Youtube is an Incredible Platform to Reach New Fans, Build your Audience and Yes, make a little Money while your doing it.
There are tonnes of ways to make content that you can use to engage your fans with; music videos, Q & A’s, how to’s, live videos, performance routines, gear reviews, vlogs… the list goes on and on
But for those looking to get into it to and take advantage of Youtube’s massive 1.5-2 billion users per month, you might be a little stuck and don’t know where to begin or what to do right, or worse, what not to do. So Antidote Audio & The Community have complied a list of what and what not to dos with Marketing you Music on Youtube.
✅ Do – Feel free to approach bigger channels (ie music Promo Channels, or Vloggers) via their business email (found in there about section on their channel) and pitch your music there. But do it tastefully. There’s a very obvious ‘line in the sand’ between a follow up email and just strait spam (which will probably ruin your chances with that channel)
✅ Do – Try to collaborate with other Youtubers. Remember, you double your reach collaborating with a same sized youtube channels. By sharing audiences this benefits both you and the collaborator.
✅ Do – Try for more Remixes. Where as Soundcloud will remove tracks and potentially strike your channel if you upload an unofficial remix, Youtube on the other hand will most likely just monetise your video on that labels behalf. You won’t get them Youtube $$$ but at least your video will still stay standing for you to build your audience from the attention your remix gets you. However, if you do a cover of a popular song, some songs are eligible for revenue streaming. Search for the songs policies here
✅ Do – Add some type of visual element to your video rather than a still image. If the viewer has something to look at as well as something to listen to, they will instantly become more engaged (hence why youtube promo channels have that dancing ball in the middle of the screen made in After Effects). If you don’t have access to video editing/visualisation software, consider approaching a Visualiser Promoter and asking for a collaboration?
✅ Do – Research about Youtube SEO and how you can make the most out of your Youtube channel. This means, custom thumbnails, branding, good descriptions and tags that work. Need an example of branding across thumbnails? Click here 😉
✅ Do – Even More Research. Get to know your competition and see what they do. Look into your youtube analytics when you’ve got a few subs and a few videos under your belt and get to know them. The Analytics Section provides an insane amount of value that a lot of people tend to skip. Look at who’s watching your videos and their demographic and cater towards what they would potentially want to watch. It’s all about perspective.
✅ Do – Use the app “Socialblade” to compare stats and figures of everyone else’s channels and see what tags they use.
✅ Do – Make it as easy as possible for your viewer to check out your music (without coming across as spammy) on stores like Spotify/iTunes etc. I recommend putting a “fanlink to” (you can make them on toneden for free.) This generates a link that you can copy and paste into your descriptions for example, so whenever the fan clicks the link it will present them to the direct links for your song on digital stores like Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and iTunes. That is of course if you have uploaded them to the digital stores…
✅ Do – Think about making your songs ‘royalty free’ (there’s no process behind it, just say in the description that it’s royalty free/copyright free for only Youtubers) There is a massive demand for royalty free/copyright free music thats why channels like NCS took off so quickly. By making your tracks royalty free, you give permission to other Youtubers to use your songs in the background and still monetise their videos without you claiming the track and collection their ad revenue. In return ask them to credit you in the description with links back to your content. WARNING – If your music is through a label or self released through digital distribution, check to see if your tracks that you uploaded there are collecting youtube revenue through ads, this means your tracks are NOT Royalty Free. You’ll get a few pissed off Youtuber’s who YOU have given the all clear to use your track and find that their video is being claimed by YOU…
❌ Don’t – Spam a link to your track in the comments section in peoples videos, especially bigger artists tracks. It’ll go strait to the spam and if by any chance it does get through, it looks tacky and unprofessional.
❌ Don’t – Not all Youtuber’s look & respond to their emails. Don’t be put of if they don’t reply, feel free to do 1 follow up in a week but after that, it’s time to move on 🙁 It takes a degree of self awareness to know if your music meets that quality of that channel, remember to keep at the craft and don’t give up to easily, people just have different tastes in music.
❌ Don’t – Use Youtube Download Gates. Youtube is way more switched on than Soundcloud with download gates in auditing followers/subscribers. I’ve found if you try to influence your subscriber count through 3rd party websites (like hypeddit) youtube will remove those subscribers after a day or two. The 1k Sub mark is hard to crack, once you’re over that the numbers start pouring in more easily.
❌ Don’t – Assume that all your subscribers will watch your latest video because it goes strait to their sub box. If you want to see consistent stats, that means you have to upload regularly to increase your chances of getting discovered by more people. Just look at any massive Youtuber. Chances are, their latest videos with have, 10% – 30% views of their overall subscriber count.
❌ Don’t – Let dislikes phase you. Some people have nothing better to do and think it’s funny dropping a dislike on videos. the average like to dislike ratio on YouTube is 9:1, if yours starts creeping lower than that, then you may have to ask yourself, ‘is something off putting in this video?…”
❌ Don’t – Use clickbait titles. Chances are if you’re uploading music, it’s hard to click bait that, but with other videos, stay away from ‘the bait.’ It’s all fine and dandy having a captivating title but theres a fine line that can be overstepped, you might get more views but youtube looks more at viewer retention for ranking your videos than views. If viewers click off your video after a few seconds and realised you over promised with the title, it’s not doing your channel any favours…
❌ Don’t – Try pitch your remixes and official bootlegs to Music Promo Channels (only originals.) These channels survive off the revenue they make from running ads on their videos, (remember what I said above about uploaded copyrighted content?) If they can’t monetise your song on one of their videos, chances are they wont be keen to upload your remixes or any future songs…
Conclusion & Final Notes
I feel like Youtube now deals in a lot of 10%. For example, ON AVERAGE, I’m not saying this is the case all the time. But, around 10% of your subscribers will view your video within the first week and around 10% who check out your video will dislike it overtime. For every 1000 views, you will make around $1 (I know thats not 10%), if your getting over that, your doing something right and your fans are either watching the full length of your videos, or they have adblocker turned off.
All in all, Youtube is a great platform that has a lot of life in it and one of the few platforms that has the means for you to make money that people can access for free. Yes, for many Youtube has become a full time job, which if you think about it is just crazy! Imagine making videos about your life or something you’re passionate about and getting paid to do it? What a lifestyle! Remember, get creative and get consistent with them videos!
Shout out to, Will, Sam, John, Raaghav & Guy for their top tips to add to this article 🙂