KyloCrux wrote

Getting into this, YouTube is a large scale video sharing website that has begin the number one vidoe sharing platform ever. Many people upload on YouTube and think they can become famous super quick, that is very wrong. In this tutorial, I will try and help you and give you the most advice I can on how to GROW your channel. This thread will constantly be updated with the best legit ways to grow your channel.

If you want to grow your channel, be sure to read all of these tips and take them into consideration when making videos.

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1. Find your Niche.

If you have decided you want to make YouTube videos, make sure to find your niche, meaning what you want to record and upload. Me personally, as well as hundreds of others, is gaming. I love gaming, it is a very popular thing that in my opinion has grown YouTube to what it is. Once you find your niche, move onto the next step.

2. Find your recording device.

If you are doing vlogs, make sure to have a high quality video recorder, if you are doing gaming, be sure to find the platform you want to game on, it could be PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, ANYTHING! As long as you can record your games at high quality you are set! If recording on PC, you could use screen captures such as OBS or Fraps. If recording on console, you could use Elgato, or Roxio. Its is up to you!

3. High Quality Microphone.

In today's age and time, videos without a commentary are stale and WILL NOT get that many views unless it is a short tutorial that has words on screen explaining what to do or things like that. Make sure to get a microphone that will make your voice sound good as well as won't emit terrible static noises. You can use any headset/microphone, but for best quality, I would look into Blue Snowball, very good affordable microphone.

4. Social Media.

Social Media can play a huge role on growing a YouTube channel. Almost everyone has a Twitter or Facebook. Even Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, any of these can be used to grow your channel. Don't just post your video or channel and expect instant growth. Become part of a community, make your page good looking. Talk with people, on twitter you can use CrowdFire to auto DM all new followers, you could type an automated message explaining who you are and how you record videos. Even share your videos with friends on Facebook or Skype. Ask them what they think or if they could leave a like! Use Social Media to advertise your content!

5. Spicing up your channel.

Once you have made social media platforms to advertise on, it is time to make your channel appealing to viewers. Make sure to have AVI that clearly says your name, as well as a YouTube banner. These things can be used to express your channel. Mine personally is currently my name with the background of games I record. Be creative!

6. THUMBNAILS!

Thumbnails are so important when trying to grow a YouTube channel because when someone searches something on YouTube the first thing they see is the title as well as the thumbnail. Thumbnails could have crazy things your video shows or a picture of the video as well as text over it saying the title. Make it something you would want to click on, pictures of half naked woman might get clicks but I can guarantee people will leave a dislike on your video. Make it based around your video, not misleading.

7. Titles.

Titles are a key thing when making videos because when someone searches it they read the title to determine whether it is what they are looking for. When making gaming videos, be sure to have the title of the game as well as something to grab the viewers interest like "Call of Duty Infinite Warfare: NEW GUNS ADDED" that is something that would instantly grab someones attention. Be sure to tie in your thumbnail to make both the title and thumbnail match, will make your video very appealing!

8. Proper tags.

Now tags are very important because these are what rank your video in the YouTube search. Make sure to ALWAYS have proper tags. You can have the game title as well as thing within the game. You can post your name in there, just be sure to post things relating to the video and only to the video. No misleading tags, don't post "FAZE RAIN" in your tags and expect views, it will not work.

9. Description.

Description is very important. This is where you can explain your video, share links to social media to connect with people. This is where you can give the synopsis of the game, share all of your social media links like your twitter profile and such. The major thing is the first few sentences as it will be shown under your video, make it something good to make people click on it and expand to see it the rest of your description. Do not be short, you have 5,000 characters to use, try and use them all. Do not spam into it, make it relative to your video.

10. Encourage activity!

When recording try and talk to your viewers, ask them about their day, tell them you want to hear about it in the comments, try and get people to chat with you, it will make your video more popular and will help your video be ranked higher! Make contests within your video, like if someone wins they could get a channel spotlight or a shoutout. Do something that will increase the likelyhood of people commenting on your video.

11. Be Unique.

Make your own saying, popular Call of Duty star "Nadeshot" intros every video with "How the fudge you doing YouTube, Nadeshot here" try to make something that will express your personality. Make it catchy, even something you use within real life would work. Just try not to be vulgar as it could age restrict your video.

12. Schedule.

Many people are within School or work a full time, this is where having a Schedule comes into play, try and set a day every week where you can record, could be an hour at night then an hour the next day to edit and render. Be sure to set a specific day to upload on, if you do this it will make your channel look consistent as well as make your channel look good with a specific upload schedule, it gives people a day to check your channel. If you can't upload every day or every week, try every other week. I know big channels that upload once a week or once every other week. It gives them the chance to make their videos superb.

13. YouTube Partnership.

Becoming a YouTube Partner is something that is very key in growing your channel. It allows you to upload longer videos, allows you to live stream on your channel, as well as everyone's favorite, monetization. To become a YouTube partner there are some requirements which can be found here! To sum them up though, content must be original, meaning your own. Content has to be advertiser friendly meaning non graphic, non vulgar videos. These are some key things, of becoming a partner.

14. MCN.

Now I will not dive deep within this because another member, JRT, has an amazing thread discussing everything about MCN's and their benefits. You can find his thread here. I will just briefly explain why MCNs can be very important for channel growth. Some MCN have feature where they allow you to make your video the spotlight video of the week which could help with views, gaining subscribers and other things. Some even help advertise your video which could mean the gaining of tons of views. To see more about MCN view JRT's post here!

15. MUSIC!

Alright, music and YouTuber never mix that well because of copyright strikes. But sometimes you can find non-copyrighted music that you can use, YouTube has its own selection of music you can choose from. If you do not have a mic or are too shy to talk within your videos, music is a great alternative!

16. Endscenes

Endscenes is a new feature on YouTube, instead of having to make an outro and use annotations, endscenes allows you to promote other videos and your channel at the end of each video. It is a very simple thing to use and I highly recommend, ever since I start using my videos get 10+ more views each video.

17. Clickbait.

Many may tell you that clickbaiting is actually a good way to go, as it might create views, it will not produce high quality subscribers that we all desire. Clickbaiting only leads to hate and dislikes which none of us like, stay away from clickbaiting. No half naked woman in your thumbnails, no misleading titles like "I GOT GTA 6 EARLY" it will get you a lot of hate.

This thread is not finished, it will be constantly updated adding more and more ways to grow your channel, the ways listed are just a few that will help your grow your channel. If you have any other suggestions of things to add, feel free to PM me and they could even be added to the post.

Thanks for reading, best of luck with growing your channels!