How to Grow Your YouTube Channel [New Data]

Did you know that YouTube currently has 2 billion active users a month and is projected to grow to almost 3 billion active users by 2025?

It’s one of the fastest-growing and most popular social networks today. Plus, it helps people grow their businesses.

In fact, the number of channels earning six figures per year on YouTube grew more than 40% y/y, the number of channels earning five figures per year on YouTube grew more than 50% y/y, and the number of channels with more than one million subscribers grew by more than 65% y/y.

Now, all that being said, you might be wondering, “How do I grow my YouTube channel so I can drive more traffic to my website and revenue to my business?”

To help marketers and business owners answer this question, we asked 300 consumers why they most commonly subscribe to YouTube channels.

After looking into the data, we’ll dive into our findings to help you better design effective strategies toward connecting with your audience on YouTube.

Let’s get started.

Why Do Consumers Subscribe to YouTube Channels

30% of respondents said they most commonly subscribe to YouTube channels because the channel publishes how-tos or educational content about their career or industry.

21% of respondents subscribe to channels because the channel publishes how-tos or educational content about their hobbies.

And 17% of respondents said they subscribe to YouTube channels because they post funny or entertaining videos.

To review the rest of the answers, see the graphic below:

Data Source

So, now that we know why people are subscribing to YouTube channels, let’s dive into how you can use this information to grow your channel.

1. Create educational content about your audience’s career.

As the survey said, the main reason that consumers subscribe to YouTube channels is that they post educational content about their careers.

Think about it. The reason people go online is to find an answer to a question they want (or to be entertained, but we’ll get to that later).

So, a great way to grow your channel is to publish the topics that your audience wants to see. For example, at HubSpot, we publish educational videos on YouTube about marketing, sales, service, and general business content.

All these videos help our audience learn and develop in their careers. Of course, we’d like people to use our software to do that, but you’ll get value out of the video whether you’re a HubSpot customer or not.

2. Publish educational content about your audience’s hobbies.

Now, let’s say that your business isn’t exactly geared toward your audience’s career. What do you post then?

Well, according to the survey, you can post content about your audience’s hobbies. Let’s say that you’re a landscaping company. On your website, you could post content about gardening and really target people who garden as a hobby. Then, there’s a clear conversion path to using your services.

However, while you’d like people to convert and become customers, your videos should give value away for free and educate your audience. The more they see you as an expert in the industry and the go-to people, the more likely they will be to convert later on.

3. Create interesting, dynamic, interactive videos.

The third most popular reason that people subscribed to YouTube channels was because the videos were entertaining or funny.

If you’re a creator who wants to post fun, interesting, entertaining videos, you can grow your YouTube channel by thinking about an audience who enjoys watching certain entertainment.

For example, let’s say you have a creator channel and you mostly post lifestyle videos. To make those interesting and entertaining, you need to know what your audience likes and dislikes. That brings me to the next strategy.

4. Know your audience.

The best way to grow your YouTube channel is to know what your audience likes and wants to see. Do they want to see educational content about their career? Or perhaps they’re just looking to unwind and watch people clean houses because it’s satisfying and entertaining.

Regardless, think about the reasons from our survey that will resonate with your audience the most, and then lean into those ideas.

5. Reformat well-performing content.

A great way to focus on growing your YouTube channel is to reformat content that has already performed well for you. That might mean turning your most popular blog post into a video.

You’ll need to rework the information and film a video about that topic, but you’re already starting out ahead. You know that your audience likes that content and wants to see it.

Think about your best-performing content from any content marketing channel and reformat it to video.

6. Optimize your content.

Now, of course, we can’t get through a content marketing discussion without talking about SEO. But, how do you optimize your YouTube videos?

To do this, you’ll want to include your target keywords in your titles and descriptions. Then, make sure you mention those keywords in your video.

The YouTube algorithm will use those context clues to understand what your video is about. And then if you get engagement, it will rank higher in the search results.

You might be wondering, “How do I grow my YouTube channel fast? And how long will it take to grow my YouTube channel?”

According to data, it takes an average of 22 months for a channel to reach 1,000 subscribers. Yet, if you don’t optimize your videos and have less than 1,000 subscribers, then you’ll get less than 10% of the total views on YouTube. That’s why it’s so important to grow your channel and subscriber list.

7. Find untapped keywords.

Another strategy you might use to grow your YouTube channel quickly is to find untapped keywords. You can look at related searches of a topic on YouTube or Google, and then look at those related searches in a keyword tool.

Which keywords get a lot of searches, but have low competition? Those are the keywords you’ll want to target.

8. Optimize for watch time.

Just like with any search engine, YouTube wants people on YouTube. So one of the main factors the site considers for ranking is watch time.

Whenever you post videos, it’s important to analyze how long people are watching your videos. According to research from Backlinko, longer videos tend to outrank short videos. And it makes sense. The longer your videos, the longer your watch time can be.

But, how can you make sure people get past the first few seconds of your video? A great way to do this is to cut extraneous content from your intro. In the first few seconds, a viewer should know what they’ll learn and what they’ll get out of watching your video.

If you’ve properly targeted your audience with the right content, that means they’ll end up watching your long videos because you’ve captured their attention.

Growing your audience on YouTube is a great way to attract audiences to your company. And having more than 1,000 subscribers is imperative for ranking higher in search results. So, that means you need to post content that your audience wants to see and is optimized so it shows up in the search results.