Do your ambitions on YouTube go beyond basic popularity? Are you looking to become a well-known YouTube creator with a successful channel? Or even learn how to get famous on YouTube and start making money and lots of it? Starting out with the bad news – building a successful YouTube channel doesn’t happen overnight.
Getting enough people watching your video content to start generating serious revenues takes time. As for the good news – making big things happen on YouTube is something almost anyone can do. You don’t need degree-level video editing skills, nor do you need to be a digital marketing expert.
In fact, building a successful YouTube channel is almost entirely about taking things back to basics. Not to mention acknowledging how engagement and interaction are just as important as putting out quality content.
How To Get Famous On YouTube?
The truth is overcomplicating things is probably the worst thing you can do. When you think about it, the key qualities of a popular YouTube channel are fairly straightforward. Engaging content, a creator that takes the time to interact with their audience, an eye-catching channel page, and so on.
All of which – when combined with a basic ongoing promotional campaign – can and will pay dividends. But where to start if your goal is to get famous on YouTube? If starting from scratch or looking to breathe life into a lackluster channel, what should be focusing your time and attention on?
1. Optimize Your Channel
As already touched upon, and engaging channel profile page is essential. Be mindful of the fact that if anyone takes an interest in your content, they’ll almost certainly check out your channel page. At which point, what they see will influence whether or not they subscribe.
A few essentials for getting your channel page in order:
Create a Good Cover Image
Your channel’s cover image is the first thing they will see, so it needs to be striking and distinctive. It also needs to be a true representation of you and your content, reflecting the personality and uniqueness of your channel.
Categorize Your Videos
Simple but essential, categorizing your videos is a must. This is particularly important if you already have an extensive archive of content. Either way, it’s better to get into the habit of categorizing your content appropriately from an early stage.
Make a Killer Channel Trailer
You also need to come up with a killer trailer for your channel. Keep it as concise as realistically possible, ensuring you include snippets of your best and most engaging videos. Your aim is to hook the attention of the visitor and convince them to subscribe in 30 seconds or less.
2. Create Great Videos
Of course, it goes without saying that quality content forms the core of a successful YouTube channel. If your goal is to create video content that makes you popular and ultimately famous, be sure to prioritize the following:
Vary Video Length
The appropriate length for a YouTube video will vary in accordance with the type of content you’re publishing and its intended target audience. Either way, mixing things up with some long- and short-form content is always the best way to go.
Use Keywords
Embedding keywords in your video titles and descriptions is essential, as is adding them to your channel description and at the top of the comments section (by commenting first). These keywords will determine who finds your content and your channel, so choose them wisely.
Tag Your Videos
The same also goes for hashtags, which YouTube uses to categorize and recommend content. The hashtags you use must therefore be of relevance to your content and accurately describe the video in question. Always use hashtags, but only ever use relevant hashtags.
Make Videos Relevant to Your Audience
Every video you publish should offer something of genuine value and relevance to your audience. Forget about what everyone else on YouTube is watching at the time. Think about what your viewers want to see and provide them with a steady stream of it.
Consistent Video Quality
The technical prowess of your videos is not as important as the quality of the content itself. Nevertheless, there’s no room on YouTube for videos of substandard quality. Anything that looks amateurish is not going to do your channel any favors.
Edit in Moderation
Most social media users these days prefer the kind of content that’s raw and unedited. Or at least, content that isn’t over-edited and airbrushed beyond recognition. Don’t try too hard have to make your videos perfect – celebrate your flaws and showcase your personality.
Catch the Trends Early
Last up, trends quickly become yesterday’s news on platforms like YouTube. Realistically, the only way to take advantage of the latest trends is to keep a lookout for the next big thing. Avoid jumping on the bandwagon with anything that’s already gone stale.
3. Post at the Right Time
Posting at the right time means posting at whatever time your audience is at its most active. Time zones, age groups, and cultural differences need to be taken into account in order to avoid the mistake of posting when nobody is watching. As a very general rule of thumb, the best times to post most types of content on YouTube are as follows:
- Monday 2-4 pm
- Tuesday 2-4 pm
- Wednesday 2-4 pm
- Thursday noon -3pm
- Friday noon -3pm
- Saturday 9 am-11 am
- Sunday 9 am-11 am
Though again, you’ll need to conduct your own research to determine when your audience is at its most active.
4. Create Attractive Thumbnails
Thumbnails can be a real make-or-break factor on YouTube. The tiny images you use to represent your videos will make play a major role in determining who watches them and who skips them by. Your thumbnails, therefore, need to be as attractive, eye-catching, and unique as possible.
Just as important, they need to be honest and relevant representations of your content. Don’t make the mistake of resorting to clickbait – it will always work against you.
