How to Grow on YouTube when you have 0 Subscribers | Ep. 36

How do you grow your YouTube channel when you have 0 subscribers? It's a simple question but let's not overcomplicate the answer. Here's an easy "no-strategy" YouTube strategy that will grow your audience on YouTube so you can generate consistent revenue in your business!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] This is quite a predicament, right? Because how do you grow your channel when you have zero subscribers when the algorithm is so like intertwined with viewer behavior? If you don't have viewers, how do you use the algorithm to grow your channel? And I could throw a dozen, you know, YouTube growth strategies and tactics at you, but there's an easy, uh, I like to think of it as the no strategy strategy that you can use to grow your channel from zero subscribers or from like just a few, So let's talk about it here on episode number 36 of video brand infusion. 

My name is Meredith, and I'm here to help you infuse the best video marketing strategies into your business so that you can YouTube ify your business and generate consistent revenue. 

And one of the mistakes that I am seeing people make with YouTube, especially for people who come to me as a client, or they just joined Video Brand Academy because they want to finally get their channel together for the new year, [00:01:00] is that they have been putting something on YouTube. With the assumption that something is better than nothing, you know, there's a lot of talk right now about video podcasts and YouTube podcasts and I'm seeing some people take like their audio podcast and throw that on YouTube as a static image with audio and It's all kind of under this Um, umbrella of, Oh, everyone's talking about how YouTube is so powerful.

Something on YouTube is better than nothing on YouTube. Like if it's that powerful, then it's all going to work out And I completely understand the overwhelm of thinking, Oh, if I'm going to post on YouTube, I have to have a strategy. And so that's why I put together this no strategy strategy for YouTube. So it doesn't really require a whole. A lot of extra time and effort on your part is as long as you [00:02:00] stick to the no strategy strategy.

I think you'll get it

And while yes, it's technically true that something is better than nothing. I would actually argue on YouTube that there's actually nothing wrong with having A blank YouTube channel. It's like in pure potential mode versus having a smattering of videos. Is that the word? A smattering of videos uploaded willy nilly 

That aren't really cohesive with their thumbnails and don't appear to be like part of a bigger like content sphere that you have created, a bigger content library that you have created. I mean, that just looks like an abandoned channel 

and from a strategy standpoint If you upload willy nilly now without a strategy thinking later down the road. I will figure it out You [00:03:00] risk getting kind of stuck in this rut where? You're building momentum in the wrong direction for a period of time. And when you do sit down and decide I'm ready for my strategy, um, you're going to have to do some work to get going in the right direction.

the simplest no brainer, non YouTube from nothing is to create A spider web with long form videos on specific topics, long form videos on specific topics. This might be the hill that I ended up dying on. Long form videos. are still the bread and butter of YouTube on this 3rd of January 2025.

Watch time is still like the most important or the most impactful metric when it comes to your content on YouTube. [00:04:00] Watch time, not views, not subscribers, not click through rate. All those things are really important. We like to measure those and get all nerdy with our graphs and all of that stuff. But YouTube wants to watch time because that's how YouTube survives is by people hanging out on YouTube.

you want to be a content creator, focus on shorts, upload one short a day or multiple times a day, every day of your life.

If you want to be a business owner who leverages video content to grow your business. Focus on long form content. Build a spiderweb of long form content on very specific topics.

That's the no strategy strategy. And it's easy. So what am I talking about with long form content? Usually I like to say like eight to 10 plus minutes. Um, I think five minutes used to be a good long form length. I have some clients who. are, have been [00:05:00] creating like four or five, six minute videos because they're having trouble finding what else to talk about in that video.

And they're not performing as well as the longer content. So eight to 10 minutes at a minimum, I would say, and up to 20 minutes, 30 minutes, create a two hour long video, um, if you want. Watch time is watch time.

So that's what I mean when I talk about long form videos, eight minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, that kind of thing. 

