Do this if your YouTube channel isn't growing // How to grow on YouTube

If are trying to grow your YouTube channel but you’re not getting the views or subscribers, perhaps you feel your YouTube channel is not growing as fast as you’d like? I share my top 10 things you need to do. These actionable steps will help you understand why your channel isn’t growing as well as do the things to help you grow your channel.

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Do this if your YouTube channel isn’t growing – Video Transcript

If you are trying to grow your YouTube channel and you’re not getting the views and you’re not getting the subscriber growth that you want, today, I’m going to share my top 9 tips to help you grow your YouTube channel if you feel that it’s not kind of making the progress that you want to see it make.

Make sure that you stay until the end, because I’ve got 9 tips and they’re all incredibly actionable. There’s no fluff on my channel. And so I want to give you these tips so that you can start implementing and taking action right away.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Sara Nguyen, and I’llhelp you grow your business using video with ease. Now, whether you are watching the livestream with us live now, thanks for being here, or if you’re catching the replay, if you have any questions, please drop them in the comments or in the chat and I’ll get to them at the end of the live stream.

Let’s get right into the good stuff. So 9 things to grow your YouTube channel. If you feel that, you know, it’s not quite growing, it’s not quite making the progress that you want or if you feel that it’s growing really slowly, I’m going to share these 9 things that you can start to implement right away.

All right. Let’s get into it. You’re ready? I’m ready. I’m pretty excited. All right. So the first thing that I want you to do is to get honest feedback and listen to the suggestions.

Here’s what I see happen a lot. I see lots of YouTube creators, they go to VidIQ who do free channel reviews or they go to Tubebuddy who do free channel reviews or they go to like lots and lots of different creators and get channel reviews where they hear the same things. Right.

They hear these channels, these brands tell them the same things to improve their content. And then they’ll go to another channel review. I’m not quite sure what they’re looking to get from these different channel reviews, where they’re looking to hear something different, but to get actual feedback on your videos and implement them.

Now, these different brands, VidIQ do free channel reviews. Tubebuddy free channel reviews, and lots of creators do them as well. And I think those are great. But what I would like to see you do is to ask three to five people, right?

People that you know, people that you trust and send them a video of yours or send them your channel and ask them to give you specific feedback on how you can improve. What I see people do is they will release a video and they’ll release it to Facebook, they’ll share it with their friends, and everyone’s like, hey, great job.

And they’re not actually getting feedback on how can they implement things that will help them, you know, improve it. And so listen to the feedback. When you hear things like, hey, you know, that intro was a little bit long or, hey, that intro was a little bit intense or hey, your delivery was a little bit, you know, cringey, listen to that.

And, you know, take it with a grain of salt because you are your brand and you are your business and you are the person delivering the content. But listen to the feedback from three or five people you trust. Don’t just put it out to the Internet, like the Internet is a big, crazy space.

Put it out to three to five people and ask them how you can improve. And this, I think just this simple thing alone, you’ll get the feedback that you’ll need and listen to it and then start to implement these things and you’ll be surprised.

Remember, these are people that you trust to give you honest feedback, and they will tell you, they will tell you, okay, your framing’s kind of off, your lighting’s really dark, you’re kind of swaying like this a lot. They’ll tell you all that stuff so that you can start to see, oh, okay, these are things that I need to implement.

First things first, get honest external feedback. Listen to it. Don’t just be like, that’s how I like it. That’s my personality. It’s like, well, okay, you wanted feedback why aren’t you listening to it, you know?

First things first, get feedback and this will help your channel grow and implement the things that you’ll actually learn. Now, the second thing I want you to do is to consider adding educational content.

If you are doing a vlog style videos, if you’re doing entertainment style videos, you will probably find that it’s quite slow to grow on YouTube for lots of reasons. It’s incredibly competitive. But if you are doing like entertainment-style videos, consider adding educational videos even if this isn’t your main niche.

I would always recommend adding educational types of videos. And these are things like how to training, step by step tutorials and you need to make sure that these videos have actual traffic. I understand the desire to create videos for YouTube and not to be restricted by the keywords, not to be restricted by these are the only things that people are searching for.

