How to Grow Your YouTube Channel and Get More Subscribers

How do you start creating social media content and videos that will actually be engaging to your audience?

How can you differentiate yourself from everybody else out there who’s creating very similar content?

I was invited to speak at a YouTube workshop by Piper Creative here in Pittsburgh, and a lot of people had questions that boiled down to the same similar topics.

The first one is “How do I get started? I’ve never created a video before. I’ve never really wanted to be on camera, but I want to try it out.”

The second one was “How do I create content that’s going to differentiate me from other people? There’s so much competition. How do I get my content seen?”

People who have already created content, they were asking “I’m creating content and I’m not getting a ton of engagement right now. How do I get more engagement and get more subscribers and more followers?”

I want to share a couple tips on how I handle this and some suggestions that might work for you.

How Important is it to Create Videos?

Video is huge right now. Every platform is pushing video content. You used to be able to post blogs and regular posts on Facebook and you’d get a bunch of engagement.

But now, Facebook is really pushing video. They’re really pushing Facebook Live especially.

YouTube of course is always video.

LinkedIn is really pushing video right now, and people are getting a lot of engagement and a lot of reach with their video content.

Start With Video Content

I highly suggest that if you haven’t created social media content and you’re thinking about getting into it, definitely think about creating video first.

If you’re nervous about being on camera, you could just write a blog or you could post just regular posts, but I highly suggest creating video content. You’re going to get a lot more engagement especially if you feel comfortable doing live videos.

If you go on Facebook and you do Facebook Live videos, you’re going to get a lot more engagement because Facebook pushes that to the top of everybody’s feed so they know. They say “Hey, okay. This person’s live. We should give them more attention.”

You get put in front of more people.

On YouTube, it’s the same thing. If you want to learn how to grow your YouTube channel, YouTube Live videos are a great way to start. You get a lot more exposure and people are live in the chat with you so they’re going to be chatting with you.

They’re going to leave questions and you’re able to answer them right away. That’s a great way to get started.

There’s no pressure. You don’t have to do any editing. You just literally turn on the camera, start talking, and answer questions when people come in.

How to Get Your First 100 YouTube Subscribers

The second thing is people were asking “How do I differentiate myself from all the other people doing the same stuff?”

When it comes to that, the way I like to think of it is, yeah, you might be making videos on a specific topic like we make SEO videos or social media videos. We might be talking about the same topic, but the things, all of the things that make up who you are, why you’re doing what you’re doing, why you want to make videos, why you want to help people and give them advice, those are the things that are going to create that engagement.

People are going to relate to the stories that you share with them. They’re going to relate to common specific interests.

I love video game stuff. I’ve done a lot of social media with video games. I have them in my background of my videos and when people come into my videos, they relate and say things like, “Oh, I love Zelda” or “I love Dark Souls.”

That’s something that differentiates me from somebody else on YouTube who’s posting a video and they don’t have anything in the background or they don’t have similar interests.

I know a lot of people in my niche with SEO, website development, all of that, coding, a lot of coders are gamers because we all grew up with the technology and video games.

Then the puzzle solving and the strategy, it all ties into web development.

It’s a great overlap for me because I know a lot of my audience relates to video games so I have that added level over here that they can relate to.

Then my main information is the main topic.

I highly suggest actually sharing your personal stories, your hobbies, sharing the interests that make you unique. Those are the things that are going to take you from being just one of all these other people talking about something like SEO, and it’s going to say “Okay, I talk about SEO, but I like all these other things too that you can relate to and I can help you with these and relate to you and talk to you about games or whatever your hobby may be.”

How to Grow Your YouTube Channel Engagement

Then the third thing is “How do you get more people to engage with your content?”

That’s very similar topic.

It’s basically if you give people a reason to engage with your content, if they know that I’m into video games and they see something in the background, they’re more likely to stick around for a little bit longer, ask a question about what’s in the background.

If I’m relating my SEO comparisons to something video game-related, they’re going to relate to that comparison. The idea’s going to connect with them better, but then also, they’re going to be more drawn toward coming back to my content, subscribing to me because I have something in common with them.

One of the biggest suggestions I have on how to grow your YouTube channel is to make videos that are a unique combination of your skills and talents.

Many people make videos and they just talk about the information. They just give people information or advice. I highly suggest that you share some of you personal interests, some things that are going to relate.

People love stories. If you start out a video with a story, everybody connects with feelings and emotions.

If you start with a story about why you’re talking about what you’re talking about, you’re going to get a lot more engagement and people aren’t just going to absorb the information and then leave.

If they can relate to your story, they’re going to comment and say “Man, I really relate to that story.” They’re going to share their side of how that relates to them. You get a lot more engagement that way.

A lot of people have been talking to me about this recently and I thought some of these ideas might help, especially for the people looking to get into YouTube, it really works well to be able to share personal stories.

Let people know who you are, why you’re doing what you’re doing. They’ll connect with you a lot better, and you’ll get a lot more engagement. Your channels will start to grow a lot faster.

Hopefully, that helps you guys out. If you have any questions on that or if you have any things that you relate to with this, let me know.