5. Engage with Your Audience
As mentioned earlier, engagement and interaction are everything on YouTube. The extent to which you interact with your target audience will play a major role in determining your success and popularity.
Take the time to watch their videos, subscribe to their channels, like their content, leave comments, respond to comments, and generally become an active part of the community. Not only will this go down well with your viewers, but it will also help you catch the eye of the YouTube algorithm.
6. Research Your Competitors
Keeping a close eye on the competition is something you should be doing at all times. Not with the aim of copying their ideas, but to monitor their strengths and weaknesses. Watch their videos and see how they interact with their viewers.
Work out what makes them successful and figure out what you can do to boost your channel’s performance. Interacting with their viewers can also be a good way to find new potential subscribers for your channel.
7. Collaborate with Famous YouTubers
Collaborating with famous YouTubers is a great strategy for becoming a YouTube influencer. If you already know somebody who is YouTube famous, they should definitely be used to your advantage. Or, for that matter, even somebody who is fairly popular with an audience of a decent size. Collaborations can be great for tapping into the captive audiences of popular famous YouTubers, which can help you gain more visibility and subscribers.
Of course, there’s also the option of reaching out to famous YouTubers and influencers you don’t know. Pitch your ideas for collaborations, and they might be willing to help you out. This can be an effective way to get exposure to their audience, which can, in turn, help you on your journey toward becoming a YouTube influencer.
8. Publish Content Consistently
To keep your current subscribers happy, run your YouTube channel like a conventional TV channel. By this, we mean publishing new content at specific pre-planned times and dates. Publishing consistently (rather than randomly) has been shown to generate far more engagement.
Let them know when they should tune in for something new, and that’s exactly what they will do. Feel free to throw extra posts in here and there, but keep your publishing schedule as consistent and predictable as possible.
9. Make Video Responses
Response videos continue to make massive waves on the world’s biggest social media platforms. They can also be great for getting on board with the latest trends.
Recording your reaction to something provides the opportunity to make videos based on topics and trends that go beyond your usual niche. Remember that response videos can be anything from formal and educational to downright ridiculous, but they don’t always have to be funny.
Related Article: How to Become Famous on YouTube as a Kid
10. Go Live
If you have earned the right to go live on YouTube, take full advantage of it. Content broadcast in real-time is naturally more engaging and engrossing than pre-recorded content. Going live on a regular basis can be great for catching the eye of new viewers and keeping current viewers on board.
Live content gives your target audience an up-close-and-personal look at the real you in real-time. Again, don’t worry too much about editing your live broadcasts. Raw, honest, and real footage is always well received.
11. Promote Your Videos
Promoting your videos across as many other social networks as possible is essential. Each time you publish something on YouTube, promote it and post links to it from elsewhere. Share your video content and post links to your channel on all of your online assets.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, your website, your blog, and even the emails you send – are all great places to promote your videos. Telling people when to tune in to your next live broadcast via your other social channels also comes highly recommended.
12. Hold a Competition/Giveaway
There’s nothing quite like a tangible incentive of some kind to motivate people to take action. In this case, we’re talking about the simplest competitions and giveaways. Held on a regular basis, promotions like these can be pure gold for grabbing and holding the attention of viewers.
If there’s the slightest chance of pocketing something for free, you can rest assured they’ll want to be involved. Just as long as you can come up with a prize, they’ll genuinely want to win, and the rest takes care of itself.
13. Get Your 100 Subscribers on YouTube
Popularity is cyclical on platforms like YouTube. In order to get more subscribers on YouTube, you need to present yourself as popular and worth checking out. Convincing people to subscribe to a channel with just a handful of subscribers isn’t easy.
It’s therefore essential to do everything you can to get a decent number of subscribers on board from the earliest possible stage. One quick and easy option is to buy youtube subscribers for your channel, simply to set the ball rolling.
14. Hit the First 10,000 Views on YouTube
Last up, you also need to invest heavily in hitting that all-important 10,000 views milestone. The more views your videos accumulate, the more attractive and engaging they become. More importantly, views play a major role in influencing YouTube’s algorithm.
Popular videos with plenty of views are naturally showcased more prominently than their less popular counterparts. Hence, anything you can do to increase views on YouTube is something you should be doing.
Conclusion
Referring back to an earlier point, getting famous on YouTube doesn’t happen overnight. Nor is there any realistic way of fast-tracking your journey to fame and fortune. If you’re serious about getting famous on YouTube, patience is a virtue. But in terms of technicalities, putting together a successful YouTube channel is surprisingly simple.
All you need to do is put out a consistent stream of quality content, target the right people with your videos, and promote your channel as aggressively as possible. It takes time and effort to build a successful YouTube channel, but it’s something almost any ambitious creator can do.
