How to Get Your First 100 Subscribers on YouTube
Getting to the first 100 subscribers is one of the best feelings for any creator that’s just starting their journey on YouTube.
It is very assuring and motivating to know that you are capable of convincing a hundred people to hit the subscribe button through your content on YouTube.
However, it is easier said than done, and you need to be patient, consistent and open to learning and implementing YouTube tips and tricks to continuously grow your YouTube channel.
If you are just starting and new to YouTube, this can feel like a daunting task. That’s why we are here to help make the journey to your first milestone easier.
Here’s everything you will ever need to know on how to get your first 100 subscribers on YouTube:
How Long Does it Take to Reach 100 Subscribers on YouTube?
There is no real answer to this question as no two creators on YouTube are the same, nor are the content they produce or the audience they build.
While there are creators that go viral with their first video and get hundreds or thousands of views, likes, and subscribers, there are others that can publish hundreds and thousands of videos on YouTube and still not get to their first milestone.
What’s important to remember is that subscribers, at the end of the day are just numbers.
As a creator, your objective must be to create high-quality content that offers some value for the time a viewer spends watching it.
In time, with more videos, and experience, you will start getting more views, engagement and audience.
However, it’s important that you stay patient and consecutively upload more videos in the meantime.
Best Tips on How to Get Your First 100 Subscribers on YouTube
While there is no shortcut to getting your first hundred subscribers on YouTube, there are ways to speed up the whole process and reduce the time that you usually need.
Simply follow some of these tips and tricks to see if they help reach the subscriber milestone, a whole lot faster than you normally would:
- Work on Your Thumbnails
Thumbnails are the first thing that someone sees on your YouTube channel even before they see your content.
That’s why having thumbnails that are ideal for your niche is important when it comes to YouTube.
When you are starting on YouTube, it’s very common to miss out on thumbnails and go for the default thumbnail that YouTube auto-generates.
However, this is a YouTube screenshot that does not showcase what your content is all about.
Start working on thumbnails with some emphasis on text to get the word out on what your video is all about.
It can also draw the attention of curious visitors and make them click to check out your video.
Viewers are also more likely to click on a video with an interesting thumbnail, and won’t probably click on a YouTube generate thumbnail in most case scenarios unless the auto-generated thumbnail is very relevant to your content.
2. Use Keywords in Your Title
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world and gives a lot of emphasis on keywords and SEO to get your video ranked on the YouTube Search Results Page (SERP).
Now to ensure that your video is reaching an intended audience or people that follow established creators in your niche, it’s important that you optimize your videos for search.
Just like how most of the leading social networking platforms work, YouTube also requires creators to add keywords to the title to get ranked higher.
Spend some time doing your keyword research for YouTube and this is guaranteed to help you get your first 100 subscribers on YouTube sooner rather than later.
YouTube also has plenty of keyword research tools that are dedicated to providing you with some of the best YouTube keywords.
There are also tools like VidIQ and TubeBuddy which let you know more metrics like keyword rating and keyword ranking that can help you find the absolute best keywords for your content.
3. Be Consistent and Maintain a Schedule
When you are starting out on YouTube, being consistent and publishing new videos at regular intervals is key to growing your channel.
So why is consistency important when you are starting a YouTube channel?
The answer is pretty simple, to get more views on every new video.
How? Well, when you are starting a YouTube channel, your viewer base is restricted to just a few subscribers.
The objective should be to make sure that almost everyone in that limited viewer base you have gets to see your video, and this will lead to YouTube recommending your video to more people.
By maintaining consistency, your subscribers will know when you publish content and look forward to new videos.
This can also help boost your views regularly as it ensures people come back to see your new content.
4. Ask the Viewers to Subscribe
It is quite natural to think that people will take actions like hitting the like button, sharing your video and subscribing to your channel.
However, the reality is far from it, and as a creator, you are required to remind them time and again to take the action.
Don’t hesitate when it comes to asking people to like, share and subscribe to your channel.
You have a few options to do this, but ideally, you need to include this in the intro of your video.
Alternatively, you can also go for pop up subscribe buttons which are available on the internet.
Most of these also come with sound effects like the sound of a click, or notification bell ringing.
There are also customizable pop-ups that let you add your channel’s details on the pop up which again makes you stand out.
When you remind people to take the action, it instantly improves the rate of people subscribing to your channel, and this will help you reach the milestone of reaching 100 subscribers on YouTube in no time.
5. Add Videos and CTA Card on the End Screen
YouTube has an end screen and cards that are customizable and can be added to the end of any video.
You can add up to 4 videos and 1 Call-To-Action card with subscribe button on the end screen.
Not only does it improve the overall views and engagement but people are more likely to watch your other videos this way.
The CTA card will turn into a subscribe button which can prompt people that liked your content to immediately subscribe.
What’s even great is that all of these features are available to all creators from day one.
You can add the end screen and cards to your first video itself and when you have five videos, you can share all four videos in one go at the end screen.
The average duration of the end screen also ranges from 10 seconds to 25 seconds which gives ample time for people to consider hitting the subscribe button.
What are the Benefits of Getting 100 Subscribers on YouTube
Even though 100 subscribers on YouTube is one of the biggest milestones for a creator who is starting on YouTube, it does not come loaded with a lot of amazing features as such.
However, it does unlock the ability to add a custom URL to your YouTube channel.
This can help bring in more viewers consistently, and increases your discoverability on YouTube and browsers as anyone searching for your name will be directed to your YouTube page.
Another major benefit of getting to 100 subscribers on YouTube is the unlimited boost it offers mentally.
It can be very depressing to get very few views after spending hours editing a video.
Unfortunately, that’s how YouTube works, and unless your content somehow goes viral on day one, chances are you will end up getting very few views on all your videos in the initial days.
However, with time, and by adding more videos consistently, you gradually start getting more views.
When you have at least 100 subscribers, you can be proud of the fact that one hundred people were impressed by your content and proceeded to hit the subscribe button.
At the end of the day, what’s important is to stay motivated and ignore the number of subscribers you have.
Focus on improving your number of views, overall engagement, and quality of your content.