Ask any YouTuber and they will tell you that generating significant views and subscribers isn't easy. But with the right strategy and tools, any video creator can build an engaged subscriber base when they understand what those subscribers want to watch.

Appealing to an audience to watch content you are passionate about making is just the first step, you need to know how to reach them and get your videos discovered. Our guides to how to guide more views on YouTube will give you the best tips to succeed on the platform.

Getting Views

How To Get More Views on YouTube

Getting thousands or even millions of YouTube subscribers is a dream for most creators. In the articles below, we'll show you how to turn casual viewers into long-term fans. 

Subscribers

YouTube Subscribers

Do you want to make money on YouTube? Millions of creators are earning a very good living from monetizing the platform and uploading content that drives huge views and engagements. Whether that YouTube income is from advertising revenue, merchandise sales, or brand deals, or subscriptions, we keep you updated with best practices and ideas.

Monetization

How To Make Money on YouTube

Want to see how your channel is performing? Read these YouTube analytics articles to discover what's working and what isn't. You'll learn how to identify which videos have the most Watch Time, clicks, audience retention, revenue, and more.

Analytics

YouTube Analytics

Watch Time is arguably THE most important metric on YouTube right now, and creators won’t be able to monetize their content without 4000 hours of it. But what is it and how can creators increase the amount of Watch Time their videos attract? We keep you updated on the best practices around Watch Time, and how you can increase how much your video content generates.

Watch Time

YouTube Watch Time

YouTube Shorts content is set to explode! 

All the latest tips, tricks, and rock-solid advice you need for this new feature.

YouTube Shorts

Do you know how to do keyword research so you understand what videos people are actually searching for on YouTube? Do you know how to create a custom YouTube thumbnail? Do you know how to create a Playlist on YouTube?

vidIQ has a ton of tips that will help every creator maximise their video content. We publish content every week to keep you up to date with all the best practices.

Tips & Tricks

YouTube Tips & Tricks

At vidIQ we have incredible insights into what viewers are searching for on YouTube. Not only can we confirm the top keywords being searched for, we can also show you how you can leverage that interest to create content around trending topics and tentpole events. That's going to give you a clear edge over other creators!

Insights

YouTube Insights

Your In-Depth Guide to Building a Successful YouTube Channel

, where you can learn more about starting a lucrative YouTube career.

Here are some stats people were sharing on Twitter about how long it took YouTube creators to get subscribers (averaged):

100,000-1 million subscribers: 1,171 videos

The problem with these stats is that they take into account all the channels on YouTube, and that’s around 37 million. Not everyone comes to YouTube to become a creator!

, it takes much less to build that initial audience.

10 Solid Ways to Get 1,000 YouTube Subscribers

Talking about a niche topic, but presenting information as if the audience were fifth-graders

Taking titles, thumbnails, and YouTube optimization seriously

How Long It Took to Get 10,000 Subscribers on 3 Different YouTube Channels

Here are some stats on how long it took me to grow three of my YouTube channels:

Are you surprised to see how many videos attracted 10,000 subscribers? Or how many days passed before I reached that milestone? Keep reading to learn what happened on all these channels.

 in December 2014 and had no idea how YouTube works. Despite those growing pains, it only took 

39 videos and 390 days to reach 10,000 subscribers. 

This is pretty good, considering it's a Russian language channel. That's a smaller market compared to my other two channels.

2. Linguamarina (teaching English in English) 

I started this channel in February 2016, two years after Marina Mogilko. It's my fastest-growing channel right now with 80,000 people subscribing monthly. 

Relatability. I am not a native-speaker of English, but many people say it’s easier to learn from me.

I "hacked" the algorithm by using the right thumbnails and titles.

23 videos in 180 days to reach 10,000 subscribers.

Thousands of people want to learn, speak, and write English better. I took advantage of that by sharing valuable lessons, like the YouTube Short below about cutting the word "very" from your vocabulary.

3. Silicon Valley Girl (business and income)

The growth of this channel has been crazy. I started 

 with a video titled, "Buying a Lamborghini After Selling a Company to Microsoft," with me and a Lambo on the thumbnail. I knew it would work. And honestly, it wasn’t me who sold the company. It was my friend, Matt, and that was his Lambo. The whole video was about him.

