 Welcome. Welcome to Denver. Welcome to downtown Denver, where I'm filming this vlog right now for you to teach you about how to grow your YouTube channel. And I've got a pro tip for you. If you're looking for a quieter spot to film, find an alleyway. That's where I'm at right now. And I'm realizing there's like people right above me looking down and that's okay. And that's okay. And that's part of the daily vlog experience. So on September 13th, September 13th about a week ago, I wrote these words on my Facebook page. This is what it said. Frankly, I'm beyond grateful for passing 1,000 subscribers on YouTube. Now my goal is 10,000. But I want to help the other dedicated all-in-caps creators get to 1,000. The monthly check does help. It's small, but it helps. Plotting to help others stay tuned. Hashtag no small creator and youtubers. So folks, I am serious about growing this channel, but also, more importantly, helping you. So thanks for stopping by. There's a good chance if you arrived on this video, you want to learn how to grow your following, your community, what I like to call the family, the YouTube family. So stay tuned. I'm in downtown Denver getting shots for you. Lastly, before we get back to filming, I feel very comfortable sharing these ideas with you because I've been doing the daily vlog for 900 days in a row. We're almost to 1,000. It's crazy. So it's gonna be three fundamental tips and three practical tips. All right, six total, six tips total and throughout this video. Let's go. So folks, I'm in downtown Denver. I was gonna film the six tips for you guys down here rather than back at the house, but it's too loud. You can probably hear the traffic next to me and there's horns going off and sirens. So we're just going to film back at the house, but anyway, let's go back. Back in the shed, back in the shed. All right, nice to be in a quiet place so I could communicate clearly with you. Before I dive into the three fundamental tips and the three practical tips, I want to talk about the opportunity that lies before all of us on YouTube. YouTube launched in 2005. So it is now what 13 years old. So it's not a spring chicken anymore. You know, it's entering into those teenage years and on that topic. 85%, I just got this stat the other day from Google, 85% of the generation Z. So generation Z is the teenagers right now in the early 20s. They, 85% of them use YouTube on a daily basis. For better or worse, they live on YouTube. In fact, I also read that to go and decompress and seek out entertainment, they go to YouTube. They don't go to Netflix. They don't go to Facebook. They go to YouTube because they frankly can watch the creators that they want to watch at their fingertips. All I'm saying folks is that I try to go out and find other daily vloggers and other creators that are making videos in my, you know, kind of genre. And it's hard to find other folks that are doing what I'm doing, which means there's an opportunity for you guys in there, like the space is not filled up yet in 20 years, in 30 years. There might be filled up a little bit, but right now there is still an opportunity to make videos and publish them on YouTube on a consistent basis. In addition, one last point on the opportunity for YouTube. I walked around downtown Denver today for probably about 40 minutes, just filming whatever caught my attention. And I did not see a single other person walking around with a camera that, no, now everyone had their phones out, but not with a camera and a microphone and definitely not a tripod. And so like it just kind of maybe in New York City or in LA, we would see more cameras out. But I'm telling you, like everyone was looking at me. People were talking to me as you heard from that one guy a second ago. He was just curious. A couple of people were like, hey, that's a nice camera. Bottom line. There is an opportunity on YouTube. Fundamental tip number one, here we go. If you want to reach 1000 subscribers in 2018, I would strongly recommend you ask yourself this question, what is my channel about or what is my channel going to be about? What am I going to focus on? Being a daily vlogger like myself, I film a lot of different topics. And thankfully, you know, we are now over 1700 subscribers. Thank you in there. By the way, hit that subscribe button. But listen, it's my channel is a little broad. It does not focus on one particular topic. Now I do a lot of running videos. Obviously my family is in the vlog quite a bit. What else do I do? We go on date night. We do a lot of different things. But I'm telling you, folks, if your channel is a little more focused on something, for example, maybe you like Indian food and you want to go review Indian restaurants, like I bet there's a niche out there. There's other people interested in Indian food, and they would like to see you go to restaurants, eat Indian food and review it. I'm telling you, folks, ask yourself that question. That's tip number one, fundamental tip. Number one, what is this channel going to be about? Fundamental tip number two for getting to 1000 subscribers in 2018. Right now, engage with other people that are focused on your topic. So again, kind of back to the Indian food, seek out other creators that are reviewing Indian food on Instagram, on Twitter, on YouTube. Comment consistently and don't do the sub for sub. Make sure you're really, really engaging with their content, entering into a dialogue with them. And guess what? They're going to notice over time and they're going to give you shoutouts. They're going to ask you questions back and eventually they're going to go visit your YouTube channel and be like, wait a minute, this guy's made 30 videos on the best Indian restaurants in the Midwest. Like this is amazing. I want to get to know this guy. And then who knows, it could lead to a collaboration. So that's fundamental tip number two, engage with other people that are focused on your topic. And guess what? Twitter, in my opinion, the best place to do that. The last fundamental tip that I have for getting to 1000 subscribers in 2018. It's this is, this is, this is by far the best one. Community, build a community around your YouTube channel. I have, OK, pro tip, pro tip. I have done that a little bit through the question of the day. Not only am I sharing my story through this camera, through your screen, I want to get to know you. And so over time, we're talking weeks, months, even years of comments back and forth, back and forth. Like I feel like I know a lot of people through YouTube now who have commented on a regular basis. And so we're trying to build a community here and frankly, a family. So community always wins on YouTube. That's the fundamental tip. Number three is build a community around your YouTube channel. And there's