With more than two billion active worldwide users, YouTube can be considered the largest social media platform on the planet. While not conventional in terms of its offerings in relations to other social media outlets, YouTube has always focused on a simple premise that other platforms are increasingly embracing: the dissemination of video-based content.

From small businesses and brands to major influencers, there are target audiences for virtually every niche in existence on YouTube. Despite the creation of content, however, there is no guarantee that creators will automatically generate the followings they feel they deserve. If your audience is lacking in one or more ways, then keep reading to learn how you can grow your YouTube following.

Embrace Trending Topics

While cultivating an audience based on longstanding interest in one or more particular topics should be the goal of any content creator, users can also embrace trending topics as a way to generate more interest. By folding current trends into the existing topics and angles of your channel, YouTube creators can more effectively reach both their existing audiences and new viewers as well. Given algorithms love to promote topics already trending, being first to the punch with this strategy can deliver ample visibility for short periods of time.

Create Playlists

Whenever YouTube is pinging users with recommended videos, most are single videos that may or may not be related to the previous one (especially if Autoplay feature is on). As such, keeping people connected with like-minded videos that play one after another can result in longer view times and more engagement from audiences. Playlists can be an excellent way to do this. Whether creating playlists that only use your videos or creating those that incorporate existing relevant videos that are also popular, this can be an excellent way to ensure more exposure for your channel and its videos.

Embrace a Reliable Schedule

What is the benefit to the average YouTube user from subscribing to a channel? The most obvious benefit is access to new content whenever it is published. However, channels that randomly or rarely add new videos can’t generally use this selling point as a convincing argument for why people should subscribe. Likewise, YouTube loves to see channels that update regularly. Because of this, it is recommended that channels pick a reliable schedule for uploading new videos – whether it is daily, weekly or monthly.

Generate Links Back to Your Videos

Earning plenty of attention from YouTube’s algorithms can be great for growing your channel and subscriber base, but pinging users on other platforms should also be a top goal. Earning links for your videos on blogs, websites and social media can help further drive traffic to your channel and all of its videos, making it possible to earn more subscribers, generate more revenue and grow your brand. Remember: the more inbound links or embed to your videos, the more views (and engagement) you’re likely to get.

No silver bullet for quick success on YouTube exists, but brands and channels can speed up the process by generating valuable backlinks, using consistent publishing schedules, utilizing playlists and focusing on trending topics as a few ways to grow their audiences.