Creator's Lab: How to Get More Subscribers

How do you get more subscribers? It’s a question that every YouTuber concerns themselves with – for good reason. Subscribers are now more important than ever as it relates to your channel.

Each time you hit a new milestone on the platform, new features are unlocked. Not only that, but it’s also how you make money - more subscribers means more views, which means more ad views. There’s no stopping a channel that is growing, so with the help of Dean Rojas, here are some tips to helping you grow your channel!

Find your niche

One of the most important things you can do to gain subscribers is to find a niche and stick to it. This likely means trial and error, as well as finding out what you like and don’t like. Your niche should be something that addresses a type of content YOU want to see, but that doesn’t exist. For starters, look to your passions for guidance on the kind of content you should make. If you enjoy comedy, but there isn’t enough medical humor on YouTube, create that! If you like gaming, but only games made before 1995 - do that! Just stick with something you’re passionate about and avoid things you don’t enjoy. You’ll be in this for the long run, which means you may burn out on creating content you don’t enjoy.

Keep up on trends

Trends are good predictors of ways to attract audiences. Examples of trends can range from a popular challenge that people are doing, the latest memes or a big piece of news. You can take advantage of these trends by creating content around them. To stay up on trends, keep an eye on YouTube’s Trending Page, Google Trends, news, Reddit’s front page, and Twitter.

Be yourself

It is incredibly important to be yourself on camera. You can’t maintain a fake persona for months or years on end. Your audience will see right through it and get tired of it rather quickly. Be your true self, whether that’s quirky or silly or deadpan – just be you! Not only will be easier, but you’ll have more fun.

Consistency is key

Developing a schedule and sticking to it is absolutely crucial to developing a strong connection with your audience. Whether that schedule is daily, or Mondays and Thursdays, or once a week – find a schedule that works and stick to it. The goal is to establish a routine so your viewers know when they can find your new videos!

Social accounts

Encourage your audience to follow you on other platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. This provides you with extra ways to communicate with your viewers. You can update them on upcoming videos (or delays), or just share behind the scenes content!

Collaborate with others

One of the best ways to grow your subscribers is to collaborate with other channels within your niche. You both get the benefit of introducing each other to your audiences and know they like the kind of content you both create. Just be careful about WHO you collaborate with - you want your audiences to be similar, but different.

Titles, thumbnails, and tagging

Your thumbnail is one of the most important elements of your production. It acts like a movie poster and markets what people may see in your video. It’s crucial that it be eye-catching yet honest about what the content will be. Clickbait leads to dislikes. You should also coordinate your thumbnail with your title. The title will provide context for the thumbnail.

As for tags, you want to use tags that help people searching for your content, find your video. Tags should cover a wide variety of search results related to your video. Your tags should include keywords that relate to the topic, and avoid anything that people wouldn’t find an answer to in the video.