Hey guys,

I always get asked how I got so many subscribers on my channel or how did I get so big. So I figured why not just make a blog post with some advice on how you can grow a successful channel.

Now to start off I would like to say that I am by no means an expert on this stuff or even that popular to begin with, I only have 1500 subs at the making of this article (29,000 currently). I do however get about 1500 views a day as well as about 20 subs a day so that number is likely to change very quickly (~5,000 views now).

I'm going to divide this article into numbered posts with one piece of advice per number and I'll try my best to elaborate on each point as much as I can. So without further ado, here we go!

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#1. How do YOU define successful

- What I mean by this is what do you think makes a successful YouTube channel. Is it a huge amount of subs? Is it millions upon millions of views? Or is it perhaps a loyal viewer base that watches and supports you. What you deem as a successful YouTube channel will be your goal when you start your own channel whether you want it to or not.

I define a successful channel as one that has a loyal subscriber base, I already have a lot of subscribers and a lot of views, but it kills me when I see my recent videos only get 100-150 views as opposed to my older videos which have upwards of 7k. It's perfectly fine to view success as having a million subscribers, but you must understand that it is very difficult to reach that goal.

#2. Understand your audience

- This one is a bit harder to explain. When I say understand your audience, I'm saying you need to know who your audience is and what they like to watch. Are you going to cater to a more mature audience? Or a younger audience? Whichever you choose you must understand what they like to watch and cater to that.

Take, for example, a young person say a 13yr old kid. What do you think he likes to watch? Is it a lecture on quantum theory or perhaps a let's play video full of cursing and fart jokes? Now this example is a bit on the extreme side, but I think you get what I'm after here. You need to understand what your audience will want to watch and what they don't. If you develop an audience on the younger side then don't start to upload videos that would be more suited to an older audience.

#3. Make videos that you would want to watch

- This is kinda self-explanatory. If you don't like let's plays then don't make them, simple as that.

#4. Always remember to have fun

- If you enjoy making the a video then your audience will enjoy the video as well. It is very easy to spot when someone isn't having fun recording a video. On the other hand, when a person is genuinely enjoying making a video then it's hard not to dislike the video. Be sure not to make a video when your having a bad day, it will show in your video and more than likely your viewers will be turned off by it. This could work to your advantage though if you intend to make ranting videos.

#5. Only upload your best work

- This point is important. You want to make sure that you only upload your best work no matter what. Don't half-ass anything, no-one got anywhere by half-assing. If your doing a tutorial video then only upload your best video, this means don't upload a video of you stumbling through your tutorial. I've been guilty of this before and it is truly embarrassing when you don't know how to build your own damn building.

This point also applies to only uploading the highest quality and most professional video that you can. If your phone rings during the video or if your skype goes off then that's your own damn fault. Stop the recording and try again. I know that sucks, but I can't tell you how annoying it is to hear a phone ringing or the skype chat going off when I'm trying to watch a video. If you don't like hearing it then chances are your viewers don't either.

#6. HD videos are the way of the future

- Honestly this one is a little self-explanatory. HD videos are becoming so damn common that uploading your video in 480p is just laughable. I can understand that you might not have an HD monitor, but if you don't upload in HD then you better have a damn fine video if you want to get successful. These days people want to watch the best quality that they can and if you can't offer that then they'll go to someone else.

#7. Timing is actually pretty damn important

- Not many people know this, but the time you upload your video impacts how many people will see it. More people are going to be online during the afternoons and weekends. That means you will want to try and upload your video so that it gets put on people's sub feed when they are online. Releasing a video in the morning will most likely only get you a few views, but if you go for the weekend a lot more people are online and therefore a lot more people will see a link to your video.

This doesn't take into account your time-zone though. That's a bit more trickier. If you can, try and see where your getting most of your views from. If its North America then try and upload accordingly. Or you can just go with the weekend since if its Saturday for you then its usually Saturday for everyone. (except Australia ... sorry Australia)

#8. The other kind of time is also pretty darn important

- I'm talking about video length here. Depending on what type of video you need to ask yourself how long should I make this. 10 min. is good. Anything over that and people will most likely get bored and click on a different video. I know it sucks, but the average attention span of someone on YouTube is comparable to that of a fly's.

This is different for different kinds of videos though. A tutorial video can go for about 15-20 mins and still be fine. It's just a matter of asking yourself how long your viewers will dedicate to your video. This also goes hand in hand with a lot of points from above. The better quality your video is the longer people stay. The more entertaining it is the longer they stay and so on and so on.

