Alan Lastufka
I am routinely asked about how to gain more subscribers. First, you can't fake it. Well, okay, you can fake it, and I'll even tell you how later in this book, but any cheat you attempt will be transparent and won't really do you much good in the long run. Second, while having thousands of subscribers is good, it's not necessary to enjoy your time on the site or even to "go viral." All it takes to go viral is for one viewer to share your video with another, who shares it with two or three others, who each pass it on, and so on. But obviously, the more subscribers you have, the greater the chance that one of them will pass your video on to be the seed that quickly becomes a forest.
Before you set out to earn more subscribers, remember that your content has to be good. I can show you how to get a lot of traffic to your profile, but if your channel description, your profile icon, or, most important, your videos don't entertain or pique visitors' interests, they won't subscribe! This is why we covered how to write, light, and frame your videos before we mentioned anything about getting your name out there.
Review some of the channel design tips from Chapter 4's "Pimping Your Profile" section. Take some time to write a compelling channel description. Make it personal, make it funny. Insert a favorite quote of yours. And make sure the featured video on your channel is one of your best.
Now you're ready to set out to actually use some of the following tips. My goal throughout this chapter will be to drive viewers to your profile page and videos. The best way to drive traffic to any web page, whether it's a blog, a new e-commerce site, or your YouTube profile, is to create inbound links. Inbound links are hyperlinked (usually blue and usually underlined) words or phrases that, when clicked, take viewers from an external site to your YouTube profile page.
The Website field in your YouTube user profile will automatically be turned into a link to your external site. You can put any number of URLs in the More Info field for a video, and all of them will automatically be turned into links. It's best to keep the number of links down to what you need so as not to overwhelm people. Keep in mind the short attention span of your target audience. I recommend just a few links to important and relevant sites, such as the websites or YouTube pages of people who helped collaborate on that video. Of course, you should also add a link to an information page with "How to get involved" on any type of activist video.
If you know how to create hyperlinks outside of YouTube, that's great; it will help in building your auxiliary web world later that you can link to on YouTube. But you are not allowed to use any HTML formatting on YouTube (this is to prevent security exploits). The good news, however, is that your username will always be hyperlinked on YouTube, so you don't have to give it a second thought. Now, let's go get your username out there….