a ton of different ways to do that. I happen to do it, especially through the comments under this chant, under this, under these videos. Another way or like I was just shooting from the hip here. I just think the thought of it right now is like meetups. Meet your fans in person in different, you know, if you have fans in London or fans in Greenville, South Carolina, and you live near Greenville, like have a meetup, go to a coffee shop and say, Hey, I'm going to come. I'm going to be here on this day and come. Let's go have coffee with like 10 of your favorite fans. That is an amazing way to build community around your YouTube channel. Now that the fundamentals are out of the way for pushing your channel over a thousand subscribers, think about some practical things that you can do every single day. And I'm not, this is not a secret. What I'm about to tell you, the door has been opened on these three tips, these pro tips from many other YouTubers who have done this and have talked about this, but it doesn't hurt to reinforce and remind you guys and remind myself, you got to do this no matter what. Like this is the number, these are the three, almost number one rules for building a community on YouTube. Number one, of course, is consistency. You got to be consistent. I happen to do the daily for 900 days now. I know I've mentioned that a lot, but it's like, it's a reality that we've been blessed to have past 900 days in a row of talking and engaging and hopefully inspiring some of you in there to seek beauty, to work hard and to love others, right? That's what we do here on YouTube. And so I probably would not recommend the daily. I would recommend three days a week, at least three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. You know, every day is intense. It's really intense. It's hard. And it's better to pick something and stick to it instead of pick something and then quit because you get burned out. You hear me? But I would really recommend three days a week at least. And then reevaluate in three years, like pick something and maybe it's once a week. But in my mind, I would love to see content from a creator that's three days a week. Practical tip number two for getting your channel over the 1000 subscriber mark. What I'm about to tell you, YouTube, if I would have done this 900 days ago, what I'm about to tell you, I bet this channel would already be over the 10,000 subscriber mark. I actually really believe that. What am I talking about metadata? And you know, that's kind of, it's a fancy word for basically typing and writing and being a little creative with your title, your description and your tags on YouTube. Okay. So every, every vlog that I publish, I have to think of a title. I have to create about, you know, everything at probably about 50 tags. So if, for example, this video is going to be tagged with how to grow your YouTube channel, how to get to 1000 subscribers, that sort of thing. And also most importantly in my humble opinion is the description. I just about two months ago started writing very long detailed descriptions. Some of them are a little jumbled at times, but the key is that you have a great description underneath every single video because of course, YouTube is the second largest, largest search engine in the world behind Google and Google owns YouTube. So of course they talk to each other. And so if your, if your video is not, does not have the correct metadata words for the title, the description and the tags, Google's algorithm cannot find your video. So you really, really have to be very strategic in how you tag your video, how you title your videos and the length of your description. Does that make sense? So for example, below this video, I'll talk a lot about the daily vlog and yes, YouTube and Google will pick up on that and hopefully serve this video to a lot of you out there. And so anyway, that's practical tip. Number two is the metadata, metadata, metadata. I cannot stress this enough. If I would have done this every single day for the last 900 days, I would, I would bet a decent amount of money that we would already be past 10,000 subscribers. Last practical tip, number three, thumbnails. You know, you've heard this before. You've got to have great thumbnails. Okay. I am not a graphic designer. I'm, I'm barely a, you know, a videographer. Like I, I love the creative process, but I just don't love the technical process sometimes. And so I've been a little laxadaisical when it comes to the thumbnail. And I'm telling you, like, if you can put it once again, a little bit of thought and a little, a little bit of time, maybe like 10 to 15 minutes in designing a great looking thumbnail. It helps so much. And maybe just not every video you make, but maybe once a week, have one of the thumbnails have text on it. Believe it or not, the text on the thumbnail does help. It's been proven time and time again through A, B testing that having a little bit of text that connects to the theme of the video really can help draw people in. So that's practical tip number three for helping grow your channel to push it over a thousand subscribers. And so to all the potential creators out there, to all the current creators who are watching this, let's not be afraid to dream again. Like kids, right? Kids dreamed and they have big dreams and they want to, you know, take on the world and create great things. And I think that's a great lesson for adults. I put myself in that category now. Like I want to let my voice be heard, but I want to make sure that I'm doing it in a way that is smart and connects with a beautiful audience like you guys. All right. And we're building something here on YouTube. Like it takes time. It takes patience. So all those tips that I just shared, keep in mind, it's, it's gonna, you got to lay that foundation first. Those are those fundamental tips that I gave and then zoom out and eventually you're going to build something beautiful. All right. So don't get discouraged. Be patient. You got to keep plugging away. And again, I am here for you that Facebook message that I read at the beginning of this blog, like 10 minutes ago, however long ago it was, I was not kidding. I want to help you guys get to that 1000 subscriber mark. And I'm here for you. So ask your questions down below because I went through, I went through, uh, it was, I think it was about 800. No, it was about 700 days of daily vlogging before this channel passed a thousand. That's in my mind, patience, patience and persistence. All right. So I'm not just telling you this, you know, out of no experience. I've been in your shoes, but I want to help you, you rock. You know the drill. We see beauty here. We work hard and we love each other. Picking up what I'm putting down. Make sure you come back tomorrow.