How do you blow up on YouTube?

There is no set way to blow up on YouTube, but there are best practices that can help grow your YouTube channel in a short period of time.

It is reported that there are currently over 51 million YouTube channels on the platform. This means that there are over 500 hours of videos uploaded every minute, and this continues to grow with each passing day.

In light of this, blowing up and creating a name for yourself in this oversaturated market can be difficult. Short of uploading a viral video, there is no science behind blowing up on YouTube.

However, there are best practices that can inform your growth and maintain your audience when you have “blown up”.

Problematising YouTube success through going viral

The easiest way to blow up on YouTube is to post a viral video. A viral video can earn hundreds of thousands of views. However, the problem with blowing up through a viral video is that it does not guarantee long-term success.

For instance, if the YouTuber is not consistent, although the video or series of videos will yield numbers, their subscribers will not grow, meaning that when the reason for their virality ends, their popularity will too.

How do you blow up on YouTube?

There are a few basic factors to consider which contribute to blowing up on YouTube, whether through virality or hard work. These include patience, consistency, and audience awareness.

Factors that contribute to blowing up on YouTube

Patience

    • While for many, it is the dream to upload a video and wake up the next day and it has gone viral and your subscribers have increased exponentially, in most cases that is not the case.
    • Most YouTube channels take months or years to “blow up” on YouTube and when they do, they have videos and playlists for their newfound success and for subscribers to watch.

Consistency

    • Being consistent with your uploads ensures that by the time subscribers find your channel, there is an established pattern in your releases that new subscribers can be aware of and feel secure in their expectations of more content.

Audience awareness

    • It is important to continually engage with your growing audience. Whether it is in the comments section by liking and commenting on their comments or asking your subscribers what content they want to see from your channel.
    • All this helps retain subscribers and invite more viewers and subscribers as it will seem that you care about building a community with your subscribers, which, in turn, results in loyal subscribers.

But there are more practical ways to boost your subscribers, in the hopes that in the long run it will result in your channel blowing up.

This includes being aware of the thumbnails used, the video quality, and a sharp awareness of the text and trends in YouTube videos.

How do thumbnails affect my blowing up on YouTube?

Thumbnails on YouTube are one of the most important aspects for YouTubers who want to grow their subscribers or views exponentially to consider.

Therefore, it is important to create a thumbnail which will attract clicks to your videos. The first tip is to use your face in the thumbnail.

Videos that have the content creator’s face on the thumbnail generally have a better chance of getting clicks, especially if the face is animated, funny, smiling, or calm.

Avoid sad facial expressions. Moreover, since YouTube’s colours are red, black, and white, you should consider using blue, orange, yellow, and green backgrounds to make the thumbnail stand out rather than blend into the background.

How does my video quality affect my blowing up on YouTube?

As your subscribers grow with you, it is important for them to feel like they are watching you grow in the YouTube space.

Therefore, little things like changing the location and background of your videos sporadically, improving your editing style, changing the camera used to shoot, and sharing how you are growing in the space encourages more subscribers to join your community, watch, and share your videos with more people.

Can I follow trends to blow up on YouTube?

Following YouTube trends, in terms of content creation, is another way to grow your channel exponentially in a short period of time.

However, it is important that you are intentional about how you title your videos. How you title a video can optimise the video by adding key SEO words, meaning that when someone is searching for a video, yours can pop-up.

TubeBuddy is the trusted site that helps to navigate this as it shares trends and keywords that you can add in your title.

Moreover, a simple hack is keeping the title of your video less than 50 characters and adding brackets () to add a more detailed but concise description like “GRWM (Six-step easy makeup)”.