How to Get 1k Subscribers for Free.

How to Get 1k Subscribers for Free.

YouTube is everybody’s first choice when it comes to watching videos of any sort.

When you are allowed to own an account in the world’s second most popular website for free, why not make the best out of it, then? For your social life, business and fame? Can you? The answer is YES! So here’s a guideline to help yourself to the portal of stardom and fame. Like any other social media platform, followers play an important role in building  your profile in YouTube too. Better known as “Subscribers” or “Viewers”, these followers make a major impact in the working of your channel and hence your income.

Here, we will be looking at ways to achieve 1000 subscribers on YouTube for free.

Why focus on Subscribers?

Let’s talk about subscribers. You would’ve observed any YouTuber constantly mention this term. A subscriber is none but another user, who, out of interest and admiration towards the content you upload, selects to follow your channel, to keep himself updated. 

Now, why are subscribers important? 

• First of all, depending on the videos in your profile and the  authenticity, a subscriber may often turn into a fan follower i.e., he’ll get more involved in activities like liking your videos, commenting frequently in your favour and also sharing your videos with other people. Now isn’t that a great deal for you?
• Secondly, subscribers keep you going with your work. They motivate you! In fact, some of the very popular pages on YouTube, are where they are today, because their subscribers played a major role. These users, mainly through comments and also through personal messages, let you know about your performance, by small acts of praise and appreciation. Followers of a page often provide suggestions for the future videos, encourage other users to comment and converse, and also advice for improvements. These are taken up by the page owners with great enthusiasm as healthy criticism from the audience always helps you to improve.

• You would definitely be aware that social media works on certain algorithms. YouTube boasts a watch of almost 5 billion videos on a daily basis. Very often, these algorithms decide which videos a particular user shall watch daily. The videos that pop up on their feed every morning and those that come down in their notifications every other hour, are all based on their watch history, thumbs up history and deciphering of their interests. In such a case, having viewers glued to your account is of great benefit for your growth. Like I said above, these viewers can get you additional viewers too!
• Especially for business and marketing pages, focusing on a constantly improving milestone for subscribers is of utmost importance, specifically for monetary gains.

How does the number of subscribers influence your pay?

First of all, to join prime programmes like the YouTube Partner Program, it is a basic requirement to have a minimum of 1000 subscribers. This program helps you monetize your channel, by means of advertisements of your choice, to enable which, you will have to fulfil the requirement of possessing the demanded count of minimum subscribers.

The “subscriber to views ratio” is an important criterion for payment, though not the only one. The number of views you get for a video, when compared to the number of followers you have, should match a certain percentage required, in order to achieve efficient pay. 

See how much the well renowned Indian YouTuber Bhuvan Bam earns from YouTube.

So, how and where do you find 1000 subscribers for free?

Let’s see what we as regular users of YouTube can do, to achieve our target of 1000 subscribers

Reminding your audience to subscribe

When viewers happen to watch one of your videos by chance, not all of them necessarily subscribe to the channel. So remind them, for your own good. Remind them to click the red “Subscribe” button below your video and also to enable the notifications, so that they get a ring everytime your new video is uploaded. 

Remind your audience to subscribe

Rather than doing this for each of your videos, it is recommended to add such reminders in videos that you are confident of arousing the viewers’ excitement and interest.

1. You can add this statement orally in your video. In many videos, you can hear the speaker go like “If you found this video useful, please do hit the “Subscribe” button below and stay updated”. Some even prefer telling these at frequent intervals. Well, more the reminder, more the reaction and lesser the chances of your viewers missing out on your command.
2. You have an option to add cards and end screens. Like sticky notes are for your personal planner, annotations are for your videos. Annotations are colourful labels that you can add in your videos for a certain time interval. You can edit the annotations according to your needs; you may put it up such that it takes the user to another useful video and importantly, for subscription.

Building Anticipation in your viewers

Another strategy to keep your audience tuned to your channel, would be to announce your near future project. That will keep up their expectations and interest in your feed. All these actions will make you seem like a confident YouTuber, with a strong belief in the worth of his videos and one open to suggestions.

Set up a well groomed page

How you present your page plays an important role in attracting viewers.

