Achieving that 1000 subscriber milestone as a Youtube gamer is not a walk in the park.
I’m sure my fellow YouTuber gamers who are trying to get their channels monetized can relate to this.
Although it might seem difficult to accumulate 1000 subscribers as a gaming channel, it’s not impossible.
Getting 1000 subscribers comes down to repeatedly taking the same actions each and every week in order to naturally grow your channel.
In this post, I will list all these actions for you. If you complete all these actions, every week, your Youtube channel will inevitably get those 1000 subscribers you crave. Plus, your channel will be set up for continued growth.
But before we begin, let’s check out why hitting that 1000 subscriber mark is necessary for your channel!
Why Getting At least 1000 Subscribers On Your YouTube Gaming Channel Is A Big Deal?
You might be wondering why the title mentions 1000 subscriber count specifically.
I mean, why is getting 1000 subscribers on YouTube such a big deal? After crossing 1000 subscribers on your gaming channel, you get numerous perks. Options like super chat and monetization of your videos are the most notable features you get after crossing the 1000 subscriber mark on YouTube.
There are numerous benefits that get unlocked once you get your 1000th subscriber on YouTube.
Most notably, you are one step closer to earning money through your YouTube channel.
Let’s dive deep into the perks of getting 1000 subscribers on your YouTube Channel.
Congratulations Email
The first thing you get after reaching the 1000 subscriber milestone is a congratulation email from YouTube!
YouTube will acknowledge you as a part of ‘the club’ and congratulate you on the milestone that you have achieved.
Because getting 1000 subscribers is a big deal! Most YouTubers quit well before hitting 100 subscribers, never mind 1000.
Monetization through Youtube Ads
Let’s face it, no one starts creating Youtube videos without the thought of earning money in their minds.
Making videos is fun and all, but money is a major factor why people want to make it big on Youtube.
Youtube terms and conditions state that you need at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time in order to monetize your channel.
Check here for more information about YouTube’s monetization policy.
After getting 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of public watch time you can sign up to the Youtube Partner Program and get your channel verified as a Youtube partner.
Monetization means that you can now add advertisements to your videos and earn money from your videos directly.
However, it is worth saying that you can earn money earlier on Youtube by using other monetization techniques such as:
- Patreon
- Online shops
- Affiliate links in the description
- Sponsorships
We’ll cover these in future articles.
Opal club
The Opal Club is a private club for creators with 1,000 – 9,999 subscribers on their channels.
The Opal Club comes with a number of benefits, including:
- Gain exposure: you’ll learn how to use metadata and cooperate to increase your impressions and views.
- Develop your community: recommendations for interacting with your audience on YouTube and other platforms
- Analyze data to get insights: deciphering YouTube statistics to uncover business prospects
Access to the Youtube Partner Program (YPP)
Along with 1,000 subscribers, your channel must have 4,000 view hours (or 240,000 minutes) during the prior 12 months.
If you lack in any of the two conditions, your application to the YPP will be held until further notice.
Therefore, what can you do during that interval?
- Review and accept the Youtube Partner Program’s terms and conditions.
- Connect your AdSense account with Google
- Don’t lose focus. Keep uploading engaging content.
Your application will be handled as soon as your channel meets the 4,000-hour mark. And you should get notification of your approval within a few weeks.
The format in which your channel’s subscriber count is shown changes
This might be a slight distinction, but your sub counter will go from “999” to “1K”
Why is this significant?
Not only can you be proud of your accomplishment, but it will also convey a message to your audience.
The more subscribers your channel has, the more likely new viewers are to become subscribers.
For the following reasons:
- The Youtube algorithm will favor your videos when promoting them in their suggestion engine.
- New viewers believe that if a channel has subscribers, it must be producing high-quality material and entertaining videos.
- The larger your subscriber base grows, the more viewers you may convert to subscribers.
- Many Youtube channels report a surge in views after hitting the 1K mark.
Now, don’t anticipate a rapid explosion in growth or a significant surge in views — YouTube is a waiting game.
There are, though, a number of actions you can take every week to make sure your videos are exposed to a larger audience, before and after reaching your goal of 1K subs.
