Tools and Apps to grow your YouTube Channel

Acritical part of success on YouTube demands that creators produce engaging, high-

quality content that viewers will enjoy. Also, having the correct video/audio equipment and 

editing software is essential to producing fantastic videos.

YouTube offers a basic video editor, but there are many free and paid alternatives 

including:

• Filmora Video Editor

• HitFilm Express

• AVS Video Editor

• Adobe Premiere

• Pinnacle Studio

• Final Cut Pro (Mac only)

• Sony Vegas Pro

Whatever video editing software you choose, that’s only half the battle.

You’ll need to consider how you’re going to succeed in channel development by 

understanding branding, SEO, analytics, marketing, etc. Here’s a list of popular YouTube 

tools, services, and resources to help you in these areas.

All-in-One Platforms

VidIQ

Tools and Apps to grow your YouTube 

Channel

A critical part of success on YouTube demands that creators produce engaging, high-

quality content that viewers will enjoy. Also, having the correct video/audio equipment and 

editing software is essential to producing fantastic videos.

YouTube offers a basic video editor, but there are many free and paid alternatives 

including:

• Filmora Video Editor

• HitFilm Express

• AVS Video Editor

• Adobe Premiere

• Pinnacle Studio

• Final Cut Pro (Mac only)

• Sony Vegas Pro

Whatever video editing software you choose, that’s only half the battle.

You’ll need to consider how you’re going to succeed in channel development by 

understanding branding, SEO, analytics, marketing, etc. Here’s a list of popular YouTube 

tools, services, and resources to help you in these areas.

All-in-One Platforms

VidIQ

VidIQ is the first YouTube audience development and management suite that helps 

individuals, brands, networks, and agencies grow their views and subscribers through 

collaborative tools that empower teams at every step of their workflow. Their end-to-end 

solution includes analytics and reporting, YouTube SEO, influencer identification, comment 

management, and competitive intelligence tools. VidIQ’s professional services include 

brand strategy and channel optimization.

VidIQ’s Vision Chrome extension which enables you to:

• See video and homepage keywords/tags used by others

• Review search term metrics such as views and keyword scores

• See a snapshot of YouTube, Facebook, and engagement rate (ER) metrics for the top 

search results

• Track character counts for my titles, descriptions, and tags

• Easily manage, copy, and paste tags from one video to the next

• Hootsuite

Hootsuite is one of the premium tools to run an online business, and they’re the most 

widely used social media management tool. Users can schedule and post updates to pages 

and profiles for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, WordPress, and other sites from 

their dashboard. They offer 160+ free and paid apps through their app directory including 

YouTube, VK, Tumblr, and other well-established software applications.

With Hootsuite, you can do the following concerning YouTube:

• Upload, edit, schedule, and share YouTube videos across all your social networks

• Manage multiple YouTube accounts without the risk of sharing passwords

• Monitor YouTube activity alongside your teammates

• Schedule and share your YouTube videos

• Measure subscriber growth, analyze engagement levels, and pinpoint traffic sources

Hootsuite offers multiple plans including free, pro, and enterprise. They offer a free 30-day 

trial.

• TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy’s browser extension adds a layer of incredible functionality right on top of 

YouTube’s website. They offer features that cover several categories including productivity, 

workflow, SEO, promotion, and analytics. Some of the many things you can do with 

TubeBuddy are:

• Bulk updates to your videos such as adding annotations and cards with just a few 

clicks

• Conduct SEO audits of your videos to find the best opportunities and tags

• Find/replace on your videos just as if you were using a word processor

• Generate professional custom thumbnails using screenshots and branding/text 

layers

• Engage your audience quicker and more efficiently

• Export your list of subscribers and their social profiles

• Get details and analysis of competitor channels

• Promote your new upload across all other videos

YouTube Tutorials, Insights, Tips, and Tricks

YouTube Creator Hub and Academy

The Creator Hub is a destination for resources to help you make great videos, find your 

audience, and grow your channel. The Creator Academy has a vast catalog of tutorials to 

challenge and inspire your creativity. The lessons will give you the inside scoop on how to 

shoot and edit amazing videos, and make sure your viewers see them too. Also, they have a 

YouTube channel featuring tips and tricks. This is an excellent place to get well versed 

regarding all things YouTube channel development.

Tubefilter

Tubefilter, Inc., the leading digital entertainment media company covering the online video 

industry, is the definitive source for industry news, program reviews, and industry events 

and online entertainment market intelligence services.

SEO, Keywords, and Tags

YouTube isn’t just about reviews and unboxing videos; it’s the second largest search engine 

on the web behind Google. Like Google, appearing on the first page of search results is 

critical to attracting clicks and views. To achieve this requires sufficient knowledge of 

YouTube search engine optimization (SEO) factors to improve your video rank.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a tool that helps to build new Search Network campaigns or 

expand existing campaigns. It will help you to get keywords and ad group ideas, historical 

statistics, keywords trend, etc. See this post for Keyword Planner alternatives.

SEMRush

SEMRush offers a keyword tool that is driven by its huge dataset of search data from 26 

different countries. SEMRush results return keyword ideas, estimated search volume, 

estimated CPC, keyword difficulty score, and current ranking domains for a keyword.

Keywordtool.io

This tool scrapes and suggests keyword ideas from Google, YouTube, Bing, and even 

Amazon. You can choose suggested keywords from every Google TLD, language, and 

location and there are similar options for the other engines they support. For free, you get 

hundreds of suggested keywords, but you need a paid plan to access search volume 

estimations.