I want to do things that are outside of that. I get it. That’s why I’m saying don’t just do one or the other, have a blend of them. And you’ll find that the educational type videos, the ones that help people, the one that give people, the ones that give people information to take them to the next step, to complete a task, to do something, they’ll help grow your channel because of that transaction, because you’re giving something, you’re giving value, and then people want more of it, right?

And they’ll all return that by subscribing, by viewing, by liking it. Consider adding educational type of content, because this will help the channel grow because it shows people the value that you can add. That’s the second thing I want you to consider.

Now, the third thing is to show up consistently. The problem that I see a lot of creators have, particularly, in the new stages, is that showing up is hard because, you know, you’re talking to a camera for the first time.

There’s lots of fears around. Are people going to judge me? And also the process of getting on video, getting everything ready just takes time. So look at how often you’re showing up. Why do you want to do this?

YouTube, the algorithm loves consistency. They love you showing up, whatever it is, but consistently. So you need to figure out what that is for you. So whether that’s weekly, whether that’s twice a week, whether it’s monthly. People always ask me, well, how many videos should I release a week?

And I say, as many as you can handle. Right? So if that’s one a week, that’s fine. If it’s one a fortnight and you’re just starting, build that muscle but get it consistent. And that’s what YouTube likes to see.

And a lot of the channels that grow incredibly fast, the channels like Invest with Queenie, she was releasing three to four videos a week and now she’s gone to daily. But she’s able to do that because she’s got the systems and the process and the infrastructure in place so that she doesn’t burn out.

But it’s all about what can you handle and how are you going to manage it. Showing up consistently, whatever that looks like for you. So the third, that was the third one. The fourth one is your frequency.

We talked about this a little bit and it’s how often are you releasing videos? This contributes to lots of things. I think that it’s important to aim to try to get at least once a week, because that shows the algorithm that you’re showing up consistently.

It shows your subscribers that you’ve got constant content to share and it keeps them engaged, though once a week is the ideal. I don’t like the idea of showing up for the sake of showing up. If you’re going to release a video every single day and those videos are kind of crappy, then I’d rather you like release less and focus on getting the one a week that you can release, really good.

Really nailing that content, really valuable and your delivery on point. Frequency is how often are you posting your videos? Try to avoid the best that you can, going once a month, once every escond month, once every six months, which was the problem that I had at the very beginning when I was like just trying to figure out how to do it all, and then I wasn’t like able to show up consistently and I wasn’t doing it frequently enough.

That’s why one reason why my channel didn’t grow as fast in the early stages of my journey. Now, the fifth one is to look at your delivery. This is a big one. And people get very defensive and people are a little bit sensitive when, you know, people giving them feedback on their delivery.

But these are things like projecting your voice, right? There’s no point in talking really softly when no one can actually hear. You want to be able to talk into your video, into the camera so that you’re projecting your voice clearly so that you’re getting the message out there, so that people can hear what you’ll have to say.

Pronunciation is another one. Slow down. If you’re talking too quickly, like I do all the time, you may be slurring a little bit so make sure that you check your pronunciation. Quality content.

I think quality content falls under delivery, because I want to make sure that you are focusing on the content side of things. We talk a lot about the video side of things and the visual side of things, but is the content that you’re actually delivering accurate?

Is it informative? Is it concise? Is it up-to-date? Is it the best that you can deliver? So this is a really key part of having great videos. And in terms of your delivery, are you actually engaging or are you that nightmare university lecturer who has a monotone who’s putting everyone to sleep?

And I’m not saying be like Tom Cruise and start jumping on the couch and, you know, being, you know, outside of the personality that you are. But bring it, bring it a little bit, you know, give them a little bit of extra you, because that’s what people want to see.

And they’re a bit more engaged if you can give a give a little bit more. Push a little bit. I’m not saying go to the extreme, but just be a little bit more engaging, whatever that looks like for you.

And, you know, if you feel that this is really hard and that you can’t be engaging, you will find that as you continue to do video becoming engaging, stepping into it, getting excited about it will become easier. Trust me. And the last one I want to talk about is in terms of your delivery is your presentation.