 Then I just needed 44 days and four videos to reach 10,000.

How did I do this? Here are four key reasons:

 (a questionable approach because the audience wasn’t exactly entrepreneurs, which was the initial goal).

 with click-worthy titles. That was a good start, but now I'm looking to build a more engaged audience on that channel.

So what are the key takeaways from my 10,000-subscriber journey?

Make sure your first videos are searchable

, which means people are actually searching for those topics on YouTube. Make sure the titles are juicy and intriguing. Imagine the views you can get from "Buying a Lamborghini After Selling a Company to Microsoft" versus "A Successful Entrepreneur’s Story."

Aim for a bigger market, but start with niche content.

 I started Linguamarina, my English channel, with videos about the TOEFL exam. The content was highly-searchable and helped me build my initial audience.

 Familiarize yourself with the power of SEO, attractive thumbnails, and good titles. This will help you take advantage of the algorithm and fast-track your journey to 10,000 subscribers.

Need a smaller goal to reach? Here's how long it takes to get just 

Ready to get 10,000 YouTube subscribers? Here's how long the journey takes, plus tips to expedite the process.

How Long It Takes to Get 10,000 YouTube Subscribers

No matter what you festive content you create this season, we wanted to give you the best keywords possible.

If you are creating content this holiday consider adding these keywords (in titles, descriptions, tags) to lift your search ranking:

 – holiday, holidays, merry, carol, bells, jingle, lights, eve, santa, jingle bells

 – holiday, xmas, merry, santa, holidays, presents, tree, gift, clause, december Hanukkah – holiday, chanukah, presents, holidays, kwanzaa, xmas, santa, gifts, jewish, merry

 – Merry Christmas, holidays, holiday, jingle, lights, bells, christmas eve, carol, jingle bells, merry

 – hanukkah, holiday, jewish, hanukah, holidays, menorah, latkes, kwanzaa, xmas, chanukkah

To make the mosts of the Holidays, make sure to 

Happy Holidays….  and Merry Christmas, Happy (C)hannukah and Happy Kwanzaa!

YouTube SEO For The Holidays

We built vidIQ Pro for content creators and video marketers of all shapes and sizes with one purpose in mind.

To provide an industry-leading toolset that makes it easy for anyone to get the most out of Youtube. In addition to all the tools in vidIQ Basic, vidIQ Pro adds the following features across our chrome extension and web suite:

Best Time of Day- vidIQ crunches the numbers and provides you the most optimum time to post your videos to ensure they get the most views and engagements. Historical Statistics for popular videos – Go back in time and see exactly when a video took off. Embedded Sources – Ever wonder the actual URLs that are generating embed views on your video? vidIQ provides a list of embed locations for any video. More Metrics On Your Uploaded Videos- See trending countries, what devices are driving views, and demographic information right from the chrome extension. YouTube Keyword Tool

The most notable new feature in vidIQ Pro is the new vidIQ Search Companion. The vidIQ search companion appears on the YouTube search results page via the vidIQ chrome extension and provides high level metrics along with trending videos and related search words.

We wanted to make sure the product was affordable for everyone too, so we focused on a price point that wouldn’t break the bank. vidIQ Pro starts at less than $9 a month for a yearly subscription.

It’s been just a few weeks since we soft-launched the new vidIQ Pro platform and I’m happy that today we make it official–vidIQ Pro is now available for everyone!

vidIQ Pro and YouTube Keyword Tool

Resisting the brute efficacy of “listicles,” True Facts, and relatable gifs is – as I’m sure you realize – futile.

Between mobile and desktop users, the Buzzfeed website enjoys about 10 million unique visitors daily…and that’s on a bad day.

For the non-Mathletes in the audience, that’s 30% of YouTube’s total unique user traffic over the course of a month (which is 1 billion) – on a website that is younger, less prolific, and does not rely on user-generated content.

That share-of-voice takeover escalated quickly, am I right?

Obviously, BuzzFeed is not in competition with YouTube – instead, these two monolithic content platforms function as partners on this epic, shared journey of Social Media domination. And while their business models share little in common, the media giants are both swaddled and secure in the knowledge that they have perfected – together and independently – the Internet-reinforced concept of “content as communication.”

