much traction on your video. So posting at the right time of day is very important. Post when you know people are on. Post when you go on — look at the times of the day when you find yourself on YouTube, and start posting during those times.
Your YouTube community is probably going to be very similar to you in terms of their personalities and the times of day they’re online, whether that’s in the morning, on their lunch breaks, or after dinner.
3. Your Thumbnails
There’s something called the “click-through rate” of your video. When your video appears as a search result, it’s given what they call an impression. Now, how many people click on that video is your click-through rate.
YouTube gives you a score based on how many people click on your impression. A good score can be anywhere from a 3% to a 15%. It’s very rare, I think, to hit 15%, but I always shoot for about a 5% to 10% ratio.
Your thumbnail has a lot to do with this score. Your thumbnails will make or break whether or not someone clicks on your video. If people scroll right past your thumbnail without clicking, that’s wasted potential. It’s like having a billboard up on the highway but keeping it blank.
You need to make sure that your thumbnails are great. Use big text, and no more than 3 words. You don’t need to include your name. Keep it simple; keep it clean.
I’ve seen people do funky-looking thumbnails with wild, vibrant colors. You can do that if you want. It does grab people’s attention, but you have to remember to keep it simple, and don’t clutter it up with garbage. You want something that’s going to capture people’s interest.
The best YouTubers out there include pictures of themselves in their thumbnails. Usually, they’re making an emotional face or a funny gesture that will grab your attention and encourage you to click.
The human figure is the most recognizable thing for other human beings. So, if you put a picture of yourself and you do something that’s eye-catching, it’s going to grab people’s attention. Then you can fill in the space with simple text that matches up with the title of your video.
4. Your Titles
When people search for a specific topic, your title is either going to make or break your video. Spend some time creating and crafting a title that will stand out and grab attention.
For example, there’s a YouTuber I follow who consistently posts videos called “Felt Emo, Might Delete.” That title is clever and creative, and it encourages people to click. He’s had a ton of success with those videos.
Stay consistent, and do something that’s catchy. You don’t have to make it too long or add keywords. Keep it simple, make it attractive, and make it clean. Put in the research to make it great.
5. Research
There are a bunch of research tools you can use to improve your YouTube channel. Do your research in advance so you can figure out what your titles should be. That due diligence is going to save you a lot of time and headaches, and you’re going to be able to move that needle up to 1000 subscribers a lot faster.
You can use tools like TubeBuddy, Morning Fame, and VidQ. Those are the three top tools that will give you a score on your title so you know how effective it will be.
They’ll also show you examples of popular videos out there that you can rank for and opportunities. That’s why I love Morning Fame. It’s a little bit more on the pricey side, but it’s worth it for me. Being able to get from 0 to 1000 as quickly as I have, now I’m going to continue to invest. I’ve already invested over $25,000 in this channel.
As a side note, if you’re not committed to that kind of investment and consistency, don’t waste your time trying to grow your YouTube channel. If you fall off in a month or two, you’re just going to have to start all over. An investment will help you stay consistent — if your money is on the line, there’s no backing out.
6. Stay Relevant
You need to make sure that the topics that you cover are relevant to the audience that you’re building. Don’t go off into left field and talk about celebrity gossip if your stuff is all about business marketing. Stay relevant, and find topics that are recent.
I recently did a video about how companies are boycotting Facebook. That has been one of my most popular videos, because it’s very recent. I got to it before all my other competitors did, and then I had the opportunity and the edge.
Use Trends.google to do research on topics that relate to what you’re talking about. Find recent topics that are having “breakouts” — subjects that people are searching for like crazy. If you can get a video out within a few hours of a story breaking, it will be a huge hit.
7. Your Descriptions
Make sure that the descriptions of your videos are completely filled out. A lot of people just do the title, do the thumbnail, and then upload the videos.
You need to transcribe your videos. You can put time stops if certain people are talking throughout the video, like in an interview, and you need to make sure that you actually summarize what that video is about in the description. That’s going to help with the Google and YouTube ranking.
Just below your description is your tags. You can put things like “breaking news” or, “horrible graphic designer” or, “stop hate for profit” or, “Facebook boycott.” You’ll see it right there below the description. ‘
It’s important that you max that out as well. You can put up to 500 characters in those tags. If you put tags in your video, it’s going to help you rank. So you need to make sure that you complete the description above and the tag description below.
8. Playlists
You need to have a really good playlist. When you’re creating different topics, create playlists for each one of them. That allows you to go into each one and add a description for each playlist. You’ve got to type out and summarize what the playlist is about.
If it’s a digital marketing training channel, put it in there. You want to fill it out as much as YouTube will let you. It’s really important to do that for each of your playlists, and separate the different topics by playlist, and then fill those out.
That’s going to really help you get discovered on search engines and YouTube, because when people search a certain topic, playlists do come up.
9. Your Profile Picture
When you’re commenting on other people’s stuff, if you have a personality in your profile picture, that’s going to attract people to check you out. If you have a funny character or a funny face, it’s going to get people’s attention.
Using bright colors in the background and symbols will also help. You can usean eyeball, or something that grabs people’s attention, and gets them to go, “Hey, what is this?” That’s going to get them to actually click on your channel.
10. Your Cover Photo
When someone clicks on your channel, they’re going to see your cover photo.
A friend of mine recently did an audit on my channel, and one of the areas that he said my channel needed the most help on, aside from my playlist, was my cover photo. It wasn’t clear from the photo what my business is and what my channel is about.
When I redid my cover photo, I saw a dramatic change. I saw the traction start to pick up almost immediately. So that was a huge deal.
Make sure that in your cover photo, right in the dead center, you say exactly what your channel is about. Whatever your business is, whatever it is that you’re doing, you need to put that right there and keep it simple. Keep it clean. Don’t put too much text.
If You’re Not All-In, Get All-Out
So, those are the 10 tactics you all need to know. I know it’s a lot of information today, so I hope you wrote everything down!
Again, you have to be willing to put the time and the work in. This is one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do: not just learning how to sit in front of the camera and talk like you’re actually sitting here right now with me, but also learning how to present the information in the right way, and learning how to grow a channel.
If you’re not all-in, get all-out, because there are people out there like me who are trying to go all-in and make something happen. We don’t need people who are half-in and half-out. So just make a decision. Go after if it’s what you want to do, and make sure you’re clear about why you want to do it.
Thank you so much for watching this video with me today. I’m very grateful that you guys helped me get to 1000 subscribers. Once again, I look forward to seeing you guys on the next one. And as always, keep looking up!