• YouTube’s Autocomplete Feature

As you type into YouTube’s search engine, you see suggestions. These results indicate 

demand for these topics, for example, “how to increase sales.”

Channel Data and Analytics

Do you want to understand how your channel is doing through data and analysis? If yes, 

there are several routes to take.

YouTube Analytics

Nestled within your Creator Studio side panel, you can monitor the performance of your 

channel and videos with up-to-date metrics and reports in YouTube Analytics. There’s a ton 

of data available in different reports, like the watch time, traffic sources, and demographics. 

To learn more about YouTube Analytics, check out these articles published by WordPress 

plugin and SEO experts Yoast (Yoast Watch Time and Engagement Reports).

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for 

search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing. The service is available to anyone with a 

Google account. It lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, 

and social networking sites and applications.

You can integrate your channel with Google Analytics to get a better understanding of visits 

to your actual channel page. This may be helpful if you use multiple Google products and 

want to share data across your linked accounts.

BirdSong Analytics

BirdSong Analytics is a leading pay as you go social media analytics tool. It’s used by social 

media practitioners, journalists, publishers, and researchers in 120 countries around the 

world. With every report, they provide in-depth analysis of audience and activity, with the 

option to export data for offline analysis. Their mission is to give the world social media 

data that is simple to use, reasonably priced, and without monthly fees. You can use them 

to access:

• Over 30 key metrics presented in user-friendly tables and charts

• Details of any public or private videos and channels posted on YouTube

Social Blade

Social Blade is one of the longest running YouTube statistics tracking websites that allow 

you to see your channels growth with ease. They also offer Instagram and Twitch statistics 

too, enabling you to track your reach across multiple social media platforms 

simultaneously. Here’s what they offer:

• Track your YouTube progress with subscriber & views statistics

• Compare YouTube metrics of up to three creators simultaneously

• Discover what multi-channel network or management agency a creator belongs to

• Find out when you might hit a milestone, for example, subscriber count

• Estimate how much money various YouTubers are earning

• Watch your subscriber and view counts update in real-time

• Tutorials for beginners and experienced YouTubers

• Consulting to build your channel

Live Subscriber Count

This is a free tool that displays your channel’s subscriber count in real time. It’s basically a 

giant ticker that updates every second. If you are running promotions or live streams, it 

provides instant gratification for your growth efforts. You can adjust the color of the Live 

Subscriber Count to match your channel and add sound. Also, some creators make it visible 

to live viewers to encourage channel subscriptions. Surprisingly, YouTube doesn’t offer 

something similar.

Monetization and Funding

Google AdSense

Google AdSense is a program run by Google that allows publishers to serve automatic text, 

image, video, or interactive media advertisements, that are targeted at viewers. These ads 

are administered, sorted, and maintained by Google. Publishers can generate revenue on 

either a per-click or per-impression basis.

YouTube earnings are added to your AdSense payments page before the 15th of each 

month and included in your payment if your total earnings exceed the payment threshold. 

However, estimated earnings will not be updated to include your YouTube earnings.

YouTube Fan Funding (YouTube has canceled this feature)

You can use fan funding to let your viewers make voluntary payments to support your 

channel. When you turn on fan funding, your viewers see a button on your channel that lets 

them donate money.

YouTube Super Chat (New Feature)

Super Chat is a new way for fans and creators to interact during live streams. Fans can 

purchase Super Chats to highlight their messages within the live chat stream. Super Chats 

stand out from other messages in two ways:

• Your Super Chat is highlighted with a color.

• Your Super Chat stays pinned in the ticker for a set period of time.

The color of your Super Chat, the period of time it stays pinned in the ticker, and the 

maximum message length are determined by the amount of your purchase.

Patreon

Patreon is a way to get paid for creating the things you already create (videos, songs, 

whatevs, etc.). Fans pledge a few bucks per month or per item released and the money goes 

to the creator. It doesn’t matter where creators create, for example, YouTube, Vimeo, 

SoundCloud, blog, etc.

Pixlr

Pixlr Editor is an amazing photo editor for all your editing needs. You gain full control over 

your images, including layers and effects. Their web apps are powerful and let you apply 

quick fixes, crop, rotate, and add style to make any photo beautiful.

Canva

With Canva, you can design presentations, social media graphics, and more with thousands 

of beautiful layouts. Also, you can enrich your chosen snapshot with text and design 

elements, or create a clean-cut thumbnail design for a synchronized playlist or channel. 

With their tools and easy-to-navigate interface, you can easily customize your YouTube 

thumbnails.

Fiverr

Fiverr is the world’s largest marketplace for digital services starting at just five dollars. You 

can visit their YouTube related services here.

Chrome Extensions

VidIQ, Hootsuite, Tubebuddy, and Socialblade are available in the Chrome Web Store. These 

extensions are excellent and much better than one-off tools like Tags for YouTube.

Facebook Apps

If you have a Facebook page, there are countless YouTube “Apps for Pages” which enable 

you to add a tab to feature your videos.

Smartphone Apps

Channel development and management apps are few and hard to find in both Google Play 

and Apple stores. What you’ll mostly find are video creation and editing apps such as 

Flipagram, VivaVideo, and numerous others for mobile video production needs. Your best 

bet for channel management is YouTube’s Creator Studio app which makes it fast and easy 

to manage your channel on the go. Features include:

• Monitor channel and video performance with easy-to-use analytics

• Filter and respond to comments

• Get notifications when something important happens

 • Update video details and monetization settings

• Manage playlists

Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation

Use Grammarly to check your YouTube titles and descriptions for errors automatically. It’s 

another one of my premium tools one can’t live without regarding blogging and vlogging 

activities.