1. Have a good theme for your channel. Choose topics that have a potential to bring in attention. The more focussed your channel looks, the better. For example, we often come across channels like Edureka and Careerguide that aim to help students with their everyday studies, by creating videos covering a minimum number of topics every week. Choosing a particular theme provides the benefit of increasing the chances of your page being the go-to one for that theme.

Let’s take the example of Ranjit Kumar, an Indian YouTuber, who owns the official channel GeekyRanjit. A self-made geek, who discovered his passion for technology and gadgets since his childhood, Ranjit took to reviewing gadgets on his channel, starting with an ASUS router. Failing numerous times in gaining sufficient response and followers, he adopted a strategy where he bought gadgets and products with his money, used them, and posted their reviews on his channel. Through his genuine reviews, his audience base expanded slowly and steadily, until it was enough to start earning something from YouTube, which he wasn’t before. His subscribers’ base started multiplying. As of today, he has 2.88 Million subscribers and his channel is the go-to for thousands of users who wish to gain information about gadgets. 

GeekyRanjit is one of India’s top gadget YouTubers

A common man like Ranjit, who speaks just simple English, and well known for his honest, unbiased reviews and opinions, has been ranked  among the “Top 10 Indian YouTube millionaires”, following the theme behind his channel – Gadgets!

2. Choose what to put up as the thumbnail image for your videos, and also add a catchy and precise title as well as a brief description below it. Mostly, it’s these factors that provoke any user to watch a video.

3. Design your video such that the introduction grabs maximum attention. It should be such that it inspires the viewer to watch your videos further. Do not commit the sin of making your videos boring!

Maintain the consistency

It’s important to keep up the curiosity and interest of your viewers. Consistency in updating your feed plays a major role in keeping a hold on your audience. So it’s better to not let a huge interval occur from one video to another as your channel may get forgotten.

Work on the content

Consciously, choose the content you’ll be working on for a video. Uploading videos for the  namesake of keeping pace with your frequency has a considerable chance of putting them up as worthless in your viewer’s eye. Make it a point to add one or more of your best content into each of your videos.

Choose to stand out

Try to refrain from repeating topics from already existing videos of well to do fame. Find ways to engage your viewers by using your creativity and entertainment tactics, such that at least one-third of your followers put your channel first, in preference over other similar videos. The marketing approach should be wisely chosen to get the fish to the hook.

You would’ve definitely come across the song “Why this Kolaveri di” from the Tamil movie 3. The way the song went viral from the very day of its release on 16 November 2011 was crazy! Its quirky “Tanglish” lyrics and tune helped it become the most searched video in India. Within a few weeks, YouTube honoured the video with a ‘”Recently Most Popular” Gold Medal award and “Trending” silver medal award for receiving many hits in a short time. 

What the music composer Anirudh Ravichander and lead actor Dhanush framed in less than 30 minutes for a love failure song, ended up receiving more than 3.5 Million views on YouTube within a week of its release, and became the first Tamil film song to premiere on MTV India. The song itself and various versions of it created by fans accounted for more than 200 million of YouTube’s total views. The song became the top downloaded song on mobile with 4,100,000 downloads within the first 18 days of release. Well, following this great success, Dhanush was even invited by the then Prime Minister of Inida, Dr. Manmohan Singh as a “Guest of Honour”.

What followed the release is now part of Indian music and viral marketing history. The song became a rage, effortlessly transcending language barriers – the first Tamil song, albeit with a smattering of English, to do so.

Know that your creativity knows no limits. This duo would have never imagined in those 30 minutes of preparation, the success that was going to follow. So, follow your heart, even if you are the only one doing it!

Engage in Partnerships

Partnering with a celebrity of any level of fame will definitely help you achieve some good   number of subscribers. Also, look out for other prominent channels that have a good count of subscribers, to partner with. This way, their best followers will become your’s too!

Form a playlist

Putting up your videos as a series, in a playlist, will make it easier for your viewers to find continuity in your page.  Playlists increase the scope for subscriptions; as the videos keep playing one after the other, viewers can binge on your playlist and hence find it interesting and informative.