Now, what do I mean by videos on specific topics? This might sound like duh, of course. What I mean by this is that you create videos on topics that your ideal audience is searching for, is wondering about, is keeping them up at night, not necessarily Your list of topics that you would [00:06:00] like to talk about, you have to create videos on topics that your ideal audience or your existing audience is.

Uh, is going to see and connect with and go, Oh yeah, I want, I want to hear what she has to say about that.

answer one question at a time, solve one problem at a time, specifically what your ideal viewer and customer are searching for. Now I, I'm a big fan of SEO. SEO still works on YouTube and. There is a tendency with focusing on search engine optimization to gravitate towards creating videos on, like, only the topics that are getting the most search volume.

You know, if you use vidIQ or TubeBuddy, for example, those tools will give you some search volume and estimates. Of search volume. and in like only pick out the ones that have like the high [00:07:00] search volume or something. And like, that is a good place to start.

It's not like the wrong or bad way to do it. But when you're building out a spider web. You want to answer everything. You want to answer every possible question. You want to touch on every possible topic that you can. Because one, yes, you'll get that SEO juice. Two, because the tools are really only Giving you an estimation of the search volume.

So if you see something and it looks like, Oh, there's only a thousand people a month searching for this. What if it's 10, 000? What if it's a million? And it's just not giving you the most accurate data.

But number three, you want to get you, your channel, your face. In the algorithm of your ideal viewer. So if somebody finds one of your videos through search, you want the rest of your videos to show up on their homepage the next time they open YouTube or, you know, show [00:08:00] up as a suggested video. The next time that they're in the app, you want the algorithm to do that heavy lifting for you.

And when you have. A spider web of answering every question that your customers have, not that you think that they should be asking. Cause that's can be two different things.

All of your content is kind of like intermingled with each other and it makes it really easy for the algorithm to continue recommending your content to new people who are just finding you for the first time, and then connect your content with people who have never heard of you before, but are interested in the topics.

And that's how you get onto the homepages of people who weren't searching for you and aren't subscribed to you. So building that spider web is a really easy and simple, no strategy strategy to make that happen.

Now there's a caveat here. There's two [00:09:00] caveats here. One, obviously you have to know your audience meaning, and I don't mean like your subscribers or the people who are watching your videos. I mean, you have to know the audience that you want to attract. You have to know who your ideal client is, who your ideal viewer is, who your ideal customers are in order for this simple strategy to play out in your favor, because those are the people that you're going to attract to your.

Channel, right? So that's why I include the niche clarity worksheets in a spiderweb planner in the YouTube roadmap planner inside of video brand Academy.

but the other caveat to this is that the topics you create that you build your spider web with are topics around. Your niche not topics about your niche and the best example I can give to this is a client I had years ago [00:10:00] whose niche was postpartum Weight loss and she specifically had some, uh, like specialized training for postpartum weight loss after a C section.

Very specific, but she was creating videos. Every single video was postpartum weight loss. Postpartum weight loss after c section postpartum weight loss postpartum weight loss after c section. I was like, you have to create some other content around your niche, not just creating content about your niche.

Your niche is postpartum weight loss. What else is your ideal client or your ideal customer or viewer searching for or struggling with? Uh, or, you know, what mistakes are they making? What problems are they running into? Create content around the niche, not just repeating the same video over and over again [00:11:00] about your niche.

if you follow this, no strategy strategy, long form videos on specific topics built out like a spider web, that is effectively building a binge worthy YouTube channel. There's other. Things to look at and focus on, like having custom thumbnails and having a good hook and a title and making them click worthy and all of that stuff.

And I have lessons and tactics and things like that inside of video brand Academy. but if you're like, no, I want to stick to the no strategy strategy. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty details instead of posting willy nilly on your channel, just build out your spiderweb.

Long form videos, specific topics.

If you want to follow the YouTube Roadmap Planner to kind of work through this step by step, I'll put a link down below to where you can find that.

that way you can start growing your audience with ease and generating consistent revenue by YouTubifying your business.