#9. Tags, tags, and more tags

- Tags are your best friend on YouTube. A tag is a keyword or phrase that people put into the search bar when looking for a video. When you want to upload your video try and think of the different keywords someone might type in if they want to find your video. There are some key notes you need to understand about tags though:

- Use quotations: "let's play" is better than "let's" "play"

- Try to stay away from generic tags such as awesome and cool. They will get you nowhere.

- Don't use a popular youtuber's username as a tag, that will also get you nowhere.

- Don't use too many tags. A lot of tags is not always a good thing.

- Put more relevant tags at the top and less relevant after.

- Use common misspellings as tags. For example "midevil" and "medieval"

#10. Titles are your friends

- Titles are super important. You need to try and keep your title short and concise while also trying to keep it as detailed as possible. You also want to keep it organized and good looking. Take for example this title "the most awesome let's play minecraft episode 5 part 3 omg creepers." I literally cried while typing that because it was so painful. For starters let's use correct grammar, this means capitalizing the first letter of every word in a title unless it is a short word like "a", "the", and "of." We also want to throw in some dashes and parentheses to help organize this monster. We also want to take away anything that isn't relevant to the video.

So, now if we take everything that I said to do we get this "Let's Play Minecraft - Ep. 5 (Part 3) Omg Creepers." Now that still is a long title, but at least it's more organized and clear.

#11. Descriptions are you other friends

- Descriptions are like the forever alone guy. I see so many people just leave the description blank like it's some useless piece of junk. It's not. It is a lot more important than people think. Descriptions, according to Google searches, are like a tag fest. You want to make sure that your description is chock full of information. You might also want to put links in there to facebook and twitter. And if you are uploading a video that is a part of a series of videos then be sure to put links to the video before and after the one you're working on.

#12. Don't forget annotations

- Annotations are more important than people give them credit for. You need to use these effectively in your videos. This mean putting links to other videos as well as comments. You should put links to videos that come before and after in the series and link to other relevant videos if you want. Don't overdo it though. That is like a cardinal sin of YouTube. Everyone and I mean everyone hates when there are too many annotations in a video.

#13. Interact with your audience

- Don't forget the viewers. I've been focusing a lot on the videos so now we shall move on a bit. Interacting with your audience builds a relationship between you and them. Be sure to reply to their comments and talk to them a bit on other sites like facebook and such. Try to build a relationship so that they become more and more loyal to you. Building a good relationship is of upmost importance, if you don't interact with your viewers you're missing out on an important step. Building this relationship allows for you to build up this subscriber base, these guys will be the ones that will most likely never unsub and make an effort to watch all of your videos.

#14. Be ready for criticism

- Everyone faces criticism on youtube. Even the most popular people have critics. What you need to do is be ready for any criticism that comes your way. Don't immediately get defensive and be harsh with these people though. Some of my earlier critics are now part of my subscriber base. Being able to take constructive criticism shows that you are a mature person and are able to better yourself. Feel free to disregard criticism, but don't be a dick about it. All you need to do is nothing.

#15. Trolls are just that ... trolls

- Everyone hates trolls. It's a fact. People may like to troll, but they more than likely hate it when it happens to them. Just ignore them and move on.

#16. Be consistent

- A lot of people don't realize this, but being consistent in your uploading is very important. You need to be sure to upload on a regular basis and try you best to develop a schedule. Not everyone checks your channel feed for new videos, so having consistent uploads helps to set a pattern. Humans love patterns. Let's have an example, say you upload videos on Saturday at around noon. If you continue to upload videos every Saturday at noon people will expect to see your videos in their subscription feed every Saturday at noon. When there isn't a video then it throws them off their pattern. They start to stop checking every Saturday at noon and when you start up again they won't know.

Now this may not be the exact way it happens, but developing a pattern helps a lot. Not a lot of people will go in and check your channel for new videos, they usually have tons of other YouTuber's they watch and have other things to do than to wait for you to upload.

#17. Time to make some friends

- Many people don't know this, but YouTube is a social networking site just like any other. A while back YouTube had something called "friends." You could send friend requests to people and they could accept you or decline much like any other social media site. Now they are called "contacts." Same principle, different name. What you need to do is go on videos that are similar to yours and add the people that are commenting to your contact list. This can be found in your inbox when you click on address book and hit add new contact. With the newest update the inbox can be found when you click on "video manager."

