These Are the Best Tips to Get 1,000 YouTube Subscribers

Want to increase your YouTube subscribers this year? Here's your 10-step guide to make better videos and grow your audience to 1,000 fans.

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If you’re like most creators, you have a goal to boost your YouTube subscriber count. You want to get as many views as possible and turn casual viewers into forever fans.

And we understand why. At the 1,000-subscriber mark, creators reap the biggest benefits of being on YouTube. They become eligible for the YouTube Partner Program, which allows creators to monetize their videos with ads. Plus, reaching the other requirement – 4,000 hours of watch time – makes getting into the YPP super easy.

How Hard is it to Get 1,000 Subscribers on YouTube?

Let’s face it: Getting subscribers on YouTube is the hardest part of monetizing a channel. Unless the content is deeply satisfying, viewers watch dozens of videos without ever hitting subscribe. That’s why earning 4,000 watch hours could be easier than gaining YouTube subscribers.

How to Get 1,000 Subscribers on YouTube

Are you ready to grow your YouTube channel? Our best advice boils down to 10 tips, which address the different ways to make content, attract viewers, and encourage people to subscribe.

1. Break Your 1,000-Subscriber Goal Into Small Chunks

Trying to collect a thousand of anything is hard; it doesn’t matter if it’s dollars, pairs of shoes, or rare horror novels. You know it’s going to take a long time, but you don’t know exactly how long, and that’s nerve-wracking.

Here’s a solution: Chop the figure into manageable chunks instead of saying you want 1,000 YouTube subscribers.

Throughout the year, tell yourself that you want to gain:

100 subscribers by March
250 subscribers by June
500 subscribers by August
750 subscribers by October
1,000 subscribers by December

You won’t hit those exact numbers each month. But it's less scary (and more encouraging) to reach a mini-goal than obsess over a distant target.

2. Add a YouTube Subscribe Button to Your Videos

Here's an easy hack to gain subscribers on every upload. Either create or download a graphic that says “subscribe,” then go to the YouTube Studio and upload it as a video watermark. When viewers watch your content, they’ll (hopefully) click the graphic to subscribe to your channel.

Here’s how to add a subscribe button on YouTube videos:

Go to the YouTube Studio.
Click Customization in the left navigation menu.
Select the Branding tab.
Scroll down to the Video Watermark section and upload your graphic.
Choose a display time for the graphic: at end of the video, the entire video, or a custom timespan.
Hit Publish in the top right corner of the page.

3. Identify Which Videos Attract the Most Subscribers

If you have 30 or more videos on your channel, why not see which ones attracted the most subscribers?

The proper term for this metric is called subscribers by video. You'll find this data within your YouTube analytics, particularly on the YouTube subscriber count graph.

Here's how to navigate there:

Go to the YouTube Studio.
Click Analytics in the left navigation menu.
Click View More, which is below the YouTube dashboard showing monthly views, subscribers, revenue, and watch time.
Select Subscribers By Video next to the box that reads "secondary metric."
Analyze the list of videos you've made, paying close attention to the subscriber column. Which ones are attracting the most subscribers? Write those videos down so you can make similar content.

4. Place a YouTube Subscribe Link in Video Descriptions

Explaining your video isn't all the description box is good for. You can also add links there, such as affiliate links, website links, and your social media. More importantly, pasting in a subscribe link lets people join your community in just a few taps.

Here's how to create a subscription link for your channel:

Start with your channel’s regular URL. You can grab this from the address bar when you’re on your channel’s homepage.
Add ?sub_confirmation=1 to the end of your channel’s URL.
Paste the entire thing into your video description box, along with some text asking viewers to subscribe. Then let the new subs roll in!

5. Do a YouTube Collab to Reach New Viewers

Creators put a lot of work into video collaborations. They search for like-minded partners, brainstorm collab ideas, and film several videos together. But after all that work, the two creators get a priceless reward: sharing their overlapping audiences.

Here's how it works. For each collab video, some viewers will have never heard of creator A, and the same will be true for creator B. But if all goes well, a portion of those new viewers become new subscribers for both creators.

