Many of us as children have dreamt of entering into the entertainment industry. Be a part of Hollywood or Bollywood in some way. Give directions, produce movies. Well, at least I know quite a lot of people who wanted to do this. But not all wishes, made as children come true.
However, now it can. Yes, you can actually enter the entertainment industry and direct, produce and release your own videos/movies. That too on the second largest search engine globally. Yes you guessed it right. I am talking about YouTube – the second largest search engine in the world.
Before I give you a walkthrough of this entertainment wizard, have a look at these numbers.
- 1,300,000,000 people use YouTube
- Every minute, around 300 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube
- Everyday, almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube
- Around 30 million users visit YouTube everyday
- Out of 10, 6 people prefer online video platform over traditional TV
- 3.25 million hours of videos are watched every month on YouTube
- 1 billion views were generated by 10,113 YouTube videos
- On an average, YouTube registeres around 1,000,000,000 mobile viewers everyday.
- 62% of the YouTube users are female, while 38% are male
- YouTube offers its services in around 76 languages, which almost counts for 95% of the population.
Wow! These numbers are really spinning my head. I hope you will not think me to be crazy, if I say that almost the entire world is on YouTube. The platform was first launched in 2005 and the first video was uploaded on 23 April 2005. In just 14 years, this is some accomplishment that YouTube has achieved.
But don’t you wonder how?
Do not worry, today I am going to share some success mantra, that will magically increase your subscription on YouTube in 2019. Before I hop on to the tactics, let me make sure that you are aware of the wonders YouTube can do.
Why YouTube?
The figures above speak for themselves. But still let’s get things straight. YouTube has literally become a great source of income for many. In fact people have started taking YouTuber as a serious profession. And why not, it is a perfect way for all the creative lads to earn money. But, here again you need to understand that, just uploading videos is not going to make you rich.
You need to build strategies, implement them and most important learn, how to harness the power of YouTube. So let us quickly jot down the points, that can increase your YouTube subscribers and make you a web celebrity.
Shift from playlist to power playlist
Yes this is a genuine term. There is a slight difference between playlist and power playlist. Playlist is when you categories your videos based on its topic. Power playlist is when you categories your videos based on the outcome. The essence of the video is it’s outcome. Basically the title of the video somehow describes it’s outcome. This increases the chances of luring more audience to your power playlist and subscribe to your channel.
Try long videos
Usually people have this perception that videos, longer than 5 minutes are boring. But you are wrong. The trends are changing now. The longer the video, more the chances of its ranking on the YouTube search engine.
The suggested length for now is +10 mins for best results. Here the keywords used in your title and description plays the major role.
Add end screens
The basic need of increasing your subscriber base is, get as many people to watch your videos as possible.
Now the question is how?
While uploading a video, YouTube offeres you some settings. Use these settings to add end screens to your video.
Endscreen is nothing but a promotion of your other videos in the current playing video.
Pro tip: keep an extra 10 seconds at the end of your video in advance, where you can add the end screen settings.
Add a subscription button
This is the best technique to increase your YouTube subscribers. Add a subscription button in your video itself.
You can do this from the extra settings offered during the upload. This is usually offered by YouTube in the end screen templates.
YouTube offers you some end screen templates, where you can customize things as per your needs. But adding a subscription button is a must.
Pro tip: it is recommended you add the subscription button, just above the play and pause video option.
Quality should matter, not quantity
If you think posting 5-10 videos a day, will get you more subscribers, you are wrong. Just like any other social platform, here also the quality of your video matters, not the quantity. Even if you post 2-3 videos in a week, it should be of the quality, that instantly captures the attention of your audience.
It should be like a drug to build an addiction. Your subscribers should be waiting for your videos, that when is next video coming up. Not you giving them a wake up call every time you upload something.
The secret of achieving this is by giving the audience a rich quality content to watch. Show them what they are interested in.
Be responsive to comments
By replying to your audience’s comments, you are establishing a personal relation with them And trust me, nothing can be more convincing for a viewer to subscribe your channel than a personal connect. In Fact YouTube internal data also suggests this.
Do not miss out on the description
Adding a description to both, your channel as well as every video uploaded is very important.
Imagine you stand at the door of a new house, without a name plate, wouldn’t you think twice before entering it?
