Subscribers Vs. Relationships

         When you start a YouTube channel, one of the first things you think about is, "Whos going to subscribe to my channel?". Almost EVERYTHING you do on your channel is for your subscribers. Every opportunity you get, every free item, every sponsor ect, is because of your subscribers! 
 
So, the question is.... What is YOUR relationship with your subscribers?

I have been on YouTube for 9 months and already I see multiple flaws in the site and the people on it. I've made rants on my channel and discussed it with others but, I dont have the following to actually do something about it. Heres hoping one day that changes! 

At the present moment I am three subscribers away from 1600. I never thought I would EVER reach that number and it baffles me every day. Sometimes I get on YouTube just to check it a couples times a day because I still cant believe it. Every single subscriber I get means so much to me. You hear just about EVERY YouTuber say the exact same sentence. But, do they mean it?

The most common problem with YouTubers is people NOT writing back to subscribers comments. As your channel grows, it becomes increasingly hard to write back to every single comment but, we can all agree this is NOT just with popular YouTubers. This is a common problem even for channels with less subscribers than me and believe when I say, I write back to EVERY comment. If I cant write back bc sometimes there is no reply button, I will personally go on their page and write them a message explaining why I couldn't write back. I have heard almost every excuse in the book why people can't write back to their subscribers and the most common one is they are too busy with other things. If you are too busy to write back to the people that are making your channel possible, GET OFF YOUTUBE! 

In addition, NOT writing back to your subscribers causes you to NOT have a relationship with them at all. Your comments, if you leave them, are impersonal and short. The only people you know by name are fellow YouTubers that watch your channel. For most of us, 80% of our subscriber base are other beauty YouTubers. So, those few that dont have channels and watch you just because they love your channel are few and rare! Which makes having a relationship with them, that much more important. When you obtain even a slight personal relationship with your subscribers, they will stay and truly be loyal to you. You will lose less subscribers monthly and have more interaction on your videos. They are more likely to tell their friends and family about you. Your subscriber count is NOT the true number of people that actually watch your videos and interact with you. We all know this. I have close to 1600 subs but on my best day I get around 300 views on each video and im proud to say that out of the 300 people that watch and interact with me, I know almost all of them by name and where they are from AT LEAST. Its a ongoing task to get to know knew people everyday but I make time to do it! 

This is not just a personal problem for each of our channels. Not having a relationship with your subscribers hurts everyone your involved with. For example, Collaborations. The point of doing collaborations is to get your name out there to the other persons subscribers base. Which, will grow your subscriber count and maybe get you noticed by another person to do a collaboration with. Its the best and most professional way to grow your subscriber count. The problem im seeing with this though, is that people are doing collaborations and subscribers are not even watching the other persons video. Ive done a collaboration with someone with double the subscribers as me and when we did our videos together, she got at least 50 subscribers from me and I got nothing. Not a single person subscribed to me from her channel and i had 100 less views on my video than she did on hers. I've also done a collaboration with someone MANY times who had triple the subscribers than me and NEVER ONCE got even ONE subscriber from her. BUT, the people I collab with ALWAYS get subscriber from me. That is because I have a personal relationship with my subscribers and they trust my word and the people i affiliate myself with. 

NOT having a relationship with your subscribers will eventually be the death of your channel. Most of us will NOT become successful from YouTube and our channels will not blow up. But, we will always have SOME kind of subscriber count and its because of THOSE people that you will keep your channel. Take the time to get to know some of them. Have a couple conversations a day with them. When you collaborate do more than just say ONE sentence about the person your collabing with! Pull your subscribers in to WANT to check out that other person. We need to correct this flaw bc it is just another step in the doom of YouTube.