As you settle into your journey as a YouTube creator, a simple but curious question may cross your mind: Do any really popular YouTubers follow my channel?
There are plenty of reasons you might want to know something like this. Other than simply being curious, perhaps you want to know if your content is valuable to creators with a larger following. Or maybe, as a growing channel, you want to see if these accomplished YouTubers are direct competitors in your niche. Those are all valid reasons, and you should explore them if you want to improve your YouTube channel.
Before we dive into a tutorial on how to do that via locating your most popular subscribers, watch this video for an overview on the topic:
Step 1: From any YouTube desktop page, click your profile image at the top right-hand corner of the screen and go to the YouTube Studio.
Step 2: On this dashboard screen, you should find exactly what you're looking for via the Recent Subscribers panel. Click the ‘see all’ link to access the pop-up subscriber screen.
When the panel expands, you’ll see a pre-sorted list of the most subscribed-to channels who’ve subscribed to you in the last 90 days
However, those are not your most subscribed-to followers, so here’s the next step: Click the time period box and switch it from ‘90 days’ to ‘Lifetime’. And voila! These are your biggest YouTube fans - not necessarily your most important ones, but the ones with the most fans out of all your subscribers.
Notice how the list changes when you switch the period box from ‘90 days’ to ‘Lifetime’. We tried it for ourselves, and it made a big difference in the results. By making that simple distinction, our most popular subscriber of 3.53M (originally) was knocked to the bottom of the list, allowing a channel with 15.2M subscribers to appear at the top:
One thing to keep in mind is that you can subscribe back to any of these channels directly from this page. If you’d like to check out their content first, you can click a channel’s thumbnail icon to jump straight to their YouTube channel homepage. You can even increase the number of channels displayed per page and navigate through the full list, if you have the time.
Alternatively, if you want to see your oldest public subscriber, stay in this expanded panel. From the ‘Subscriber Count’ column, navigate to your immediate left and find the ‘Date Subscribed’ section. Click this column a few times to re-order the list from oldest to newest subscribers.
Just for fun, we did this in a previous tutorial to find our longest-serving vidIQ subscriber. We took the time to say thank you to that particular channel (Hi, Ali Wunderman!) for being such an early supporter, way back in 2013.
Once you have a list of your most subscribed-to followers, you may be wondering what to do with the information. One thing you want to avoid is spamming those channels with messages requesting collaborations. There are better ways to grow your channel, and honestly, any kind of mass outreach might seem a bit spammy. Plus, huge channels get hundreds of messages and yours could easily go unnoticed.
But there is one silver lining in all this. If larger channels are subscribing to your channel, that means you’re making valuable, entertaining content - which should be any creator’s goal!
Knowing this, it can be really useful to study the larger YouTubers who follow you. Discovering what kind of videos they post and what they’re talking about on their channel can give you more insight into why they followed you.
The best way to keep tabs on these creators is with the vidIQ competitors tool. When you add these channels to your competitors list, you’ll see their uploads all in once place. Then in the future, if your content aligns with anything those channels are posting, you can join the conversation.
In that case, you have a couple options: You could do a reaction video to their content or post your own video adding your thoughts on the topic. And if you time it just right, you may get a decent amount of views, subscribers, or even a nod from the larger channel.
Okay, back to our chat about YouTube subscribers. When I talk about these tools, I always like to suggest some ways YouTube could make them bigger and better. Here are a couple of upgrades I'd to see when it comes to finding your most subscribed-to followers:
The first upgrade could reveal some audience cross-over statistics, which is always helpful. Meanwhile, the second one satisfies my inner nerd. I know it would probably be a huge, whopping that doesn't mean much for creators, but I just love that type of data.
Until YouTube makes the improvements listed above, take our subscriber insight tool for a spin. This tool takes a sample size of your subscribers and shows you who they are subscribing to, what videos they are engaging with, and when they are most active on YouTube. The ultimate goal of all of this information is to help you, the video creator, get a better understanding of your target audience. Who are they? What do they watch? And when do they watch it on YouTube?
To reach this tool, click the ‘IQ’ button on your web browser extension and go to ‘Subscriber Insights’. Once you do that, you'll have a wealth of knowledge and resources at your fingertips for analyzing your audience.
Now that you know who your largest subscribers are, it’s time to do two important things. The first is determining whether these channels are competitors, and the second is giving yourself a pat on the back! Because let's be honest. Someone with a larger audience subscribing to your channel? That has to feel good.
If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and get more views on YouTube then make sure to download vidIQ for more subscriber insights. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps click here to install now!
And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the vidIQ Academy and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.
Lydia Sweatt is a writer who loves balancing her article/blog time indoors with a healthy dose of nature. She bikes, hikes, and identifies edible plants along the way.
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