How are you presenting yourself? Now, there’s lots of arguments about this. I feel that if you are going to show up for video, if you want people to watch you, you don’t need to go full MET gala style makeup, hair outfit.

I don’t think that’s the point of YouTube, but I do feel that it’s important for you to show up as the best version of yourself. And people are like, that’s really vague, but what does that actually mean?

I feel in terms of the way you look on camera, you should be aiming for first day impression. Why? Because that’s kind of what majority of people will experience when they see your videos, right?

If going on a first date with someone, what’s the first impression that you want them to have of you? Do you want them to see you with messy hair, unshowered, sweaty in your gym gear? If that’s your thing, then that’s okay.

But is that really what, is that really, really what you want? And I see some people like, this is my true authentic self. And I was like, is that? Is that really? Is that the best way you want to present yourself?

Just consider how you’re presenting yourself. And I’m just talking about being clean. I’m just talking about being presentable, having a shirt on, you know, ironing that shirt and making sure that, you know, your hair’s brushed.

Simple things, not asking for too much. I’m asking for you to consider how are you appearing on video and how are you presenting yourself. All of this comes under look at your delivery. And these are just little tweaks.

You know, I’m not asking for you to go out, get special hair and makeup done, book a makeup artist. I’m asking you to consider how do I look? And how people see me? And how– because they’re going to judge you based off that first impression that they see of you.

Numero six. Now, we are going to talk a little bit more about visuals, lighting, framing and environment. This one, I feel, is one that people kind of disregard a little bit. So in terms of the visuals of your video, people either disregard it or they go to the extreme.

And I feel that we need to find a balance. In terms of your lighting, I want you to check that you’re not overexposed, so it’s not too bright. You’re not coming through too bright. And I want you to check that it’s not too dark either, so you’re not like, you know, being lost into the background of the environment that you’re in.

Check your lighting. Just, you know, and you’re like, what do you mean by check your lighting? So when you watch your video, are you kind of being lost in the background of everything or are you kind of like really overexposed?

When you go and ask for that feedback from those three to five people that you trust, ask them, you know, what do you think of my lighting? And they’ll tell you. There’s lighting. There’s framing, so framing is a very good one. Let’s talk a little bit about framing.

I see a lot where people get framing wrong and they get framing wrong in terms of the head space that they have within their actual video. There’s the concept of rule of thirds and the aim of this is for video, you’ll want to be in like, ideally, a third and it’s a photography type of concept.

As you can see, I’m in the middle third of the rule of thirds. So that’s the one thing that you want. The other thing that you want to, you know, pay attention to is your distance to the camera and especially your bedroom.

At the moment, I’ve got about three fingers between the top of my head and the top of the frame. And that’s what you kind of want, right? You want a little bit of headspace.

I see a lot of people make mistakes with this one where they’re too far, it looks a little something like this. And this is way too much space, right? That’s way too much space, or they go to the other extreme and it’s like, they’re like this. And it’s like head’s cut off.

Does anyone want to tell me the head’s cut off? You want to find that balance where there’s about, you know, three, three fingers. This is not an exact science. About three fingers between the top of your head and the top of the frame.

That’s what you kind of want to go for in terms of, you know, the framing of your things. And not to be too far back or not to be too, too close to the camera as well. That’s what I talk about framing. And environment, right?

I don’t want you to get caught up in having a decked out set that you spend lots of money on buying lots of trinket things. I’d rather you focus on the background being clean. Now, I’v seen people, you know, have backgrounds where it’s like, oh, that’s a dirty mirror and there’s like a pile of laundry and all this stuff, like just have it clean, presentable clean, like remember first day impression.

Like do you really want to take your first at home and for them to see, like piles of rubbish, dirty laundry, stinky socks? Is that, like, attractive? No, it’s not. You hide that stuff. You shove that stuff in the closet for the time being until they’re gone. Right?

Just consider the environment that people see because, you know, that’s all that they– they’re judging you of what they see. That’s what I want to say. Look at the visuals, the lighting, the framing and the environment that you’re actually in and make the tweaks accordingly.

