How to Get a Shout-out on YouTube

A lot of new vloggers and YouTubers reach out to me for a shoutout. They know the fact that I randomly give shoutouts to other Pakistani vloggers. I have obviously given two shoutouts back in 2016. Here is the first one and this is the second one.

Honestly, I don’t have a huge audience yet. I’ll be touching the 1000 subscribers milestone in a couple of months. So most of the Pakistani vloggers who ask me for a shoutout are ones who have just started vlogging on YouTube. First of all, I want to congratulate them on starting off their vlogging journey. Let me tell you one thing, guys, it’s a long journey and the road is bumpy. We should stick together, support each other, and keep moving.

So, the purpose of this blog post is to help guide all of you and share my opinion on how this shout-out thing works. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand all this. You must know that giving shoutouts to other YouTubers is important for me and you’ll understand this at some point in your vlogging career. I started giving shoutouts when you were probably not my subscriber or you haven’t even started vlogging on YouTube. So one thing should be clear that I believe in the shoutouts and I will keep giving it along the way.

In this blog post, you’ll understand what you need to do to get those shoutouts, not just from my side but also from other vloggers as well.

Please be advised: everything you read in this blog post is basically my opinion. It could be wrong. If you don’t agree, simply ignore this blog post.

So without any further due, let’s get into it.

Here is my step-by-step guide on getting a shoutout:

#1 – Choose the Favorite YouTubers

You must have your favorite YouTubers. Because if you’re randomly asking for a shoutout, then it’s not going to work. Every step in this process is connected. This is the basic step. You don’t have to like someone because you want a shoutout, instead, you have to expect the shoutouts from the YouTubers you like. This will make sense once you finish up reading this blog post. So, at this point, you must know which YouTubers you like. Please don’t take this wrong, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have 90 subscribers and you tweet Casey Neistat (for a shoutout) who has 6.5 million subscribers just because you like him as a YouTuber. Always be friends with creators of more or less the same size of the audience.

#2) – Follow them on Social Media

You have to follow them everywhere. Most of the times, you’ll find out that YouTubers use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. So go follow them on all three platforms. Get their notifications on so that you could check out their updates sooner than others. This gets tricky when someone you admire but they use different social media platforms and then you think that you don’t use those social media platforms, so it’s over. Well, clearly it’s not over. Get over your ego and join the social media platforms. It might be a just one extra, in most cases. For instance, if your favorite YouTuber is on SoundCloud, in addition to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, then go join SoundCloud. Maybe, the SoundCloud is his or her favorite platform to hang out other than YouTuber and a lot of people aren’t following him or her on SoundCloud. (In the next step, it gets more interesting)

#3) – Get Engaged Strategically

Everybody can leave comments like good work, nice vlog, awesome, good job. You know, comments like these never make a difference. They rather look spammy because the YouTuber thinks you just want to put your name underneath his/her video and that’s all. You’ll see a lot of YouTubers don’t even reply to such comments. So, please don’t leave 2-word comments. It doesn’t help at all. Instead, try to watch the video carefully, listen to the message, and create your opinion. Don’t rush to just publish your comment the moment you finish up watching the video. Take a few seconds to look at the previously posted comments. If you’re the first one, that’s even better but if you’re not then you should be happy too. Because you could see the comments at a glance. Once you know what people are talking about, go write the best three-line comment that brings positivity to the community.

Not only just appreciate the creator but also try to help out others who might come later and read your comment. If you can reply to a couple of people in the comments, do it to help them out. YouTubers love when people respond to their commenters and help them out just for the sake of humility. Do it. The YouTuber would start noticing you if you keep on doing it on a consistent basis.

#4) – Focus on Creating Content as Well

A lot of YouTubers and vloggers ignore this part. They take their content creation for granted while hoping for the shoutouts from others. You won’t get a shoutout if you don’t create stuff. In fact, if you do first three steps well and don’t create content that actually matters, you would waste all of your efforts, anyway. Suppose, you’ve nailed the initial three steps and your favorite YouTuber started noticing you, while looking at the potential YouTubers for the shoutout, the YouTuber starts looking at the most engaging YouTubers on his or her channel, and finally stops by at your channel and finds out that you’ve made 13 videos in your 2-year YouTube career and the last uploaded video is 3 months old. Game over, right away.

A YouTuber never gives a shoutout to the dead YouTube channels. Because someone is referring your channel to his or her audience, meaning, putting you out there in front of their audience is a big deal. You have to be good enough for that. So create content consistently if you want a shoutout. This comes down to do the love of creation. You must love video making, otherwise, one way or the other, you’ll end up quitting it.

#5) – Share and Mention

This is one of the most important parts. Trust me, every step has its importance. Personally, for me, these steps are a bullet-proof strategy for winning the YouTubers attention and getting the shoutouts. So regularly share their videos or vlogs on maximum social media platforms you can. You want to get noticed positively, so nothing is better than delivering value in order to win their attention. You’re doing this because you genuinely admire them in the first place… (Remember step 01)

And more importantly, you must know how to do it. For instance, if you’re tweeting their video, make sure you to add their  Twitter handle to it so that they notice you every time you share. In fact, try to mention your favorite YouTubers on Instagram comments and Facebook discussions. Don’t do it just for the attention. Instead, help out others via their examples. For instance, I could mention Gary Vaynerchuk (by adding @Gary handle) in my Facebook status if I’m talking about him so that he could notice that I’m talking about him. Again, don’t do it for the publicity or quick-attention, just do it for delivering the value to the audience. That will help a lot.

Conclusion

Let’s wrap this up.

I’ve given a couple of shoutouts on my Urdu vlog channel on YouTube. I’m planning on giving more. The process will keep on going.

The purpose of this blog post was to deliver you the message of compassion and humility. I certainly want to tell you that if I’m giving a shoutout to Pakistani vloggers in the next few days, I’m not doing them a favor. In fact, it’s my duty to hold their hands and lift them up, instead of just thinking about my success.

In fact, my YouTuber subscribers have done the same thing for me. They’re supporting me. I need to support them as well as other creators. And hopefully, a lot of those new creators will end up doing the same thing in next two years. So this chain of support will keep on going. This is the beauty of being a vlogger or a YouTuber. We always support each other.

Lewis Howes interviewed others for three years on his podcast and promoted their work and never asked for a favor in return. After three years, he wrote a book and people started promoting his book. He told this story in a podcast interview.

So the punch line is that you must understand the game. This way, you might end up getting a lot more shoutouts on YouTube.

What did you learn about shoutouts in this blog post?

Comment down below and let me know!