Some people don't like to have a bunch of contact requests, but some people don't mind. More often than not people will see the request and at least check out your channel a bit. It's usually hit or miss, but hey at least you tried.

#18. Don't spam people with shares

- If there is one thing I hate, it's people sending me a ton of links to their video. It's stupid and most of the time people will either delete your message or block you or even both.

Don't get me wrong, sharing is fine. Just don't go overboard. If you share a video with someone and they don't like the video or respond or subscribe, then don't send anymore links. Obviously your attempt did not work with them.

#19. Custom thumbnails and channel art

- There two things are important for a variety of reasons. Custom thumbnails will allow you to stand out among search results and get some more views. Make sure it is relevant to your video though. Channel art is also important. If you have the new layout make sure that your background is view-able on different devices. This means you need to go to the new layout website and make your background fit into the different formats. Make these two things to fit your own tastes, I can't give you a specific way to do this you just have to figure out what works for you.

#20. Don't stop

- Getting successful overnight is just a dream, nothing more. It won't happen unless you have some friends in high places. With that being said, it's not impossible to become successful you just need to keep making videos. Keep on going and never stop. It saddens me deeply when I see someone say that they are quitting YouTube because they aren't successful enough. Success is not given, it is earned. You need to put in the hard work to get anything out of it.

#21. When to put up ads

- There will come a time in your YouTube career when you need to decide if you want to take this little hobby to the next level. That time comes when you decide to put ads on your videos. Ads themselves are not evil, they are a perfectly fine way for you to make some money on the hard work that you put into your channel. When to put ads on your video is an important subject.

You need to understand the impact ads will have on you and your channel. Ads will no doubt frustrate some viewers and many of them will hold you to a higher expectation. You also need to decide when you will put ads on your videos. Is it going to be right when they are uploaded? When they reach a high view count? You will also need to decide what type of ads to use.

All of these decisions are very important. You need to understand that having 30 sec ads on a video with only 100 views that was uploaded a week ago is a big no-no. Many people will feel like all you care about is money, and while it's fine to want to make money on your videos you need to balance things out a bit. Maybe have no ads on your videos that are brand new. Put regular in-stream ads on videos that have a medium amount a views and the big 30 sec pre-roll ads on your most popular videos that have over 1k views. I usually stick to this formula and it has worked so far. Once you get more viewers and subscribers you can change it up a bit.

#22. Choosing a network

- Partnering with a network on YouTube is a great milestone. Its something that you can use to validate all the hard work you put into your videos and channel. Choosing the right network is a difficult decision. You need to weigh the pros and cons of the various networks and decide on which one benefits you. I am partnered with RPM network, a sub-network of Maker Studios and Socialblade. I think RPM is a great network, especially for youtubers with a low number of subscribers. While its great that they accept a lot of youtubers, its also a downside. They are so big that your single channel is only a drop in a pond. When looking for a network you need to decide on what's right for you and which ones you will be accepted into.

#23. Networking

Get you name out there

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Thanks for reading guys, I really appreciate. If you would like you can check out my youtube channel here

Also if there is anything I missed leave a comment and I'll add it :D

Peace out guys, see you next time

- Networking on YouTube is huge. It is a crucial step to growing a successful channel. It not only helps your grow your subscriber count, but it also can help you make some good friends. Networking is essentially working with someone else for the betterment of both of your channels. This can be accomplished by giving each other shoutouts, boxing each other, and doing dual-commentaries with each other. Networking is how a lot of the top youtubers got so big. They worked with other youtubers and shared each other's success. Make sure to network with someone who is about the same level as you. While it would be nice to help out someone that has less subscriber and a lower viewcount you would essentially get nothing out of the deal. That's not to say you can't help people out, just know that you're not going to get a whole lot by doing it besides making a new friend and getting some good karma.#24.- This one is a tad bit confusing. What I'm trying to say is you need to get your name out there, do some advertising. That can be posting on forums, linking your channel on your posts, giving out flyers, anything really. This is pretty much about doing everything in your power to get you name and channel out for people to see. Heck this is why I have a pmc account. I post my builds on here and put a link to my channel, I use my videos in my posts, I advertise my channel in the chat. I'm doing all that I can to get my channel some advertising. Just be sure not to make any enemies, some people don't like it when someone makes only one post on a forum and it's a link to their channel.