Common issues that keep you under 1,000 subscribers

carlylespicks said:
That is why most business fail. Most businesses do the same thing. They have this "cool idea", THEY wanna do and they just do it. No market research. No needs analysis. No picking up a ton of business books to actually learn how business works. No researching things like your competition and the history of the market you want to get into. Just, hey I want to start my own T-Shirt shop so I'm just gonna do it.

. Learn it inside and out and do a LOT of analysis in what works and what does not. If you don't even know who GradeAUnderA is or PewDiePie or about the React wars...then there is your answer why you can't past 1000. KNOW your business! KNOW MORE than your competition or don't expect to go anywhere unless you are lucky.
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So to do research or not? confused me here.
 
carlylespicks said:
I think you missed the biggest one. Consistency. I don't care what you do, unless your content is phenomenal, uploading once in a while will NOT work. There are channels that violate all the the 3 rules you mentioned but win on consistency. I know one with million view videos that is very much hated by a lot of people but he makes enough money to live of his channel. The two core elements to channel growth are consistency and great content. If you could create great content every day, I'm betting you will pass that 1000 sub mark very quick. I stress...GREAT content.
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Thanks for your input. In your view is posting one high quality video a week enough or do you think you should aim to do more?
 
Once a week is great. Twice is even better. Daily is superb...BUT...ONLY if you have good content. Uploading a bunch of videos nobody wants to see is not really going to help you. Keep in mind, you can actually upload videos that are not necessarily all that good IF you have something interesting people want to see. For example. This is kind of wild to drive home the point. You could upload daily videos where the camera work is not good and it's just you walking around, IF say you had captured an alien creature and you were all over the news as the FBI try to track you down. In this case, your videos probably suck, but people wanna see the alien and they are caught up in the suspense. Will you get caught? Are the cops gonna bust in any time now? Again, that was a wild example, but hopefully you get the point. Bringing value (entertainment/knowledge) IS a key strategy but the main thing is that you have stuff people want to see which will keep them engaged.

If you are uploading videos and hardly get any likes or comments after 3 months, doing more of that probably won't help. Do as many videos as you can KEEP up doing and as you can keep people engaged with. Remember, if you overdue it then burn out and stop, that could hurt you. You want to be consistent.

HeadSpread said:
Thanks for your input. In your view is posting one high quality video a week enough or do you think you should aim to do more?
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Tim Schmoyer said:
Hey YTTalkers! I recently heard a small YouTube creator complaining about how YouTube needs to update their algorithm to favor small YouTubers and not just "the big guys." Other small creators chimed in and readily agreed, but I honestly have a different perspective on why small creators stay small and it has nothing to do with YouTube's algorithm.

I thought about this community today and thought I'd share my thoughts here in hopes of encouraging some of you. Hopefully this helps some of you break out from under the 1,000 subscriber barrier that seems so difficult to break sometimes.

First of all, let's talk about that good ol' YouTube algorithm. Is it really geared for the large creators?

For context, I'm a YouTube Certified Consultant and work with both my personal channels and client channels. I started my first channel in 2006 and grew my most recent personal channel from 0 to 10,000 subscribers in the first 12 months. It's now about 25 months old and has 54,000 subscribers and 2.8 million views. It's in a very narrow, small, specific niche, too, not something big and broad like gaming, vlogging, or beauty (ha! image me doing that!).

Most of the channels I work with as clients come to me with under 1,000 subscribers. After about a month or two of working through some common issues that keep creators stuck in that subscriber bracket, they start to exponentially grow. That proves to me that the problem is not algorithmic.

One client of mine came to me before he even started his channel. After 9 months, he's now making $30,000 per MONTH in Adsense revenue alone. I don't say that to point the finger at me -- I say that to say: You can do this! If this guy who didn't even have a YouTube channel can do it, so can you. The algorithm is not the problem.

I've worked with countless channels that have grown from 0 to hundreds of thousands of subscribers and a lot of money fairly quickly. In fact, I used to be co-workers with the guys behind the CinemaSins channel. They'll be the first to tell you that YouTube's algorithm doesn't squish the little guys on YouTube. They started with 0 views just like everyone else. You can do this!

So what are those common issues that cause creators to feel stuck at under 1,000 subscribers?

1. Poor branding.
This goes far beyond a simple forum post, but think much broader than logos, header images, and branded bumpers. Essentially it's answering the questions, "Who specifically is this content for?" and, "Why should that person care?" Why does your channel matter? What difference does it make in that person's life? What's their motivation for wanting to subscribe to your channel in the first place? How easily does your channel answer those subconscious questions for them? How well is that "branding" integrated into your content and channel?

2. Poor titles and thumbnails.
It doesn't matter how awesome your content is if the thumbnails and titles aren't engaging, enticing, and attract people to click. That doesn't mean you should be misleading and tease a story that really isn't in the video -- that will backfire every time -- but it means knowing what the true value of your video is for someone and then crafting a "billboard" for it (title and thumbnail) that accurately pitches its value.

3. Craft better videos.
And I don't mean just in terms of production value -- I mean in terms of actual content value. Most creators assume that their videos are awesome and that the only problem they have is exposure. The problem with that way of thinking is that it locks you into a mindset that doesn't change with YouTube and causes you to start blaming other things that you don't control. It's pretty self-defeating. If you've been creating videos for even 6 months, go back and look at some of your first videos. You thought they were awesome back then. Today you're probably embarrassed by them. And next year you'll look back on the videos you're creating right now and feel the same way. So use tools like "audience retention" in YouTube analytics to craft better videos. Drop the stuff that causes audience drop-off (like branded intros, for example) and learn to start the videos with better hooks, eliminate wasted time, stuff like that.

Hope that helps some of you get on the right track. Like I said, anyone can do this YouTube thing. I really believe that. The key is to work smart, not to just work hard.

I'd love to hear what tips and ideas you have for breaking past 1,000 subscribers! Let's all help each other out here.
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I'm trying to up my game on mine. A main problem for me is not posting regularly as I want to and a few other issues I hope to get it all figured out soon cause youtube means a lot to me I want to get out to more people as well. I'm studying up on it all and think I'm going to buy a better camera nothing to fancy, what also sucks for me is I wanna do more vlogs soon but also sit down videos but I really don't wanna manage 2 channels I see a lot of people making a separate channel. Ugh it seems overwhelming
 
I'm loving all the tips in this thread! One thin I've noticed is that I need to start sticking to one type of video, because people have come to my channel for one thing, but got something else and that turns people away.
 
Tim Schmoyer said:
First of all, read the post! lol Second of all, thanks so much for sharing your experience about my ebook! Glad it was helpful for you and your channel! Sounds like you're on a great trajectory.
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You make SUCH a great point! It's all a learning process for me. I'll definitely take advantage of your advice!
 
Tim Schmoyer you make allot of good points, but YouTube doesn't help new channels when the top YouTubers show up for every search.

They need a small YouTuber search setting or something.
 
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