These actions will help you increase your views and increase your subscribers.
So, if you’re struggling to get 1000 subscribers on your YouTube gaming channel, keep reading on!
Trust me, it’ll be worth it!
How To Get 1000 Subscribers On Your YouTube Gaming Channel?
Growing a YouTube channel requires a lot of effort and patience.
Lots of patience!
PewDiePie didn’t get 100M+ subs in a flash!
So, let’s check out the actions you should be taking every week to grow your audience and help you gain subscribers.
Do research to determine what videos to make every week
One of the number one reasons why Youtube channels fail is because the Youtuber makes the wrong videos.
Your channel, to succeed, needs to be customer-driven. This means that the videos you create are videos your customers, your viewers, want. Do not just create videos that you think people would love just because you’d love them.
Whatever videos you decide to create should be backed up by evidence to suggest that your target audience is actively searching for that video. So your decisions need to be data-driven.
To know what your viewers want, you’ll need to do video research.
To that end, it’s important when starting your channel to make, what I like to call, audience attraction videos.
These videos target specific questions that groups of your target audience is already asking in Youtube’s search bar.
There are other types of video called audience retention videos, these will supercharge your drive to get to 1000 subscribers and beyond.
This research to find the correct videos to make is so vital, I’d say if you don’t perform the research, your channel will, 99 times out of 100, fail.
If you’d like to learn more about audience attraction and retention videos and how to perform video research on Youtube, head over to my audience attraction and retention video article here.
I recommend you do research every week before making your videos.
Uploading 2 videos (minimum) a week
This part goes without saying.
But the Youtube algorithm favors those who post regularly.
The ideal posting frequency is 2 videos per week. Less than that and your channel won’t grow as quickly as it could. More than 2 videos a week will burn out if working alone.
Some people might go overboard and start uploading multiple videos a day in hopes that this will be favorable for their channel.
On the contrary, bombarding content on your channel might raise some brows and can get you flagged as a spammer. (Source)
The ideal way of uploading videos on your YouTube channel is committing to 2 videos per week.
Make sure the content is worth watching:
While getting subscribers is an important goal for every YouTube channel.
The priority is still providing worthy content to your subscribers.
Like any other channel, a gaming channel should have engaging content which doesn’t bore the watcher.
When first creating videos for your channel try to make a diverse number of videos. Don’t just make one type of video. Make many different types of gaming videos that fit your brand.
The reason for this is simple: your videos will get different numbers of views depending on what resonates with your audience.
Once each video has enough views, you’ll start to see viewing figure patterns. Some types of videos will be watched more than others.
You can use this data to then decide which videos you should make and which videos you should stop making. This ensures you’re making decisions based on real-world data. Plus, you’ll be making videos that your channel’s viewers are actually interested in instead of just making videos you think they’ll be interested in.
As the saying goes: Assumption is the mother of all fu… You get the idea.
So every week be sure to check your Youtube analytics to see which videos are resonating with your audience and make more of them.
Upload Youtube Shorts
Youtube shorts are recently launched types of Youtube videos that are pretty useful in boosting your YouTube Channel.
With features including video segmenting, app-based recording, and musical overlays, Youtube Shorts allows users to create vertical short-form videos.
Videos must be 60 seconds or less in length and won’t disappear like Instagram Reels or Stories material.
If anything, Youtube shorts are more comparable to TikToks than stories on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.
In contrast to Youtube stories, which are exclusively accessible to creators with over 10,000 subscribers, the shorts format is open to all YouTube creators regardless of subscriber quantity.
Because the inventory of shorts is currently relatively limited, Youtube is strongly marketing this new video type, resulting in a lot more views for artists.
On the video itself, each short has a subscribe option for your channel. As a result, if a viewer likes your video, they can subscribe right away.
You can rapidly grow the number of subscribers for your channel in a short amount of time.
I’d recommend making at least 1 Youtube short for each main video you make each week, just quickly summarising all the main points your main videos talk about, then link out to your main video.
Create Custom Thumbnails
This is something that many Youtubers agree on: Youtube thumbnails are essential, ESSENTIAL, to success. They are, after all, the main way of attracting viewers to click on your video to watch it.
