Strategies to Gain More Subs! YouTube Changed Design to Count it

YouTube has announced that come August 2019, it will stop showing full subscriber counts for channels with 1,000+ subscribers on the platform. What this means is that instead of displaying the actual number of subscribers, it will now be displaying flat or abbreviated subscriber counts anywhere a channel’s total subscriber number is displayed.

So what this will look like is that if a channel has less than 1,000 subs, the exact subscriber count will be displayed for such a channel. But if a channel’s number of subscribers has gone above 1,000, YouTube will abbreviate the channel’s public subscriber count display on a sliding scale."For channels with fewer than 1,000 subscribers, the exact (non-abbreviated) subscriber count will still be shown. Once your channel passes the 1000 subscriber milestone, we will begin to abbreviate your public subscriber numbers on a sliding scale" announced YouTube Team.

The YouTube Team also gives an example of how this will look:

“Here are a few examples:
 

• If a channel has 4,227 subscribers, the public subscriber count will read “4.2k” until the channel reaches 4,300.

• If a channel has 133,017 subscribers, the public subscriber count will read “133K” until the channel reaches 134,000.

• If a channel has 51,389,232, the public subscriber count will read “51M” until the channel reaches 52,000,000.”

Currently, YouTube displays complete actual subscriber count, giving real-time updates to users, publishers, and third-parties.

Talking about third-parties, this change will also affect third-parties who are currently using YouTube’s Application Programming Interface (API) Services. How? Once the update becomes effective, “third parties that use YouTube API Services will also get the same abbreviated public counts,” YouTube said in a tweet. However, YouTubers will still be able to access their exact subscriber counts in the backend of the video-hosting platform. The company says more information about the update will be shared directly with creators before August.

“We know subscriber counts are extremely important for creators and fans alike, so we wanted to give everyone a heads up a few months in advance of this change! We’ll share more specifics with creators as we get closer to the August 2019 date.”
YouTube has not made mention of the reason behind the change. But some industry minds have already stated that this change could be YouTube’s direct response to some recent social frays and fracases that have been occurring between popular YouTubers.The YouTube community has developed an alarming, unhealthy obsession with channels’ subscriber counts to the extent that when two or more YouTube stars are having a feud, other YouTubers will set up live feeds showing gains and loses in subscriber numbers of the fraying channels. Most of these channels rely on the real-time stats by Social Blade and often show the numbers through live streaming.

This type of feeds attracts a lot of worldwide attention and views in their millions. Often, the live display of subscriber counts fuels up the feuds between the creators, creates room for online bullying, mocking behavior, and other abuses. In fact, this behavior has become rampant within the social space so much so that apart from YouTube, other social platforms are also testing out similar changes. For instance, Reddit has given moderators the option to hide comment scores and vote counts. Instagram said that to reduce pressure, it'll soon disable the like counter from photos users post on its platform. There was also a recent social buzz which suggested that Twitter was planning to hide retweet counts. By restricting the display of full subscriber counts to the public, YouTube is likely looking to put an end to this unhealthy obsession on its platform.
 

THE 3 KEYS TO GAINING MORE YOUTUBE SUBSCRIBERS
 

Now, talking about YouTube subscriber counts, if you are concerned about increasing your number of subscribers irrespective of YouTube’s new rule, here are the three key things you need to do to increase your YouTube subscribers and views:

1. FIX THE ‘TECHNICALS’

If your YouTube channel isn't gaining much traction in terms of subs and views, then the real culprits behind your paucity could be some technical issues you have yet to fix.

Here are some technical fixes you should look at for an effective YouTube campaign:

• Using high-quality, compelling thumbnails

• Creating searchable, keyword-rich, persuasive titles

• Writing appropriate description with the right placement of keywords, links, timestamp, and enough information for both users and the YouTube engine

• Adding tags

• Getting your video filename right

• Adding a location (in the case of local content)

Generally, you'll need to answer the question “what technical factors are important for my YouTube videos to reach good positions in the YouTube search results?”Although about 300 hours of videos are being uploaded on YouTube every minute, you can achieve killer rankings for some of the most sought after keywords in your industry if you get the ‘technicals’ right.

2. CREATE “COMMUNITY-APPROVED” CONTENT

Just as with blog posts or text-based content, when it comes to the YouTube community, content is still king.The content you upload must have certain qualities and characteristics to stand a chance of attracting views on the platform.

• Your content must completely resonate with your target audience

• It should be what people are searching for or what they want to see

• It should be informative, educative, and entertaining

• The content should be engaging, but without straining the viewer in terms of trying to get them to read long, running text on the screen

• The picture- and sound quality should be top notch

By creating content that the YouTube community actually wants to see, you'll more likely be able to drive traffic to your videos and gain the attention you've always wanted.

3. PROMOTE LIKE CRAZY

One mistake YouTube creators often make is that after uploading a video, they let it sit there without any promotion but hope that YouTube will pick it up in some sweet by-and-by way and make it popular. What you ought to do is promote both your content and channel. The more you promote, the more engagement your video and channel gets. The more engagement your videos receive from the community, the more YouTube will push your content to the right audience through recommendations and rankings.

How to promote? YouTube promotion could be internal or external.

For the internal efforts:

• Ask people to subscribe and click on the notification bell

• Encourage them to like the video and leave a comment.

The external strategies involve:

• Embedding your videos to your blog posts

• Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.

• Including your videos on your marketing emails as well as mentioning your channel name/link in your email signature

• Using word of mouth

• And so on!

These are the things you can do to run a successful YouTube campaign.

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