How to Get More Subscribers on YouTube
As a content creator on YouTube, building a loyal subscriber base is crucial for your success. Your YouTube subscribers represent a community of viewers and supporters who enjoy your content and can help you grow your YouTube channel via their subscriptions, watch time, and participation.
The challenge is, how do you get more of them? Let’s start by reminding you of what not to do:
Buying YouTube Subscribers: Not A Good Idea
One of the most common mistakes YouTube content creators make in their early days is purchasing subscribers. While this may seem like a quick and easy way to increase your numbers, buying YouTube subscribers is not a good idea, and here’s why:
Purchased Subscribers Are an Illusion
Buying YouTube subscribers will lead to a false sense of growth, making it difficult to understand your target audience. Ideally, you want organic viewers and subscribers, who are drawn to your channel for its content, or who are already fans and follow you to your YouTube channel from your other platforms/socials. Purchased YouTube subscribers can also result in a negative impact on your engagement rate, leading to a decrease in your channel's overall performance.
You’re Putting Your Channel at Risk…
YouTube is strict about fraudulent activities, and buying subscribers violates its terms of service. Consequently, your channel may be flagged for such activities or terminated - ending your YouTube career before it’s even had a chance to get anywhere.
… and Throwing Money Down the Drain
Buying subscribers is, to put it bluntly, a waste of money. These subscribers are not genuinely interested in your YouTube channel or your content and, therefore, will not engage with your videos or become loyal viewers. Sure, initially, it looks like you had a huge influx of people finding your channel; but that rush dies quickly as no further engagement happens, and you’re left essentially spending money on inactive or disinterested accounts.
These 20 YouTube Tips and Tricks Are Good Ideas!
1. Craft compelling content
Creating is the #1 goal of all YouTube channels: and by that, we mean create videos that are entertaining, informative, distinctive, and valuable to your target audience, so you can increase your YouTube views and spark great comments. Without great content, you don’t really have a channel.
Also keep in mind that the algorithm is the audience - if you see that your channel’s algorithm isn’t doing well, the translation of that means your audience isn’t currently interested; your viewers are the main element determining whether or not your videos are being viewed or recommended. Work on changing up your content to improve that metric.
2. Analyze your analytics
Use YouTube analytics to track your performance and make data-driven decisions to assist channel growth. One of your most important metrics is CTR (click-through rate), which measures how many viewers actually watched your video after clicking on it. A higher CTR means more people will see your videos in their suggestions.
To see which videos have a high vs. low CTR, go to your YouTube Studio, click “Content,” and select one of your videos. From there, click “Analytics” on the left, then “Reach,” which will show you your CTR. Analytics will also help you identify drop-off points in your videos; try to find ways to edit or remove these without impacting your video’s narrative and flow.
Observing which videos get a higher CTR and less drop-off — and then creating more of that type of video — can amplify channel growth. Also keep an eye on your graph of New Viewers vs. Returning Viewers, which will help you pinpoint which videos are doing a good job of drawing people back to your channel.
And don’t forget about your retention rates — your aim, of course, is to get people to stay and watch your entire video. The “golden” retention rate is said to be 50%, but you should see consistent growth even around 30%. You can work to increase this by using your analytics to monitor the points in your videos where viewers leave, and figure out if you can improve your edits and/or pacing on that video and on similar videos in the future.
3. Post Consistently
While "how often to post" has a different answer for every YouTuber, try to be consistent with when you post, whether it’s weekly, daily, or several times a day. That way, your current fans and potential subscribers will know how often they can expect new videos from you, which gives you the opportunity to build anticipation and engagement. For example:
- Pierson Wodzynski posts her comedic skits and challenge videos weekly.
- NasDaily posts a mix of shorts and full-length videos every Monday through Friday.
- Safiya Nygaard posts new videos of her travel, shopping, and fashion escapades every other week.
4. Generate custom thumbnails
Use engaging YouTube thumbnails to capture viewers' attention - 90% of the best performing YouTube videos have custom thumbnails! You can use intriguing titles, bright/trending colors, striking images, or a combo of all of the above to catch eyes and get those views.
Pro Tip: Whether you choose a headshot with text, a live action shot, a staged shot, or a question format, try to develop your own style of YouTube thumbnail! It helps to keep your branding unique and consistent, so when existing viewers see your thumbnails pop up on YouTube search, they'll immediately identify them as yours.
5. Create a channel icon
Develop a unique and recognizable icon that represents your brand and your niche. Coordinating your icon with your channel description and the content and vibe you have in mind will help you put your best image forward.
6. Create playlists
Organize your videos into playlists to help viewers find related content. If you have enough videos, a compelling and well-organized playlist can keep your viewers on your channel for hours.
7. Optimize video titles and descriptions
Use keywords and a clear, easy-to-understand description that accurately reflects your video's content and intrigues new viewers. After your thumbnail catches their eye, your YouTube viewers will immediately read the title, so having a compelling title is key. Be accurate, concise, put keywords near the beginning of the title, and strongly limit your use of caps and emoji to maximize their effect if you choose to use them.
8. Use annotations and cards
Add annotations and cards to your videos to provide additional information and encourage subscriptions. You can even use clickable links in cards to show viewers more of your own YouTube videos, or to direct them to your other socials.
9. End videos with a strong CTA
Sometimes, the best way to get results is simply to ask! Invite and encourage viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel at the end of your videos with a clear call-to-action.
10. Add a custom channel trailer
Create a trailer that showcases your content and encourages viewers to subscribe. You set the tone for what your viewers and subscribers will come to expect - shoot a brand new short video as an introduction, or edit together some favorite clips from your existing content.
11. Conduct keyword research
Use keyword research to optimize your content and improve discoverability; use your YouTube analytics to pinpoint keyword targets. Other off-platform tools can help with this, as well, like TubeRanker, VidIQ, and TubeBuddy.
12. Collaborate with other creators
Collaborate with other YouTubers and post your collab videos to gain new subscribers and expand your audience.
YouTuber Jessica Kaylee even took this idea a step further, spinning her multiple collabs with Brianna Mizura into a highly-viewed compilation video:
13. Engage with other YouTubers' audiences
Comment on other creators' videos to attract new viewers to your channel, but be sincere - don't just spam comments. Find fellow YouTubers whose content you enjoy, and make genuine connections.
Those connections don’t have to be limited solely to YouTube; you can also follow and hang out with fellow creators/YouTubers on Twitter (X), Instagram, TikTok, or on Discord servers (including the popular Fourthwall one)! Hop into a YouTube or Twitch chat, and extend your connections that way, as well.
14. Host live streams
Organize live streams to engage with your audience and encourage subscriptions - live events can really help build hype!
15. Build a community
Engage with your audience through comments, and ask for feedback to get viewers involved and help build your YouTube community. You can also encourage viewers to participate by making community posts (found, if your channel is eligible, by clicking on the Create button and selecting “create post.”)
Several different types of YouTube community posts offer multiple ways to interact with your audience - choose from text posts, playlist posts, image/gif posts, video posts, polls, and quizzes. You can even share videos from other creators, which can be another step in promoting collaborations.
16. Utilize social media promotion
Share your videos on social media and interact with your followers there to increase your reach even more. To maximize your time, you can even schedule your promotional messages across all socials (X / Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) using smart scheduling tools like Buffer, Social Champ, Tailwind, or any number of others.
17. Host contests and giveaways
Offer prizes and incentives to encourage viewers to hit that subscribe button and engage with your channel. You don't have to be as extravagant as Mr. Beast (and let's be honest - who can?), but a postcard, exclusive sneak peek of an upcoming video, or a guest spot on your YouTube channel can go a long way.
18. Leverage YouTube ads
If you've got the budget for it, consider investing in YouTube ads to promote your content. For most YouTubers, however, you're better off on focusing on your content and analytics before investing into ads.
19. Repurpose content
Repurpose your content across different platforms to increase visibility and gain new YouTube subscribers. Take your YouTube shorts and lightly edit them, and you can repost them on socials like Instagram and TikTok, driving people right back to your YouTube channel.
Using tools like OpusClip will allow you to generate short clips from your longer videos in order to seamlessly share them on your other social media platforms.
20. Grow Your YouTube Community With Fourthwall!
Getting more subscribers on your YouTube channel is essential, but building a vibrant community of loyal supporters is even more critical. Fourthwall is an exciting platform that helps content creators build an engaged and loyal audience through website launching, sourcing, selling products, and offering memberships.
With Fourthwall, you can take your YouTube channel to the next level by creating a hub that offers exclusive content and benefits to your most dedicated YouTube subscribers. Get started on Fourthwall and begin growing your YouTube community today!
Get to Know Your Subscribers
Monitoring subscriber growth is essential to track your progress and understand your audience. Here’s how to specifically learn more about your YouTube subscribers, so you can use these details to optimize your content and improve your channel’s performance:
- Go to your YouTube Studio and click on the "Analytics" tab.
- From there, navigate to the "Audience" tab to check your YouTube subscriber count.
- Click on the "Subscribers" tab to see how many new and recent YouTube subscribers you've gained in the last time period (use the drop-down menu to select a date range), and see exactly which days your new fans subscribed on.
- Scroll further down while in the "Subscribers" tab to explore your YouTube subscriber demographics, like age, geographic location, and watch time.