What You Need to Know to Grow YouTube Subscribers?

As a YouTube creator, you might be familiar with the term ‘subscribers’. YouTube subscribers are users who have subscribed to your channel. Every time you upload a new video, your subscribers will see it in their feed. In concept, the more subscribers you have on your channel, the more people should see your videos but that isn’t always the case. There are various challenges that you as a creator may face in regards to YouTube subscribers that affect the performance of your YouTube channel. Let’s discuss these factors in detail.


Usability Improvements and Algorithm Changes

Seasoned creators might be aware of the following point about YouTube’s algorithm but for the new creators who might be worried about their subscribers not growing, this might be helpful. Now, a user’s feed displays a combination of videos from their channel subscriptions and YouTube’s own recommendations based on the user’s watch history. This is done with the intent to optimize the user’s feed for more views and maintaining relevance. Further, YouTube gives priority to those subscribed channels with which the user interacts more.

If you see that your subscriber count has reached a plateau and the number of views are stagnant, it might be that your subscribers are not engaging with your content. In order to rectify that, here are a few ideas:

  • Experiment with your content: if you have been a YouTuber for a while, you may be doing similar type of content which may have caused your subscribers to look to other channels for something new. Try something new and diversify the type of content you create.
  • Create content around trending topics: Doing this consistently may give you an advantage because your content may appear in browser searches. This will bring back your subscribers along with many new subscribers.
  • Collaborate with other YouTubers or social media influencers: No one succeeds alone. When you feature celebrities on your channel, you have access to their fans which may bring new subscribers. Conversely, when you feature on other influencer’s profiles, it gives you access to their audience as well.
  • Get back to the basics: Look at how often you publish videos. YouTube has cut-throat competition on its platform and you need to be visible to your subscribers or they might find another channel. Also, ensure that users are leaving comments on your videos and watching other videos when they finish one by including links.

Private Subscribers and Real-Time Updates

You will often find a discrepancy in your YouTube subscriber count shown on your channel and in your Analytics. This is primarily because the count is not updated in real-time. YouTube Analytics takes up to 48 hours to update the Analytics dashboard to ensure accurate reporting.

Further, YouTube Analytics only shows you data for subscribers that have made their subscriptions public. The subscriptions list of new YouTube users is set to private by default. Users have the option to make the list public. The omission of data from private subscribers increases the inaccuracies to the Analytics reports.


Regular Sweeps and Purges by YouTube

Like any other social media platform, YouTube is also plagued with the issue of fake subscribers and bot accounts. There are many companies offering bot subscribers for a price. The incentive to buy subscribers is that creators require at least 1000 subscribers to monetize the channel. These bot accounts don’t add value to your channel and offer no engagement whatsoever.

Not all fake subscribers are bot accounts. There are people who created accounts long ago but haven’t been active in a long time. Further, there are accounts that have violated YouTube channel policies and need to be suspended. Such subscribers similar to bots add no value to your channel. YouTube regularly conducts a sweep of their platform and purges these bot accounts and inactive accounts.

In such a scenario, your subscriber count will fall dramatically but your views and watch time remains unaffected. The good news is that the subscribers you are left with after the sweep and genuine subscribers.

It is clear that subscriber count is not an accurate measure of your performance as a creator and it is not a fair assessment of the influence your channel has. The number of views and watch time on your channel are the true measure of your success as a YouTuber. Now that you know how the number of YouTube subscribers actually affect the performance of your channel and where the inaccuracies are, you can use these insights to create engaging content on your YouTube channel.