How To Use YouTube To Take Your Music Career To The Next Level
YouTube has been a HUGE promotion tool for millions of artists and if you’re not taking advantage of it, you’re definitely missing out.
YouTube is the 3rd biggest website it in the world (behind Google and Facebook) and it has become arguably the #1 way to listen to, discover and share music.
The idea of consumers “owning” music is fading and being replaced by streaming services like Spotify, Pandora and especially YouTube.
Convenience and cost are huge part of that shift, but “shareability” is also a huge factor. When we used to consume music solely through terrestrial radio, TV and physical media like CDs, it was really hard to share that music. Now with the click of a button, you can share it with literally millions of people. What does this mean for you as an artist? Get on YouTube!
Some tips:
1. Don’t wait till you have a high budget music video to post something up. Of course you want everything you put out to be the highest quality you can, but not at the expense of not posting. You can use tools like TunesToTube to add a picture to an MP3 and post it up without knowing anything about editing video. You can record clips on your phone of you working in the studio, performing or just hanging out. Sometimes having something unpolished is better anyways because it’s more authentic.
2. Post your YouTube videos on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook and on forums. Part of what makes YouTube so convenient is people can stream those videos directly from the sites their already on instead of having to go to YouTube.com
3. Be persistent. With so much content to compete with, it may take some time before your videos catch on. Keep at it.
4. Consistently put out new material. Your audience will be hooked once they get to know you and your music. Don’t leave them hanging, or else they’ll go somewhere else for entertainment. Sticking to a weekly schedule is a great idea
5. Respond to comments. At a certain point it won’t be realistic to respond to everything, but people want to feel like your relationship with them goes both ways and there’s some interaction back and forth
But… don’t worry about the haters. YouTube comments are notoriously filled with hilariously horrible and hateful comments. Try to have a sense of humor about it.
6. Use annotations and cards. Those are those boxes with text you see pop up on videos. You can use them to encourage people to subscribe to your channel, go to your website and check out other videos.
