If there’s one thing that mid-90s alt-rock taught me it’s this: everybody wants to be naked and famous (comment below if you know the band!). In today’s world, many people want to know how to become famous on YouTube because it seems much simpler than the route from your couch to Hollywood – you can get famous right from your couch.

You will have to put a little bit of effort in to be truly famous on YouTube, but this article will give you some waypoints to make your trip from obscurity to fame a bit easier. Read this article on how to become famous on YouTube, and send me an email when you’re a superstar!

Real YouTube stars show you how to become famous!

Build your image

Your channel will need an overall theme that makes people, specific groups of people, to want to visit you and watch your videos. Every successful YouTube channel started out with a simple idea and theme that they built their image and reputation on:

• Smosh has parodies, and they still do now that they’re millionaires.
• Epic Meal Time is an absurd cooking show.
• Pew Die Pie is a video game commenter.
• Philip DeFranco is a news show with sardonic humour.
• =3 is a news show with news specific to the web.

You know you tuned into those channels for their image. They built those images on purpose. I know that they look like complete goof offs for the most part, but there’s some serious thought going into their channels and their image now that they’re famous.

You have to look professional

Ok, the Lonely Island guys are not professional in the same way that a doctor is a professional. But Lonely Island worked hard to have a professional presentation of all their content. It shows in their intro/outro work, their header image, their regular posting schedule, and their consistent content.

Check out the header/profile image on the homepage for their channel:

Their logo on  butcher’s block is perfect for a cooking show, and it looks professionally made.

Watching a video of theirs you’ll see the other way they’re professional. Every video starts the same – the guys standing around talking about what they’re going to cook. Then they cook it and have some fun. It concludes with a stylized image of the food, Harley’s “Next time, we eat a…” tagline, and an outro of other shows to watch and the subscription button. It’s never random, it’s consistent like a TV show.

The second part of looking professional is looking trustworthy. On YouTube, looking trustworthy comes down to your social proof. Social proof is shown on YouTube via your subscription and view counts – more views and subscriptions = more people have trusted you with their time.

How can you possibly be popular to show people you’re popular – especially when you’re starting out? This is when you can look at buying YouTube views, and buying YouTube subscribers. Both will increase your social proof by increasing your numbers for those social metrics. Once you have those going they’ll keep building and building naturally, this is one of the secrets of how to become famous on YouTube that people do not talk about. Take advantage!

Mention, talk about, and work with other YouTube stars

No one ever became famous in a bubble or on an island by themselves. The guys from Lonely Island became really, super famous on YouTube when they started getting great guest stars on their songs. Do you remember the first one? It was Jizz in my Pants with Justin Timberlake and Jamie-Lynn Sigler (you know, Meadow Soprano). After that they had T-Pain guest appear on one of their all-time best videos:, I’m on a Boat.

So you don’t have their phone numbers handy? That’s fine, you’ll just have to build to it. Get your foot in the door by talking about other famous YouTube stars, and inviting them on your show. They may not all want to appear, but you can gain exposure this way as guest appearances have been a long time tool used to become famous on YouTube. YouTube even have a whole page on this topic.

Make sure that the YouTubers that you’re targeting for appearances are relevant to you. Why get someone on your show whose fans will not want to watch you? One of the all-time great Youtube collaborations was between Smosh and Epic Meal Time, NSFW language:

This was way early in both their careers. They later reciprocated with Harley of Epic Meal Time making an appearance on Smosh’s Lunch Time videos.

Get your tags and descriptions right

This is the boring part that can determine a good deal of your success. Your tags should be accurately added to videos so you’re categorized properly. You can only rank so well for a finite number of searches, make sure you’re be found by the right people who are actually searching for you. Don’t tag yourself as a video game channel when you’re a cooking show – you won’t make any friends and you’ll be wasting your time.

Your description of your video is also important. This will relate to the how easily people find you via search, and how readily they click on you when they do find you. Remember that the first sentence of your description appears in the YouTube searches. Here are the top two videos for “Every Air Jordan”:

The first one is famous because it’s by a well known channel. The second one does well thanks to how well they describe their video quickly. Make your description count with a call to action and a brief mention of what the video is about so that you can become famous via the unglamorous nature of search engine optimization!

Don’t forget your social media and cross promotion

No one ever became famous on YouTube without cross promotion on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can even think about SnapChat marketing, or using Vine for short video teasers of your upcoming YouTube content.

Sharing via social media is more than having an account named after your YouTube channel. You need to have a hashtag strategy. Use them to link stories and similar content. You need to get shares, joining forums and being an active member of Twitter chats can help do that. Your business is online, and you need to work on all aspects of your online world to succeed.

The last bit of cross promotion you have to work on is embedding your videos on websites and in blogs. Sending your videos to related websites can be a win-win for both you and the website you send it to. They get a piece of content to keep users on their website longer, bettering their bounce rate, and you get the SEO benefits along with more views.

Your own website should be full of your videos. Not everyone who becomes your fan will even find you on YouTube. They’ll come across you in general web searches, and you need to have one of your videos there waiting for them.

What’s the first thing you see on Jenna Marbles’ website?

Her videos! There’s a tab along the top to take you to more of her video, and you can watch them all right there on her website. If you’re looking to learn how to become famous on YouTube, you can’t go wrong with patterning yourself after Jenna. She’s worked hard across all of the online world to get where she is, despite her being so humble! When you become famous on YouTube, try to keep your head on straight too!

Feature image via conrado / Shutterstock