YouTube is adding QR codes to all channels after months of testing

It seems to be getting harder and harder to encourage new people to subscribe to YouTube channels, a trend sweeping across various social media apps right now. Hitting a follow or subscribe button has so many barriers now that metrics like Views are becoming more in favor in analytics tools.

This could be one reason behind YouTube's recent decision to roll out QR codes to all channels after testing them with a smaller pool of creators over the past few months.

This is similar to a new tool Instagram recently began testing with select accounts, where scanning a QR code specific to your account has the potential to not only lead people to your channel page, but encourages them to subscribe as well.

Unlike platforms such as Instagram, YouTube content creators have actual incentives for increasing their channel subscriber numbers. Channels only qualify for certain monetization thresholds and other benefits when they hit a certain number of subscribers. This information can be found on the "Earn" tab in YouTube Studio.

QR codes can be used both physically and digitally. Placed anywhere (even on one's phone screen) they are able to be scanned and linked to a specific destination. In terms of QR codes on the YouTube platform specifically, a QR code takes potential subscribers to a page that makes it easy to subscribe to a channel with minimal effort.

And that's the key when trying to grow something like a YouTube channel. It has to be as seamless and simple as possible or people won't do it. The more steps someone has to complete in order to become subscribed, the less likely they are to actually do it.

The main idea behind a QR code is that subscribing -- even while not on YouTube -- may become even easier for potential audience members.