Interaction is a primary key too

Stay in touch with your followers. Respond to their comments, for comments often contain queries and suggestions. Like the comments and find time to reply to them. Ignoring your followers may lead to them ignoring your channel back.

Imitate Marketing Strategies

Conisder the example of the Indian YouTube channel T-Series. Having faced a downfall in their cassette business due to emergence of the Internet, the company took a shot back on the Internet’s face by starting a channel on Youtube in 2006, that provided entertainment by free consumption of music. Due to increasing demand, the company put up highly engaging videos, which helped them gain a whole world of subscribers. Some of the measures that T-Series took were:

1. Uploading Original Videos – They put in commendable amount of time and effort, to keep up the expectations of their viewers.
2. Uploading high definition videos of multiple formats, including lyrical videos, song making videos and BTS (Behind the Scenes)
3. Content Digitalization
4. Uploading content relevant to times.
5. Heavily interacting with their followers – This was the most important step taken by the company, next to creating original content. They constantly engaged with their consumers, welcoming suggestions and innovative concepts, adding suitable tags to their videos, engaging them with high quality videos, promoting young talent and improving overall consumer interaction.
6. Using SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Using such highly effective strategies, T-Series grew up to become the first Indian channel to cross 10 Million subscribers! According to Wikipedia, as of February 2020, T-Series boasts a possession of 129 Million subscribers, 99.8 Billion total views, and a yearly earning of $11.5 Million to $183.7 Million.

“We are a content-driven company and the monetization on YouTube is primarily through advertising followed by sponsorships and some native content,” says T-Series’  content acquisition and promotions executive Vauran Arora.

Another considerable example is of the Swedish YouTuber Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie. PewDiePie was the first individual vlogger to achieve 100 Million subscribers. He rose to fame through his “Let’s Play” videos wherein he included “walk-through” clips of himself playing horror and indie games, and razzing other people’s gameplay. This was a smart step, as gaming industry is currently doing wonders on all platforms.

 Despite being a  university drop out, who wanted to pursue video gaming, he was named among one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2016, by Time.

So in August 2018, a competition shot up between T-Series and PewDiePie. T-Series was continuously setting up viewing and subscriber records, in line with India’s emerging online presence, and PewDiePie had been the most subscribed user since 2013. The competition was for the title of “Most subscribed channel” and it resulted in T-Series overtaking PewDiePie as the most subscribed channel on YouTube!!

So, as clearly visible as it is, the right strategies can get you anywhere at work!

Read the most effective tactics for YouTube marketing.

Watch out for new updates and rules

These occur periodically in every social media handle. In a heavily competitive world as today’s, such minute changes play a huge role with respect to the functioning of your

channel which will also affect your reach.

Be aware of the several tools that can help you with subscribers

There are numerous tools out there, which can help you build your feed effectively. Below are some often used ones:

1. TubeBuddy: It helps you to add tags to your videos and hence ranks your videos, tests your thumbnails and written content in the description.This tool will help you to optimize your videos not just for search,but also for discovery.

2. MorningFame: This lets you know how relevant your videos are, by analysing the descriptions, tags etc. that you add. It trains you to rank your videos based on some factors that improve relevancy of videos,like using appropriate hashtags.

3. Keywords Everywhere : This tool helps you find the right phrases by putting up numbers next to the search words you put up, which indicate the search volume of those words.

4. Google Auto complete : It’s a built in tool for YouTube. Assess this tool to find out what people are seeking for. Start making videos based on your finds so that those users find your videos when they search for a solution.

Do not fall into the trap of joining programmes that scam you into buying bot subscribers. Bot subscribers are artificial means used to inflate a channel’s number of subscribers, as well as a video’s likes, comments and views. While this may look like an easy way to gain followers, there are a lot of cons to this idea:

• Partnerships with brands will take a toll, affecting your future relationships with any brand or channel.

• In the end, you are only losing your money and time. So again, beware of such traps! You could rather focus on improving your videos, instead of collecting fake followers that just stay inactive and do you no good.

It is very important to build a healthy mindset when you step into the field of business and marketing. There is going to be tough competition, criticism and a whole lot of work to do. Building suitable strategies, workflow and taking appropriate steps to maintain the grind regardless of the outcome, will surely help you succeed. All the best!