7 YouTube Tips for Musicians
Over one billion people visit YouTube every month. That’s a lot of potential fans just waiting to find your music!
YouTube is the best place to discover new music on the internet. That alone is a great reason to have a YouTube channel for your band or solo act. However, be aware that the competition for attention can be intense! Not only are you competing with other singers and musicians, but you are competing with everything else that YouTube has to offer.
Follow these tried and true tips on how to be found on YouTube and supercharge your music career:
Make Your Videos Shareable
Music videos and lyrical videos are a central part of your music channel. Your existing fans are probably already looking for your music on YouTube, so it’s a good idea to have videos for them to find, and make them shareable so that they can share with all of their friends!
Also, link to your purchase page on iTunes or your website to encourage sales.
Here is my YouTube channel so you can get an idea of what I am talking about: Katrina Kusa
Set Your Channel Type to “Musician”
When you log into your YouTube account, click “settings” and select “musician” as your channel type. By doing so you can add performer information and publish a schedule of your show dates by enabling the “event dates” module.
You also will be able to add your own “buy” buttons to your channel when you select “musician” as your channel type.
Be Consistent
Share new content and songs consistently to help create a solid fan base. For musicians and singers, a good rule to follow is to upload one music video every six weeks.
Your thumbnail should be your artist’s logo, and any supplemental artwork should fit the overall vibe of your musical project.
Add Tags To Your Channel and Videos
If you want to be discovered, tags are important. Tags are the keywords that help people find your video on YouTube. Think about what your fans would type into YouTube to find you, and use them as tags.
Tags could include:
Venue names
Your band or solo acts name ( correctly spelled and misspelled)
Song names
Genre
Any relevant keywords related to the song
Using tags will give you a better chance of being found when someone types in a search for your band or song.
Be Mindful of Video Titles
When titling a video, include your band name, song name, venue, location, and maybe even a few keywords about the song.
For instance, instead of titling your song what you saved it to your computer as, try something like this:
Add a Variety of Content
Be aware: uploading one video per week takes a lot of effort, so if it takes away from your music, it might be too much for you to tackle initially.
Respond to Every Comment
Responding to comments helps your fans feel appreciated and also inspires other visitors to your videos to comment too. Try asking a question or pointing something out about your song to get the conversation going.
Bonus Tip: Promote, Promote, Promote
Don’t wait until upload day to let your fans know about your new video. Start promoting and share the news with your fans a few weeks ahead of time. Doing so will set you up with fans ready to hit “share” as soon as the song releases.
Don’t forget to remind them! Post about your new release multiple times leading up to the release date in case any of your fans missed the announcement!
Keep At It!
Whether you are just starting out as a musician on YouTube or already have a solid fanbase, I hope the above tips help you achieve your goals with your band or solo act!
Make sure to stay social with me to see what’s new with me. From being a teen author to singer-songwriter, I have a pretty interesting life if I do say so myself.