Instead of allowing a random video thumbnail to be created, you need to take the time and make a custom thumbnail for each video you make.
You can take a look at an article I wrote about the vital importance of Youtube thumbnails here.
Using annotations and relevant photos as custom thumbnails for your YouTube videos can massively boost the CTR of your videos (click-through rate).
Sometimes a 1% increase in click-through rate can lead to 10s of thousands more video views.
So custom Youtube thumbnails can help you attract new subscribers to your channel, and if you’re not creating eye-catching thumbnails, you’re losing out big time.
Fortunately, it’s not that hard to create a custom thumbnail. You can use a tool such as Canva to make eye-catching YouTube thumbnails very quickly.
They provide pre-made templates that allow you to make eye-catching thumbnails in minutes.
Though, creating truly great thumbnails that drive vast amounts of traffic to your videos is an art form.
So, each week, after you’ve created your videos, be sure to spend time creating a custom thumbnail for each video.
Optimize Youtube Titles for Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The ability to stand out from the crowd of other Youtube videos is critical to success.
Giving your videos unusual titles is a wonderful approach to do this as they can have a drastic effect on your video’s click-through rate. This way, you’ll have a lot of viewers coming to your channel just out of curiosity.
Having unique titles will help your channel obtain the views it needs to profit from the social proof factor.
However, in order to acquire the most views, you will also need to dig into the SEO aspect of Youtube marketing.
Here are a few pointers for increasing the reach of your YouTube titles:
- Make use of the keyword in the title
This used to have a bigger influence on SEO, but it still has a big impact on video. Because Youtube crawlers do not read your videos like they read blog articles, placing the main keyword in the title will allow YouTube bots to know what your video is about.
- Use Google Adwords
Use Google Adwords to find out what people are looking for on the internet. Try to choose videos that have a good mix of high-volume searches and low competition.
- Make the title as brief as possible
Google shortens the video to 66 characters and puts ‘YouTube |’ before the video (taking an extra 10 characters). Your video title should be no more than 50 characters long.
- Make the title descriptive
Give the viewers a sneak glance at the video’s content.
- Make the title interesting
As I previously said, having a unique title will entice more people to click. The more people that click on it, the higher it will rank.
Consider collaborating with fellow YouTubers
Collaboration on YouTube has lately become rather popular among top video providers.
Why?
Because working together helps everyone.
It will benefit you, your partners, and the audience.
The creative process is a positive one, and seeing other YouTubers as rivals would only delay your growth, leaving you languishing and despising the triumphs of others.
Try to reach out to other users in your niche and invite them to collaborate on something.
You’ll be able to connect with a new audience, your colleague will be able to connect with a new audience, and your viewers will appreciate all of the added value.
I recommend you should do the following:
- Reach out to at least one Youtuber in your niche every week and offer to help them make something amazing for their channel, not your own. Remember you must give before you can expect to receive.
- Comment on 5 videos that are in your niche each day with a comment that adds real value to the discussion. It will show people you’re an authority on the matter.
Use Your Social Media
Once you upload your content, use social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc. to share the videos you upload.
Don’t forget forums like Reddit.
Because they will help you generate lots of views.
Post in SubReddits that are relevant to your gaming channel and videos.
Provided you don’t spam or post irrelevant links – You are most definitely bound to get an audience that will love watching your videos.
Each week you should post your videos at least once on each of the social networks you are part of.
You should also post on at least 5 forums that you know of.
You can grow a more effective social media strategy later. For now, focusing on youtube will have greater rewards.
Interact With The People who comment
Make sure you post a comment on every Youtube video you create.
These comments should start a discussion about a thought or idea discussed in the video. Also, be sure to ask people to comment back with their thoughts.
Do this for each of your videos, every week.
Also, be sure to look through comments people have made and respond to them. It’s a good idea to set aside 15-30 mins every day to respond to comments as this helps people engage with you, get to know you, and subscribe to your channel.
Don’t worry, in the long term, you’ll be able to hire a comments manager for your channel. But early in your channel’s life, you should always comment back.
