How to get your first 1000 subscribers on YouTube

Maxim Chernov

Author

Networking and personal brand expert, entrepreneur, journalist, blogger. He will tell you about networking, creating a personal brand, developing Instagram and YouTube channels, building a career, or starting a business in simple language.

chernov_networking

Articles

24 September 2020

Contents

Why you need your first 1000 subscribers
The ten-minute rule
Action plan: How to get your first 1000 subscribers

Why you need your first 1000 subscribers

You need the first 1000 subscribers to enable monetization —not to earn money as you might think but to make YouTube algorithms “love” you.

What does “make YouTube algorithms “love” mean? When you enable monetization, YouTube starts adding adds to your videos.

What happens then? When people see adds or just click on links, YouTube earns money. And you also do like other users. But the main thing is that YouTube prefers to promote those videos that help make money. That is why you need to get your first 1000 subscribers.

Please note that to enable monetization, you need not only 1000 subscribers but also 4000 hours of watch time.

The ten-minute rule

Your videos should last more than ten minutes and comply with the YouTube video size guidelines. The reason is simple – you can add not only pre-roll and post-roll videos (advertising videos at the beginning and the end of the video) to a ten-minute video. YouTube also can add any number of advertising videos to your video.

What is the other advantage of a video lasting a bit longer than ten minutes? This video is much easier to create than a fifteen- or twenty-minute one. The sweet spot is a bit longer than ten minutes.

Action plan: How to get your first 1000 subscribers

You should create eight videos in 14 days. You should publish them once in two days: on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. After Sunday, post your next video on Monday. And stick to this plan for two weeks — you need it to build a semantic core. Then, YouTube algorithms will understand what the topic of your channel is, what kind of content you create, and what names and tags you use.
Adapt videos for search requests. In the beginning, every new channel gets more search traffic. It means that you get more views from people who find your video via search requests. Later, YouTube gets familiar with your channel and recommends it to relevant users. That is how your videos can get recommended.
Use catchy names for your videos.
Make sure that you prepare scripts for your videos in advance.