“Should I buy some YouTube subscribers?” is a common question for people working to build a YouTube audience. As more people are starting their own YouTube channels, there are more videos going up every day—and more competition for views. So if you can buy 1,000 YouTube subscribers, will it help you get more views?
The answer is complicated. As part of an integrated marketing strategy, if you buy YouTube subscribers, you could expand more rapidly if you purchase them carefully. However, if you buy too many subs in a short period of time, you could end up causing yourself more problems than you solve.
There are pros and cons to buying YouTube subscribers, so here are some things to consider:
Pros:
- Buying cheap YouTube subs can help you quickly gain subscribers. The bandwagon phenomenon, or “social proof,” is a real thing—people are more likely to press the ‘Subscribe’ button if they see that you already have thousands of other subscribers.
- One of the YouTube search algorithm metrics is view velocity or the number of subscribers who view your video shortly after it goes live. The more subs you have, and the more engaged they are, the higher your view velocity will be.
- Viewers are also more likely to see your popular videos suggested to them.
- YouTube grows every day, and with every new video added, your chances of being seen go down. Buying subscribers can help you improve your metrics so more people will find your videos.
- Due to the clutter on YouTube, in some cases buying subs may be the best way to help get your video channel off the ground. If you’ve been following other practices for improving organic growth, like producing high-quality content on a regular basis and still seeing few or no results, you may benefit if you buy YouTube subscribers.
Cons:
- YouTube doesn’t like paid subscribers and may punish channels if they believe some subs are paid. In some cases, if you get too many new viewers too fast, they may even ban your account, leaving you to start over after paying to build the account.
- In August 2019, YouTube started rounding subscriber counts instead of giving exact numbers, which irritated some popular YouTubers who liked to track their own popularity in comparison to others by the specific numbers.
- The subscriber count is only a part of YouTube’s search algorithm metrics. Engagement and views are also important, so you may want to consider buying those as well.
- Purchasing subscribers will work best if you consistently produce high-quality videos on a regular basis, as this encourages new subscribers to watch and engage with your quality content. If you think purchasing subs is the only thing you need to do to grow your new channel fast and rack up cheap views, you may not have as much success as someone who also works on growing their channel organically.
How Do I Make the Most of Paid YouTube Subscribers?
If you’ve decided that buying YouTube subs is right for your brand in social media, here are some ideas to protect your channel and improve your return on investment:
Choose the company you purchase from carefully
Ideally, you want real subscribers who will view at least one of your videos, not fake accounts. You also want to choose a company with good customer service in case you run into any issues.
Timing is everything
YouTube’s algorithms also look for channels with a sudden jump in subs, as this might appear suspicious and alert them that the channel owner may have bought subs. Avoid buying too large a number of subscribers at one time. It is better to buy a few hundred subs each week for several months than to buy 20,000 at once, possibly tipping off YouTube. It’s recommended that you don’t buy more than 1,000 subs at a time.
Produce quality entertainment
Paid subscribers aren’t necessarily obligated to watch more than one video when they subscribe. However, your videos will pop up in their feed, especially right after they’ve subscribed. This gives you a chance to interest them in your content, so they will later give you views and likes for free. It also allows you to organically grow unpaid subscribers at the same time, as view velocity kicks in and your videos improve in search rankings.
Make sure to use good keywords and tags
Even if your search ranking has gone up, you still need to use the right and relevant keywords to help new viewers find your videos. Research popular keywords relevant to the subject of each video, and use these in the title and metadata for your video. You can use main keyword research tools designed specifically for YouTube, like Hypersuggest, Kparser, and Wordtracker. For tags research, you can install browser plugins like TubeBuddy and TagsForYouTube.
Produce content that will keep people watching
YouTube’s algorithms aren’t just interested in the number of subscribers or even the number of views. They hate clickbait titles that get people to view the video for all of ten seconds, then click away when they realize it’s not what they expected or just not something they want to watch. Research and understand your target market, and make quality videos they will keep watching for more than five seconds. Avoid shocking, attention-getting titles if the video isn’t really going to deliver when the viewer arrives.
Make use of newsletter subscribers and social media followers
If you have a newsletter with a significant number of subs, email them your latest video. You can also improve organic growth by posting on other social media channels and reminding your main target audience there to subscribe. Adding organic subs at the same time as paid ones make your overall growth appear more natural to YouTube.
Consider holding giveaways
This is another tactic to improve organic growth, in this case by holding a giveaway only for subscribers. Be sure to read and follow YouTube’s rules for giveaways. Your YouTube giveaway video should also be shared on almost every social media.
Make sure your views and engagement measure up to your subscriber count
This is an important way to help YouTube’s algorithms view your growth as organic instead of paid. Aside from noticing unusually fast growth, the site’s algorithms also calculate if your engagement matches your audience size. For example, if you have 50,000 subscribers, some of whom are paid, and only an average of 500 views per video, this might look suspicious to YouTube.
Interesting related article: “What is Social Media Marketing?“