Seasoned YouTubers like myself will tell you that creating a YouTube channel is an easy task and that the real challenge is how to grow on YouTube. Getting the first one million views on YouTube can be a challenge that many creators never get to surpass.
While the platform is designed to help its users grow, they still require such users to put in a lot of work and time to reach their target. To complicate matters, there is no one right way on how to grow on YouTube. Several tactics abound and ultimately produce different results for everyone.
Regardless of that, there are still various proven ways to help increase your channel’s view numbers. The bottom line is to always remember that content creators on YouTube don’t need a million subscribers before they can get their first million views. Many channels have been successful with far fewer numbers of subscribers’ while a lot has failed even with much more.
And since we know that the goal of most YouTubers is to earn money, they often require the view numbers to be high to make any substantial amount. In this article, danielshustle will be taking a look at how to grow on YouTube (get those first one million views).
How to grow on YouTube
As we’ve rightly stated, there is no one perfect solution on how to grow on YouTube. The trick is to find approaches that best suit your channel and content type. That said; let’s examine some of the ways content creators can grow their YouTube channel to earn big bucks:
Unique Content and Character
Arguably the most relevant and reliable means of growing a YouTube channel is to create unique contents around a unique character. This doesn’t necessarily require you to create new persona or topics. It only requires you to craft contents around a relevant character. Simply put, this requires ingenuity at its best.
This is the beauty of the YouTube platform as it allows creators to channel their creativity in whatever legal means they so wish. There are no dress codes or formalities here, simply express yourself in the most creative and attractive manner you can. Many successful YouTubers have gone to invent catchy intro and outro phrases, looks or special effects for their videos. These seemingly little acts helped them stand out and viewers became aware.
At the end of the day, the uniqueness you display has to be relevant to your content type. This makes it easy for audience to relate the persona with the content. If you are producing sports related content, then you have to assume a sportsmanlike persona. Of course, you won’t be the only creator in that niche but your angle to it might be different which could endear audience to your channel. Thankfully, uniqueness takes just about any form and its up to the creator to choose which works best them.
Controversial Videos
Drama is a huge seller nowadays and nothing spreads and gets more views on YouTube today than controversial contents. And it seems more content creators are realizing this and are infusing bits and pieces of controversy into their contents.
The more controversial your video contents can get, the more views it’s most likely to get. But there is a limit to how controversial you can get with your contents. This requires creators to always keep in mind the YouTube’s terms of service.
On many occasions, several YouTubers have leveraged controversial videos to garner attention, views as well as subscribers. Many have gone the length of inventing conspiracies that helped generate hundreds of thousands of views in a considerable short period of time. While it works, many have also been burned by this tactics since there is a fine line between controversy and hate that a lot of amateur YouTubers don’t understand.
This particular option is a high risk, high reward avenue for growing a YouTube channel. Always understand the YouTube term of service before employing this method to grow.
create Viral content
Another solution on how to grow on YouTube is to get your content to become viral. But just how to go about this is the uneasy task. This is because it’s nearly next to impossible to determine which type of content will become viral or not. But certain video contents created around pseudo dramas or even the introduction of new trend has the potential to catch on and become viral.
None of these contents will guarantee a viral hit, but anything that creates intrigue will cause people to want to view your content. So if you intend to use this method, keep in mind that chance of success is slim but if you do, you can hit a million views in days or even hours.
Another way to deploy this tactic is to hop on viral contents available already. This is because audiences are eager to keep up with popular trends and what’s happening on social media. Many YouTubers got their big views by employing this modified variation of viral videos to grow their channel.
Remember the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge, the Condom Challenge as well as the Flossing challenge. Also, when Pokemon Go and fidget spinners became viral in 2016, many YouTube channels featured them in their content. And it paid off for many who were able to leverage those topics as it provided a cheap but effective way to gain more views. So sometimes it might be worth doing what others were doing to gain more popularity.
If you incorporate too much of these in your content, you might end up appearing as unoriginal to your audience and you will lose them. Keep it to the barest minimum and only use this when it’s relevant to the type of content you’re producing.
Enhance Your Persona
For one, the YouTube platform is one giant stage where content creators get to perform their art for billions of views. To grow on YouTube, creators need to upgrade or transform themselves into lovable characters. Another way is to simply enhance the persona they normally present.
Content creators with ordinary or stale day-to-day personality have no choice than to revamp or portray themselves in a much more relaxed and open manner. Doing this could give them the necessary edge to stand out among the competition. To know how this works, put yourself in the position of a viewer: would you watch a video from a creator that appears cold, distant, and unimaginative or simply too normal?
The truth is audience love it when content creators are enthusiastic and open about their content. This creates an invitational atmosphere and they will certainly come in for the view. Therefore, give the audience a reason to want to watch your content and not that of your competition.
Bottom-line; create an interesting persona that’s still you but much more inviting and intriguing. Some YouTubers have even gone all the way to create an entirely different character altogether. This may work for them but it certainly won’t work for everyone.
Keep up Consistency
Just like every other business, keeping up with consistency is an important attribute. In like fashion, YouTube rewards consistency, making it extremely crucial if you intend to attain a million views and more.
Consistency here doesn’t mean you should upload contents on a daily basis. But rather, create and upload one or two videos per week on the same day and time. For channels with lengthy, high-production contents, a video content per moth should be sufficient.
Irrespective of how many videos you post per week or per month, if your aim is to make a living from the platform, then you had better start taking it as your job. To simplify things, follow these guidelines:
- Plan an upload schedule
- Produce weekly or monthly videos
- Don’t veer from your upload dates
The YouTube algorithm has consistently penalized irregular uploads by not ranking their contents high enough or failing to recommend it to new viewers or appear on their trending page.
Consistency is one of the most important attributes about how to grow on YouTube and you better get some to stand any chance of succeeding on the platform.
Quality Content
Just as with uniqueness, the quality of the contents available on a channel will equally determine how quickly it grows to a million views. YouTube is an online video sharing platform that is constantly competing with traditional media outlet as well as new online platforms. To stay ahead, it favors high quality content.
This means that content with better production value, good characters as well as better story will help the platform attract traditional audiences. If you want to grow on YouTube, then you have to consistently churn out quality contents in all aspect to stand a chance of getting viewers. While this is not guaranteed, it still increases your odds of getting noticed.
In truth, creating quality content takes time; which is what many YouTubers don’t have except they are taking YouTube as a full time job. Thankfully there are many available tools online and offline to help you improve on quality. If you have limited resources, simply set a minimum standard for yourself and grow from there to produce top-notch content later on.
Analyze your competitor
Still on how to grow on YouTube, viewing what your competitors are doing to grow their channel an help you attain your goal. Your competitors are YouTubers that play in the same niche as you do; creating similar contents and jostling for the same audience.
Viewing what they are doing gives you first-hand information on how successful their contents are doing. Also you acquire data to compare your design, content, titles and color scheme.
While there is no YouTube analytics tool to analyze clicks on video, YouTubers can rely on Google’s True View advertising platform for this.
Luck
This might sound odd but the truth is as with every business, you also need a bit of luck to grow on YouTube. This is because many a times, it’s possible to implement the right ideas and tactic and still fall short of your aim: which is to get a million views.
Many YouTubers who have implemented some of the methods listed: viral videos, consistent upload, produce quality content as well as seemingly doing the right things have still come up short. It doesn’t mean the tactics don’t work, they just most likely had the wrong timing, which is where a bit of luck comes in.
This is because there’s so much competition on the platform that oftentimes means contents will appear not good enough or just drown in the competition. Those who eventually make it to a million hits have perseverance with the luck juice.
Many would argue having more subscribers will get you more views, but this isn’t always true. Consider PewDiePie who is believed to be the most subscribed to YouTuber but still averages only around 3-10 million hits for his newest videos. This is even after the fact that he has well over 109 million subscribers!
Conclusion
When it comes to the question; How to grow on YouTube? There is a long list of methods to achieving the growth you so desire. This means this list is by no means conclusive and other methods exist. By infusing some or even all of the aforementioned tactics to your YouTube channel, you can be able to arrive at your first one million views in no time.
Keep in mind that these tactics are not universal and they can in no way guaranty success. At the end, it boils down to the audience to rather watch your contents or move on. But these are sure to get you started.