Video should be 10-15 minutes long 90% of the time
Longer videos = more watch time = more revenue from ads.
But will anyone watch the video till the end if it’s boring them to death?
Of course not!
Generally speaking, you want to aim for videos that are 10-15 minutes long, and no longer.
But that rule can be broken for certain types of video, such as play-throughs which can be many hours long.
Just keep in mind the Youtube algorithm places a strong emphasis on the average percentage watched of your video when ranking and promoting it.
For example, if your video is 10 mins long and on average it’s watched for 9 minutes, it has an average percentage watched of 90% (very high). Conversely, if you have a 100-minute video and people are only watching it for 15 minutes on average, the average percentage is 15%. Even though the actual number of minutes watched is higher on the longer video, it can’t keep people as engaged for its full length when compared to the shorter video.
This average watch time percentage is used as an indicator of video quality as the higher the percentage, the more engaged people are for the entirety of the video.
Each week you should look at the average percentage watched of your videos in Youtube analytics. If the percentages are low, as yourself, why? Why are people only watching my videos for a short period? You might find that your videos trail off quickly into irrelevant talk. Or you might find that people click on your video expecting one thing but the video delivered something else. Regardless, you should look at this super-stat every week, and analyze poor-performing videos.
Improve one small element of your videos each week.
Perfectionism is the killer of productivity.
In my experience, many Youtube gamers never got far with growing their channel because they believed they needed Holywood quality from the first video.
This almost never happens for normal channels that are not sponsored by corporations or other large business entities.
Channel quality grows slowly over time. There are so many variables, so many little details that make a channel technically high quality that somebody new to Youtube will not be able to juggle them all in the first few videos.
So you should, each week after launching your video, note down one thing you’d like to improve, then take action to improve it. Maybe it’s the sound quality. If so, get a new microphone or get some sound damping panels for your room.
If you identify one way each week to improve your video you will ensure iterative evolutionary growth in your channel’s quality. And you won’t overwhelm yourself.
Edit Your Videos! A little bit.
The first time you create a video, you’ll likely want to go all “Steven Spielberg” on your video and edit the heck out of it.
But try not to go overboard. For your first few videos, just record content, edit out the bits that you messed up, and lunch it on Youtube.
There’s plenty of time for you to improve your video editing skills in the many videos you will create. But for now, just keep your video editing as simple and short as possible.
Each week write down one way you could edit your videos better and learn how to do that, then on your next video, try doing that edit.
Learn, learn and learn some more.
Here’s a master key to success you should have dangling from your chain: every week set aside at least 1 hour to learn.
Read some books on how to promote your youtube channel. Watch a video on how to create a cool intro. Read a bunch of articles on how Youtube analytics works.
Every week, you should be constantly learning about Youtube and how to make a success of your channel.
Don’t Give Up!
Last but not least, the most important task is to not give up or lose hope!
In the early days of your Youtube channel, every week will feel like a slog through bog mud. Subscribers will trickle in, videos will only get tens of views, and you’ll feel like giving up.
This is normal. Every channel starts slowly.
Tell yourself that you will dedicate 12 months minimum to growing your channel.
If you follow the above actions, if you make 2 videos a week, promote yourself on social, reach out to other Youtubers, comment on other videos, comment on your own videos, focus on creating great thumbnails, and do thorough research to find the right video to make, you will get that 1000 subscribers. And probably do it far faster than 12 months!
Why do I know that?
Because it’s what every other channel that’s ever existed on Youtube has done.
So, it’s time for you to get off the web browser and start taking action!
Wait! Don’t go just yet
Did you find this article useful? If you did, consider subscribing to our Youtube gaming success Newsletter.
Yes, I know, yet another newsletter. Give me 2 minutes to explain why I’m trying to make this one a little different and worth your time.
Every month, just like the monthly gaming magazines of old, I send out a newsletter that summarises all the articles we’ve been writing and the resources and courses we’ve made to help you succeed on Youtube. I also, summarise the best content going around the net that’ll help YouTubers grow their channel. I check out new tools that might help you, I source tips from successful YouTubers, and there’ll be a section on actions you can take right now to improve your channel. I might even throw in an interview or two.
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