The same happens here. The description is basically the information about your channel or your video, so that a visitor know what to expect. So if you do not have a description, a visitor might think twice, before subscribing.
Also, it is important not just for increasing subscription, but also from the video SEO point of view. If you have a detailed and keyword stuffed description, chances of your ranking increases.
Pro tip: while writing a description for a new video, try adding the links of your previous uploaded video. You should also include the words used in the title of your video, in the first few lines of your description.
Attract audience to subscriber magnet
Subscriber magnet is basically the video that has brought the maximum subscribers to your channel. The best way to know this is by checking your analytics. Go to the YouTube analytics, click subscribers and then YouTube watch page.
Here you can check the data for all the videos. Look for the video that has generated the maximum subscribers.
After identifying the video, the best way to use it is:-
- Add the subscriber magnetic video in your end screen
- Make a new playlist, that starts with the magnet video
- Add the video in cards also
Use proper channel icon
The channel icon should really, at a glance be able to explain whose channel it is or what the channel is about. Even if you have to mould your logo a little to fit into the channel icon space, go for it. Your channel icon is basically like a thumbnail for your entire channel.
Channel tagline is also equally important
Positioning the channel is very important and to position the channel the only simple thing that you need to do is, create a very unique tagline for your channel.
To create a tagline that suits best for you channel all that you need to do is:
- Identify the factor, that makes your channel stand out in the crowd
- Add the tagline on the channel art in big and bold font
- Use the tagline in the channel trailer
Give a heart to the best comments
Ok, don’t get me wrong, by giving a heart I mean add the heart emoticon to the best comments. This is a latest feature introduced by YouTube some time back. You can actually give a heart to the most awesome comment and show your gratitude to the one who commented.
And the wow factor is, a notification is sent to the person for whose comment you have given a heart. Now this can be really amazing, when it comes to building bonds with your audience. Wait, it not just ends here. Also see what YouTube has to say:
Create a channel trailer
Having a channel trailer can really boost your subscriber base. Adopt the following ways to make a trailer that will attract audience:
- Include your channel tagline in the first five seconds of your trailer
- Keep it for about 1 minute or less
- Your trailer should include the best you can show case.
In short the channel trailer should have the capacity to building interest amongst the audience so that they subscribe to your channel.
Include the video links in your blogs/posts
Your blogs and posts can be a huge source of generating YouTube subscribers. If people are interested in your blogs and are reading your content, they will definitely be interested watching the videos that you can offer. This means you need to embed your YouTube videos in your blogs as well as posts.
A call to action button is important
If someone has seen your video till the end, it is basic human nature to want for, what will be next. In this scenario, you ought to offer your viewer a call to action before they switch to some other video.
Do not be shy to ask your audience what to do. Ask them to like and share your video or subscribe to the channel.
Approach them with luring dialogue to take some action.
Promote your channel
Promotion and creating awareness is very important.
If people do not know about your channel, how will they subscribe to it?
Promote your channel as much as you can in ebooks, podcasts, webinars, lead magnets etc.
Optimize your channel page
According to the study, an optimized channel is likely to get 2-5x times more subscribers compared to the non optimized ones. There are a lot of different ways to optimize your channel. Even YouTube offers some templates, which makes it easy to understand, what and how to do things.
Now that you have learned quite a lot on how to increase your subscriber base, here are some bonus tips to enhance your visibility and hence, increase subscribers.
#Tip 1 – “Social Media Preview”
Directly promoting your YouTube video on other social media platform is not a very good idea. Because every platform wants the audience to stay there and not be redirected to YouTube. So the best way to promote your YouTube videos on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc is to post a screenshot on the social plataforma of your video and add its link in the comment box.
#Tip 2 – Include a Subscription Link In Your Channel Art
I hope you know that you can link external sites in your channel art. Well, there is something more that you can do.
You can also add an extra subscription button in your channel art.
Let me explain how…
- Create a YouTube subscription link
- Add it as one of your channel art link
- Give it an eye catchy title
And you are done.
Hope you have learned the new tactics of increasing subscribers on YouTube. I have tried and tested these techniques. Now it is your turn. Apply these techniques to your YouTube Channel and share your results in the comment box below.
Good Luck and Congratulations in advance for becoming a web celebrity on YouTube, which I am sure can become if you apply these measures.