Tip number seven is to check your sound. This is one that I feel that I forever struggle with. Is your sound too loud? Is your sound too soft? I had a problem with, you know, microphones where the sound was coming through to soft and I didn’t know until afterwards. Right?

I was asking for feedback and people were like, hey, your sound is kind of a bit low. And I was like, is it really? I wouldn’t have known. But getting that feedback would help you make the adjustments necessary.

Watch out for clipping. This is a common one that I experienced myself. And being out of sync as well, particularly with live streams, and is it noisy? You know, like just be conscious of like is it like really noisy?

Can you do things to get that better podcasty, you know, YouTubey audio that you can have. So check your sound, ask for that feedback, know what people think about your sound.

Numero seven. Now if you want your channel to grow, if you want people to subscribe, you need to ask for the like for that engagement, for people to like it. And you need to ask for the sub. But in particular, in addition to asking for them to subscribe, you need to give them a reason to, right?

You can’t just say, subscribe, subscribe and like to scream subscribe 10 times throughout the video. You need to give them a reason to subscribe. Subscribe for, what you actually do, for more videos about live stream training, about YouTube growth, about bread making, about exercise that I release weekly.

You need to give people an incentive and a benefit to actually subscribe, because as you know, there are a gazillion channels. Why should they subscribe to you? You need to tell them. You need to tell them why they need to subscribe.

Make sure that you incorporate asking for the, asking for the sub and also the reason why. And then that will help push them over and click that little subscribe button for you. That’s number eight.

And then that wraps me up to my last tip, which is to take imperfect action. Now, I know I went through all these tips of do these, you know, check your lighting, check your framing, check your blah, blah, blah.

And I’m not saying that for you to stop your videos and try to get all of these things perfect, I’m saying get that feedback, make these incremental adjustments. I wouldn’t trash all of your old videos at all.

I wouldn’t unpublish them. I wouldn’t unlist them. But just it’s all about taking that feedback and getting incrementally better for each video. That 1% better for each video. If you get feedback that your lighting isn’t great and then the next video, you’re like, okay, I’m going to make sure that I actually check the camera lighting levels and adjust it. And then that video is better, then you’ve made progress.

And that’s that’s great. If you also have to fix your audio, if you also, you know, just decide to put the laundry away, little things that you can keep doing that if you keep taking action and you keep making these adjustments and you keep releasing videos, that’s how you start to see improvement.

It’s the people who go, oh, I got so much bad feedback. Why do I even bother? I’m just going to give up. And then I don’t release a video for, you know, a month, two months.

And then they come back and they’re like, oh, the channel didn’t grow. They’re the people who will continue to be slow. But if you go, all right, I’m going to get this feedback. I’m going to make sure that everything continues to be implemented and that, you know, it’s not going to be perfect.

I don’t think the perfect video exists in our minds, I think the good enough video exists and that will help you grow. That’s basically my handy dandy 9 tips for growing. I’m just going to check the comments to see where you’re at. Hey, Kempire Daily, thanks for joining me.

And Joan. Hey, Joan, thanks for being here as well. David Pearl, thanks for being on the livestream. TrueNorth Paul. Hey, nice to see you here. Nice to see you here. Pete Johns is here as well. Thanks for joining us, Pete. Pete Johns says, Sara is one of my trusted, honest feedback givers.

It’s such an important factor. Oh, thanks, Pete. You know, I really appreciate Pete. So if you haven’t subscribed to Pete’s channel, Studio Live Today, particularly if you’re in the, you know, the music space, in music creation space, definitely do.

People have this really great relationship where it’s like, hey, that was, you know, I did this, you know, was this as bad as I thought it was? And he’d be, yeah it’s kind of bad or no, that wasn’t as bad as you thought it was.

Having feedback from someone else, someone else who’s also creator helps as well, because they understand, in theory, ideally, they understand what it takes to improve an actual video. That’s always really handy as well. So honest feedback.

And it’s not about, you know, throwing trash at someone. It’s about constructive criticism, like constructive feedback. And the aim is for you both to kind of improve. True Norf says, constructive feedback is critical. It is, isn’t it?