Video collabs are a vital way to get YouTube subscribers, no matter the size of your channel. Here are six tips for nailing your first collaboration.

6. Create the 4 Types of Videos People Love

There's no shortage of YouTube video ideas to get more subscribers. The challenge is finding ones that make viewers return to your channel and hit subscribe.

Over time, we've found that four videos never go out of style on YouTube:

Reaction videos
How-to videos
Versus videos
Listicle videos

Reaction videos are highly entertaining on YouTube. People love seeing someone react to funny or dramatic events, so those videos will always be popular.

Versus videos are appealing because everyone loves heated debates: Samsung Galaxy or iPhone? Cats or dogs? LeBron James or Michael Jordan?

The other video types – how-to and listicles – answer questions people never stop asking. A how-to video could be titled “How to Negotiate a $10,000 Pay Raise,” while a list video might be “30 Meal Plan Ideas to Save Money,” for example.

7. Take YouTube Keywords, Thumbnails, and Video Titles Seriously

We say it all the time: YouTube keywords are the foundation of any great channel, and they’re the best way to get traffic as a new creator. Adding relevant terms to your titles and video descriptions will help your content climb search results – fast.

For example, let’s say you have a channel covering the metaverse. Your keyword research would look something like this:

Browsing metaverse channels to see which keywords they’re using.
Using the autocomplete function on the YouTube search bar to see popular metaverse searches.
Using keyword research tools from vidIQ to see metaverse search volume.

Also, don’t forget about YouTube thumbnails. They’re essential for getting the views that lead to more YouTube subscribers.

Do your best to make graphics that are colorful, easy to understand, and reflective of the video title. That increases your luck in the YouTube market, where millions of videos compete with each other.

8. Promote Your Channel on the YouTube Community Tab

Posting on the Community tab is an easy way to promote your channel. This social media network is inside of YouTube itself, and you can use it to share GIFs, polls, text posts, images, and videos.

We’ve done many experiments showing that non-subscribers see and engage with Community posts. We also discovered that people really love polls and open-ended questions.

So if you want to grow your subscriber base, ask engaging, niche-related questions; don’t just share your latest videos. Do this consistently, and you'll easily promote your channel to potential subscribers.

9. Create Videos That Deliver on Their Promise

Whether someone realizes it or not, every video on YouTube makes a subtle promise. The title tells you what to expect in the first 30 seconds of viewing. The thumbnail shows the emotional appeal of what you're about to watch, whether that's happiness or total despair. Everything combines to give the viewer an expectation.

If the video doesn’t meet that expectation, it means you broke the initial promise. And it’s hard to gain subscribers when you keep letting viewers down.

To avoid that downfall, create a value proposition for your channel. This short slogan tells viewers what you post and why they should care – “a crypto class for big returns” or “tasty meals for every budget,” for example. With an explicit promise, you’ll always make the right video and attract new subscribers.

10. Never Stop Posting New Videos

Some creators don’t have a problem getting subscribers. They actually have a consistency gap, which hinders them from posting enough content, influencing the YouTube algorithm, and growing their audience.

On YouTube, you’re a show. If you don’t post a video for a long time, it’s the same as "Game of Thrones" (when that was a thing) withholding episodes for two weeks straight. Naturally, people will move on and watch something else.

You don’t have to post daily or even three days a week to grow on YouTube. But you do have to maintain a regular posting schedule to keep people subscribed to your channel.

Should You Buy YouTube Subscribers to Hit 1,000 Faster?

Growing an audience is hard work, but that doesn’t mean you should pay for YouTube subscribers.

Here’s why:

Those fans aren’t truly yours or invested in your content.
YouTube doesn’t allow bogus subscribers, according to its fake engagement policy.
Buying fake subscribers could lead to channel termination.

It’s better (and safer) to get 1,000 subscribers on YouTube for free. And by free, we mean doing the work to make good videos, get more views, and grow your audience naturally.

Want more tips to get your first 1,000 subscribers on YouTube?

Here’s what channels with over 1,000 subscribers have in common.