Pictured: YouTube and BuzzFeed’s concurrent sense of self-satisfaction.

Both in Ze Frank’s 2013 Vidcon presentation and during Jonathan Perelman’s REEL Video Summit speech last week, the BuzzFeeders tip their hand by declaring that content should be made for how it is consumed – as a shareable form of communication. They’ve cleverly discerned that share-worthy content – taken holistically – keys almost exclusively into 3 drivers of human communication:

Identity (“this article/video communicates something about me or my life experiences better than my just telling you would.”)

Emotional gift (“this content made me feel X, I want you to feel X too.”)

Information (“HEY GUYS – this stuff is factual and cool.”)

By playing to these 3 share-driving principles, BuzzFeed has exploded in popularity over the last 24 months and has, perhaps more notably, rendered Google Search secondary to content discovery. In its place, Facebook – the gold standard of Social Media referral – now leads the bulk of users to BuzzFeed’s content watering hole.

The implications for SEO, by the way, are semi-staggering. (Source.)

Ahh, yes. Share-worthy content is indeed successful content. But, why? Is it because of the complex network of overlapping human needs resulting from our schizophrenic relationship with empathy? Is it because LOL cats have driven us to over-identify with memes? Is it because Ze Frank has perfected mass hypnosis from high up in his ivory, BuzzFeedian tower and we are all victims?

Nay, my friend – it is so much simpler than that.

“Sup, bros. I’m basically the neurological foundation of human society and community sentiment. No biggie.”

Oxytocin is a fun little mammalian neuromodulator that most of you will more readily recognize as the “bonding hormone.” This is the stuff that gets mothers (naturally) high after childbirth, the stuff that gets you (naturally) high after sex, and that makes menial tasks like grocery shopping – when shared with someone you like – (naturally) less terrible.

Interestingly, oxytocin is released in small amounts into the human brain during 3 common, share-worthy experiences:

Now, let’s play a game called, “Find the Synonyms.”

“Identity” = “Social belonging” (we reinforce our sense of self by seeking out external reinforcement and relationships.)

“Emotional gift” = “Intimacy” (shared feelings/experiences are the root of actual and perceived intimacy.)

“Information” = “Information discovery” (not really a synonym so much as exactly the same word.)

Wait a minute. Does that mean that BuzzFeed is just exploiting your fiendish biological addiction to oxytocin?!

Not at all, my dear reader – everything good on the internet is just exploiting your fiendish biological addiction to oxytocin. Whether it’s a Wikipedia loop or social media FOMO or LOL cats, your sustained interest is no more mysterious than is a mild heroin habit (for even less mystery, check out the structural parallels between oxytocin and heroin molecules).

Ain’t neurochemical stimulation neat? Evolution certainly thinks so – that’s, like, its entire community-building strategy.

In short, the secret sauce of successful content is also the secret sauce of all human endeavor – a high dependency liability.

Thanks for reading. I got you some oxytocin. (Source.)

More info means more oxytocin. Got a craving? 

 to see YouTube video analytics and a whole mess of metrics right in your browser.

It is the professional opinion of this blogger that Buzzfeed has won the content marketing war and that, shortly, they will rule the world.

Successful Content’s Secret Sauce, Explained by Science (and Exploited by BuzzFeed)

And this is the highlight reel for the 2014 REEL Video Marketing Summit, carefully optimized with cat gifs.

Highlight #1: 8AM Advanced YouTube SEO & Audience Development for Marketers Workshop with Mark Robertson, Tim Schmoyer, Mark Ballek, and Derral Eves…Or, Everybody Just Wants to Talk to Tim Schmoyer

“That’s a fascinating insight, other panelists; but, I was mostly curious what Tim had for breakfast and if he thinks I’m pretty. #Reel Summit”

Highlight #2: REEL Summit Intro Video – Evolution of Video Marketing…Or, Everyone Briefly Remembers that Weird/Awesome Poo-Pourri Viral Video from Last Year

“LOL – ‘you won’t believe the mother-load I just dropped’…wait, wasn’t that actually an ad for poop perfume? Yeah, 2013 was weird. #ReelSummit”

