Thinking back to the days when I'd get excited by just seeing someone comment on my videos, it's funny to think that I've now become the most subscribed metal/rock vocalist on YouTube
and that my videos generate millions of views every month. Seeing as I recieve thousands of comments on a daily basis it's only natural that other musicians, especially metalheads like myself
ask me: "What can I do to get more subscribers?" or "How do I get more youtube views?"
I asked those same questions myself, and I remember googling and researching to try and find that magic answer that would make people watch my videos. Now, is there a magic answer?
Kinda, but it might not be what you had hoped. It involves taking an honest look at yourself and finding out how good you really are.
#1 Focus on getting better, not more famous
It's very easy to talk about all the people who's made it and go "I can do that" or "I'm better than they are" etc, but the truth is: The people who are massive and populare have something that people
wanna watch. For a whole year I made videos that no one paid any attention to, and I thought my videos were great. I was singing high notes, making pop songs into metal, generally entertaining the metal
community. The sad truth was that I needed to get a lot better in order for people to really care, and that's when I decided to take 2 whole years off from everything else, putting it all on the line, pursuing my
new dream of getting a 4 octave vocal range and become better than my vocalist heroes. I've told people about this in interviews many times, and I actually lost a lot of friends, ruined my relationship and got
pretty depressed during these two years, but in the end, after the two years of intense training were over, I had become a totally different singer. When I started up a new YouTube channel after becoming so
much better, my new videos immediately started getting the attention I had been hoping for. Not hundreds of thousands of views, but my videos were getting shared, a great number of viewers subscribed after
watching, and my audience retention was through the roof.
Now, even though everything from my vocal performance to equipment or production quality could still improve a lot (Remember that you can always get better!), I genuinly felt like I I was good enough to
deserve some views and music sales. The best part about having videos out with great content and quality is that the chances are good the bands you are covering will like it and share it, or give you backstage tickets
to their concerts etc. Things like this started happening to me when my videos started getting good. Before I only recieved copyright strikes and warnings but now labels come to me and ask me to cover their bands because
they know how much good it does for the band.
So after a few months and about 20 videos I had gotten my first 10,000 subscribers. This is still a very low number, especially if you're thinking about YouTube as a career, but it's a very good place to be in, because it
means you have an audience. Now you just need to expand and make that audience much much bigger, which takes me to the second advice:
#2 Don't take yourself too seriously
What I mean by this is: Don't scrutinize too much on your videos because you're afraid they're not good enough. Make a video, upload it and move on. You might sit down before uploading and think "I could spend a few more
days to make this and that better", but no. Don't. Make the video as awesome as you can, and get it up on YouTube, then start working on your next video. I've tried both ways and the audience don't really hear the things you
hear as mistakes anyway, and you end up producing less videos.
My last tip for you, and honestly, I think this is the best tip to anyone trying to succeed at anything in life:
#3 Persevere and work harder than everyone else
Rome wasn't built in a day, and your channel won't be either. Since I started my channel 3 years ago I have been working on it as much as humanly possible. I sold washing machines at day, and recorded videos at night for 2 years
and after I started making enough money on YouTube I have been working 10-14 hours every day to expand my channel on my road to 1 million subscribers. Thanks to hard work and perseverance I've been getting my videos out to so
many amazing people that have become fans, and I make a living selling music, touring and making videos on YouTube. I hope this helped you out and that you don't feel the need to go and search for more schemes or tricks on how to get fans.
The journey to success is long, and at times frustrating, but I think you'll find that in the end; the journey was half the fun. I'm gonna end this article with a "Babe Ruth" quote that always motivates me to work harder than everyone else:
