Hello, and welcome to this episode. 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. Stay tuned.
Episode 14: Here’s what to do if your YouTube channel isn’t growing – Podcast Transcript
Hey, Thrivers, I’m Sara Nguyen, creator of Thrive Video Academy, and I’m here to help you go from stuck and overwhelmed to becoming a confident, profitable and thriving creator. Join me here each week for honest conversations about what it really takes to become a successful YouTube creator without compromising your creativity, sacrificing cheeky drinks with people you love or downtime for yourself.
You’ll hear about the hard lessons I’ve gone through so you can avoid making the same slow and costly mistakes on your journey, as well as my secret weapons to help you dig deep and do the work it takes. I’m so honoured and grateful to have the opportunity to share this together with you right here on the Thriving Creator Podcast. I’m glad you’re here. Let’s get started.
If you feel that it’s not kind of making the progress that you want to see it make, I want to give you these tips so that you can start implementing and taking action right away. 9 things to grow your YouTube channel. The first thing that I want you to do is to get honest feedback and listen to the suggestions.
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 and 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 improve it and to listen to the feedback so when you hear things like, hey, that intro was a little bit long or hey, that intro was a little bit intense, or hey, your delivery was a little bit Cringey, listen to that.
And 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 need and listen to it and then start to implement these things, and you’ll be surprised. Remember, these are people that you trust who should give you honest feedback.
And they will tell you, they will tell you, okay, your framing is kind of off, your lighting is 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, these are things that I need to implement.
First things first, get honest external feedback. Listen to it. Don’t just be like, uh, 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? First things first, get feedback and this will help your channel grow and implement the things that you 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’ll 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 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 will 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’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. 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.
You need to figure out what that is for you. 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? 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 are 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. The third. 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. Once a week is the ideal. I don’t like the idea of showing up for the sake of showing up. You’re going to release a video every single day and those videos are kind of crappy, then I’d rather you release less and focus on getting the one the one week that you can release really good.
Really nailing that content, really valuable and your delivery’s 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 second month, once every six months, which was a 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 people give them feedback on their delivery. But these are things like projecting your voice right? There’s no point in talking really softly when no once can actually hear you.
You want to be able to talk into your video, in to 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 have to say. Pronunciation is another one. Slow down.
And 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? 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 being outside of the personality that you are. But bring it.
Bring it a little bit, 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 little give a little bit more. Push it 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.
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 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 date 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, 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.
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? 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. 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. 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.
You’re not, like, being lost into the background of the environment that you’re in. Check your lighting. 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, what do you think of my lighting? And they’ll tell you. There’s lighting, there’s framing. 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. Pay attention to it. It is your distance to the camera. And especially your head room, 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. You want a little bit of headspace. I see a lot of people make mistakes where they’re too far or they go to the other extreme and head’s cut off. Does anyone want to tell me my head’s cut off?
You want to find that balance where there’s 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 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, 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.
I’ve seen people who 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 date impression. Like do you really want to take your first date at home and for them to see, like piles of rubbish, dirty laundry, stinky socks?
Is that, like, attractive? No, it’s not. Like you hide that stuff, you shove that stuff in the closet for the time being until they’re gone. Or just consider the environment that people see because that’s all that– 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 too soft and I didn’t know until afterwards. Right. That was asking that feedback, where people were like, hey, you sound is kind of a bit low. And I was like, is it? Really?
I wouldn’t have known. But getting that feedback will 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?
Like just be conscious of like, is it like really noisy? Can you do things to get that better podcasty, YouTubey audio that you can have? Check your sound, ask for that feedback, 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 just scream, subscribe ten times throughout the video. You need to give them a reason to subscribe. What do you actually do for more videos about live stream training, about YouTube growth, about breadmaking, 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 gazillion channels. Why should they subscribe to you? You need to tell them. You need to tell them why they need to subscribe, so make sure that you incorporate asking for, asking for the sub, but 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 this, 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.
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 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.
One last thing before I go. I created this podcast as a reminder that you are not alone in this. Growing with video is hard, and I want to be here to help and guide you and others through it. If you found this podcast episode helpful, please leave a review.
This helps Apple and the algorithms put my podcast in front of more people just like you. I’d be incredibly grateful. Thanks for listening.
- [Thriving Creator Podcast] Episode 40: Want Better YouTube Videos? Use This Tool. (Yep, it’s his simple)
- [Thriving Creator Podcast] Episode 41: Someone Needs Your Rescue from Fyre II – Will You Answer the Call?
- [Thriving Creator Podcast] Episode 39: YouTube Success: Revealing the Not-So-Secret Formula