Highlight #3: Googler Jon Klaff Addresses, “The Next Big Leap in Video Advertising”…AKA Envisioning a Dystopian Future Where All Consumers are Chronically Attention-Divided, Under-Slept, and Device Co-Dependent to the Point It Destroys All Traditional Marketing Paradigms

“Welcome to the new normal, populated largely by Millenials – a mutant race of Buzzfeed-addicted, Social Media drip-fed, 3-hours-of-sleep-a-night-getting, seamless-experience-demanding super-humans whose data we’ve been mining since they went through puberty. Also, that Brand Relationship Arc graphic is SO COOL. #ReelSummit”

Highlight #4: BuzzFeed Presents, “Creating Content for How It’s Consumed”…Or, We All Erupt in Applause Over a Friskies Ad

“We don’t care if this video is inauthentic – our love for zefrank1 voiceovers is real. All hail Friskies! #ReelSummit”

Highlight #5: JW Presents, “New Innovations in Video Technology”…Or, I Can’t Even with Your Industry Advancements Right Now

“Jesus, we’re talking adaptive streaming, interactive & searchable transcripts, a friggin’ in-video table of contents…just stop – it is literally too much. #ReelSummit”

Highlight #6: YouTube Strategies for Brands with Jonathan Hunt, Christine Ngo, Brendan Gahan, and Ross Everett…Also Known As the REEL Summit Drinking Game

“Shhhhhhhh – just take a shot any time I say ‘authenticity’, ‘community’, or ‘storytelling’… #ReelSummit”

Highlight #7: Closing Keynote – Is Your Company’s Culture Killing Your Video Marketing Potential?…Or, Sourabh Kothari & Peter Agnus Medlock are a Hyper-Natural Comedy Duo that Need to Start a YouTube Channel Immediately

“10/10 would hit ‘Like’ & ‘Subscribe’ so hard. #ReelSummit”

Highlight #8: Closing Reception & Party…Or, Everybody is Now Drunk

“So, I literally don’t even know how everybody got drunk. There were only 2 drink tickets included with summit registration. Wait – what’s in my hand? Is it Uber? #reeldrunk @ #ReelSummit”

And that’s the skinny from the Visionaries here @vidIQ. The REEL Video Summit was an unqualified success, with cat gifs.

Be sure to join us next year, where they may or may not be providing more drink coupons with summit registration.

What about you, fellow REEL Video Summit attendees – do you have other favorite highlights? Feel free to write them in the comment section.

Last week, industry insiders and industry newcomers mingled, saleswomen and salesmen schmoozed, a veritable lovefest erupted on Twitter under the never-quite-trending #ReelSummit – this was the 2014 REEL Video Marketing Summit.

8 REEL Video Summit Highlights Cheekily Articulated via Cat Gif

It was a major televised sporting event with almost no commercial-breaks for advertisers to showcase their message,” making it “incumbent upon marketers to think beyond TV.

With 45 brands spending more than $400 million to promote 97 campaigns, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil represents one of the largest marketing events in history. It also marks the moment that online advertising claimed a definitive victory over television.

Commentators are quick to evaluate the success or failure of these video marketing efforts in terms of “total views”, but at vidIQ we know video virality is more than views-deep.

To get to the heart of the matter, we’ve decided to pit the top branded YouTube campaign videos head-to-head and see who won the 2014 World Cup Battle of the Brands (in our humble opinion).

How, you may ask? We’re taking the most telling engagement metrics from our Chrome extension’s YouTube video report card and evaluating the real, hard-won, organically-viral winners of this momentous marketing match. We’ll assess…

Share date – time since the video was uploaded, for context and to assure all metrics are evaluated equitably.

Total views – the reported number of times a video has been viewed on YouTube. Be wary, however, since this number can be manipulated and views can be bought.

Minutes watched – total, aggregated number of video minutes watched by YouTube users, regardless of whether or when the video was abandoned. Be wary here too, because creators can withhold this data – sometimes to protect proprietary information and sometimes to obscure a paid viewing campaign.

vidIQ score – this is an optimization score applied to every YouTube video according to our proprietary, cross-platform algorithm that predicts the video’s likelihood of promotion in Related Videos, Search, Recommended Videos, and more.