And I feel that people get really sensitive and particularly about their videos, especially if they knew they’re like, well, I put all this effort into it and it wasn’t good. And it’s like, well, that’s okay, then the next one can be better, you know, and start to implement these things.

And the next one after that will be better as well. Pete Johns says, humility in the ability to take action on feedback is massive. We all have blind spots, I think you see mean spots but anyway, yes, that is definitely true.

I know for the longest time I was getting really irritated with people, you know, judging my videos in one form or another. I get a lot of random comments, and some not so constructive, but there were some that were like, this is a little bit long.

Right? I’ve taken that on board, cut stuff out. I try to make things as condensed as possible. And then I do see, like, you know, from the adjustments that I make, the changes happened on the channel as well. I think it’s important not to be too much, my channel’s perfect it doesn’t need any changes, because everyone really can probably use some form of improvement, even the massive creators as well.

They could probably do with some tweak of some form. Oh, okay, so Paul, says True Norf, what would you say to those who suffer from G.A.S, gear aquisition syndrome? So I first heard about having G.A.S gear aquisition syndrome from Pete Johns from Studio Live Today.

And it’s the condition where you constantly, you’re constantly acquiring gear as opposed to working on your content. And I feel that gas, the condition of gas is something that I have suffered as well. But it has passed with me.

And I think that in terms of the equipment that you have, everyone will tell you that the equipment is not the most important part. And yet they will show these expensive cameras, they will show these expensive microphones. And I think it’s important to know that what you have is good enough until you can afford the next point. Right.

What you have is good enough into until you can afford the next point and, you know, to not get into that form of procrastination where you’re like, well, I can’t create a video until I have another light, even though I’ve already got a ring light, I want an led light like that type of stuff is just a form of self sabotage and a form of procrastination.

I think really take a look at why are you not creating content and why do you really feel that you need this extra bit of equipment? Because you’ll find deep down that the true answer of do I really need this in order to, you know, make this the best video in order to create another video?

The answer will actually be no.Pete goes, I really go full make up, hair and outfits, just really special occasions. Yeah, Pete, but I still find that you’re quite presentable, right.

If you were to rock up in like a singlet, I’d be really concerned. I’d be having conversation going, hey, Pete, change in style, ey? What’s going on? So I still think it’s about being presentable. It’s like a clean shirt.

I assume it’s a clean shirt. It looks like a clean shirt that you rock up in for your livestream. That’s where it’s that. Dave says, it’s okay to be in your gym gear post workout if that makes sense for your audience, like a fitness expert offering advice, post workout, for example.

Definitely agree. Definitely agree. You know, like I’m not I’m not I’m not beating on people who show up in gym gear saying like they need to be in a suit. I’m saying, you know, if it’s appropriate for your audience to be in gym gear and to be in workout clothes, that’s great.

But if you’re like, I don’t care, I’ve just gone for a run. I’m just going to, I’m just going to shoot a video the way that I am now. Take me or leave me. And it’s like, is that really the attitude to be having?

It’s not really the first date impression that you want to have. And you’ll find that these channels where they are workout channels, where people are in gym gear, like they still show up in the clean gym gear, not the ripped ones, not the one stained ones.

They’ll show up in the clean, nice, presentable ones as well. Paul says, content is king, quality is queen, and they stand side by side. Yes, love this. Absolutely love this. Definitely, definitely true.

You need to make sure that you have that balance of, you know, quality content together because that’s what you want that will help you grow your channel. So, yes. That basically wraps us up for today’s live stream.

Had a lot of fun presenting today and putting together the content, had a little bit of a different layout, as you may have noticed. Have the iPad going with a little overlay. A little bit excited to present something a little bit new.

Now, if you found this video useful, give me a thumbs up and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already where I do lots more tips and tutorials and trainings to help you grow your business using video with ease. Now, if you haven’t got it already as well, make sure you grab my YouTube Creator Blueprint, so I show you how to go from stuck and overwhelmed on YouTube to being a thriving and profitable creator on the platform.

That’s free. The link to that will be on the screen and it’s in the description now as well. Thanks, everyone, for joining me on the livestream today. I will see you in the next video. And bye for now.