Creator suggested – this metric monitors the relative number of videos that YouTube is linking back to a publisher’s own channel, and is a fair indicator of a channel’s level of management or sophistication. Read a more detailed explanation of “Creator suggested” here (if you’d like).

True engagement – the Gold Standard of video marketing metrics, this key YouTube performance indicator crunches the numbers on every social media share and linked referral to a specific YouTube video, relative to its number of views. In a nutshell, “true engagement” shows us what portion of the audience found a video share-worthy.

Tags – these keywords are intended to make videos more searchable or “related” on YouTube and, in the best of cases, are part of a more targeted SEO strategy.

Battle Athletica | adidas vs. Nike The contenders.

adidas YouTube campaign video | Messi's Dream adidas YouTube campaign video | Messi’s Dream

Nike YouTube campaign video | ""Winner Stays"" Nike YouTube campaign video | “Winner Stays”

YouTube stats | adidas vs. Nike YouTube stats | adidas vs. Nike

Nike wins by the power of true audience engagement, which is undiluted despite its high number of views.

Battle Auto | Hyundai vs. Kia The contenders.

Hyundai YouTube campaign video | ""Avoidance"" Hyundai YouTube campaign video | “Avoidance”

Kia YouTube campaign video | ""Football vs. Futbol"" Kia YouTube campaign video | “Football vs. Futbol”

YouTube stats | Hyundai vs. Kia YouTube stats | Hyundai vs. Kia

Despite significantly lower total views, Hyundai wins for its unprecedented true engagement numbers – 1 in 10 viewers shared this video.

Battle Royale | Coca-Cola vs. McDonalds The contenders.

Coca-Cola YouTube campaign video | ""One World, One Game"" Coca-Cola YouTube campaign video | “One World, One Game”

McDonald's YouTube campaign video | ""Trick Shot"" McDonald’s YouTube campaign video | “Trick Shot”

YouTube stats | Coca-Cola vs. McDonald's YouTube stats | Coca-Cola vs. McDonald’s

McDonald’s wins handily, in a competition so lopsided that it might trigger some PTSD from the Germany vs. Brazil semifinal.

As Forbes contributor Rob Schwartz pointed out yesterday, this year’s World Cup was a global phenomenon rife with challenges for traditional marketing.

FIFA’s Battle of the Brands: A Competitive YouTube Analysis of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil

Today we’re pulling out an old case study to provide insight on that all-too-common problem – scalable YouTube video optimization.

Media giant AOL migrates videos to YouTube. We handle the heavy lifting. We provide scalable YouTube optimization for AOL’s large content archive, while centralizing their video marketing workflow into a secure, single-touch suite of software tools that can be accessed by anyone on their video team.

Organic YouTube Marketing & SEO Expertise From the vidIQ Archives | AOL Case Study

The client is AOL, a multinational mass media corporation that develops, grows, and invests in brands and websites. AOL is a major original content creator on YouTube, with millions of viewers across their series of channels.

Having moved from a proprietary CMS to YouTube, AOL has too much video content to optimize or maintain manually. They need a simple video marketing software solution that…

Minimizes time investment for managing brand channels, optimizing new videos, and publishing across multiple media platforms. Provides clear, actionable YouTube viewer data and insights. Keeps content and data secure.

We leverage vidIQ’s YouTube SEO tool to add optimal tags to AOL’s existing videos and to optimize their video marketing content on an ongoing basis.

Additionally, the insights provided by our social media tracking and YouTube community metrics allow AOL to discover how their users are engaging with content.

Finally, AOL team members can create vidIQ accounts with tiered permissions to upload, optimize, and publish video content across all their media platforms simultaneously.

Week-over-week, they observe a 10% increase in video views. 30,000+ Twitter conversations discovered about their YouTube videos. Central marketing hub promotes collaboration and reduces the personnel cost of YouTube channel management. Services Used vidIQ Pro + vidIQ HootSuite App

vidIQ tackles YouTube SEO head-on with Tag Recommendations, a crucial tool for the growth of AOL’s diverse brand channels.



– Paul Cooney, AOL’s YouTube Partnership Manager

Q: How do you optimize a huge video archive without millions of man-hours?
A: Call vidIQ.

From the vidIQ Archives | AOL Case Study

The general wisdom is to produce, produce, produce – which is the YouTube marketing equivalent of the fool’s adage, “Any decision is better than no decision.”

But content, and its consumers, have been around for a long time. And the thread that connects them has always been simpler than strategy, more powerful than promotion, and greater than hype.

At vidIQ, YouTube and YouTube marketing is our business – so we get it. It seems necessary to surrender to the daily scramble to produce, produce, produce on your channel. It’s easy to lose sight of the real goals of video marketing, to get lost in the endless lists of “YouTube Tips and Tricks” and to worship the newly-deified metrics of “Subscribers” and “Total Views.”

Instead, sit back for a moment – just one moment in this hypnotically hectic world of newsfeeds – to consider the wisdom of great creators who have come before you.

It’s more comforting than cat pictures, I promise.

Quote Credit: BrainyQuote Original Photo Credit: Vinoth Chandar

“Of all our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.” – Walt Disney

Walt Disney - Mass Communication Quote Credit: BrainyQuote Original Photo Credit: James Vaughan

It’s not enough to communicate, video marketing can make you understood.

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius

Quote Credit: BrainyQuote Original Photo Credit: FrontierOfficial

Commitment to your content and campaigns is integral to success.

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” – Aristotle

Aristotle - Pleasure in Work Quote Credit: BrainyQuote Original Photo Credit: BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives

Do only what you enjoy, if you want to do it well.

“Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.” – John Lennon

John Lennon - Time Wasted Quote Credit: BrainyQuote Original Photo Credit: Fabiola Medeiros

Don’t waste time on pursuits you don’t enjoy.

“Information is not knowledge.” – Albert Einstein

Einstein - Info Not Knowledge Quote Credit: BrainyQuote Original Photo Credit: Marius B

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” – William Shakespeare

Shakespeare - Wise Fool Quote Credit: BrainyQuote Original Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine

You don’t know everything, and that’s okay.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

Helen Keller - Do Much Together Quote Credit: BrainyQuote Original Photo Credit: Melanie Holtsman

It takes a village to succeed in content.

The last 20 years, and the mass adoption of the internet, have created the illusion that human beings can build complete digital worlds, will new markets into existence, and create content for viral consumption, all at once and all by themselves. But, as with all human endeavor, we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Look to the history of marketing – or, heck, just the history of history – and you’ll find an unbroken chain of collaboration, experimentation, and creation.

With video marketing moving at the speed of light, it’s easy to get wild-eyed about your workflow.

Your In-Depth Guide to Building a Successful YouTube Channel

YouTube SEO For The Holidays

vidIQ Pro and YouTube Keyword Tool

Successful Content’s Secret Sauce, Explained by Science (and Exploited by Buz...

8 REEL Video Summit Highlights Cheekily Articulated via Cat Gif

FIFA’s Battle of the Brands: A Competitive YouTube Analysis of the 2014 World...

From the vidIQ Archives | AOL Case Study

8 YouTube-Worthy Tips from History’s Greatest Content Creators

First Ever YouTube Speedometer – vidIQ Velocity

What Is Creator Suggested?

Introducing YouTube Competitor Analysis

Introducing the vidIQ App for HootSuite

vidIQ Score: How We Rank YouTube Videos

Airline Safety Videos Take Off On YouTube

vidIQ Partnership With Adweek: Top YouTube Brand/Creator Video Charts

Introducing Advanced YouTube Analytics Revamp

Introducing vidIQ Vision: A YouTube Chrome Extension For Power Users

The Best YouTube Marketing Tools for Multi Channel Networks

Introducing YouTube Comment Search

Using YouTube As An Online Video Platform

Introducing YouTube Title Recommendations

Then & Now | A Brief History of the YouTube Player

A Lesson In YouTube Comments: Stay Calm, Keep Them On!

Introducing Per Video YouTube SEO and CSV Export

How To: Moderate Your YouTube Comments Like a Pro

SXSW 2013 Recap: YouTube’s Big in Social Enterprise

Welcome to vidIQ!