YouTube is still one of the most popular content platforms. It’s also a great place to share your music. It doesn’t matter if a musician is new to YouTube or has been playing for years; it can be overwhelming to start a YouTube channel. We created this article to help musicians make the most of YouTube’s huge opportunity and platform.
You can customize the channel.
Your profile picture should be easily identifiable and accurately reflect your musician. You can also create a channel banner that is visually appealing or contains more information about the channel. The channel description should include:
- The uniqueness of the artist.
- Information about them.
- Links to all social media/streaming sites (TikTok or Instagram).
It’s very easy to do, but it helps channel visitors to learn more about the artist and see more of them on social media.
A channel trailer or featured video can be included on the channel’s homepage. This can give viewers a better idea about the channel and increase their likelihood of subscribing. The next step is to upload videos.
Video content
Great ideas are covers of popular songs, favorite songs or songs by current artists. These are also great ideas:
- Behind-the-scenes music production
- How to use (a particular software)
- How to play a song
- Reactions to music videos
- Tutorials
- How to make a specific sound
- Challenge videos: Create a song in one hour, write music in a new genre, or use comments to make a song.
Videos are fun, keep things fresh and make it easy for musicians. They also show the musician’s personality, which helps attract and retain viewers.
Video optimization
Uploading videos to YouTube can be optimized in the same way as articles and web pages. Here are some things you should pay attention to:
- Video descriptions
- Titles
- Keyword tags
- End screens
- Thumbnails
Keywords and phrases are dependent on the content being optimized. For example, a song cover video should include the song names, original artists’ names, and then the musician’s name.
YouTube will not allow you to spam your video descriptions with keywords. YouTube marks them down in search engine ranking. YouTube’s algorithm will detect if someone uploads a title or description that isn’t relevant. Descriptions should contain as many keywords and phrases as possible within the first two lines. This is because this is what people see when scrolling. Below that, you can add custom information about the musician. You can also include hashtags at the bottom.
Use end screens and thumbnails
Do not use auto-generated thumbnails. Instead, create a custom thumbnail (Canva is a great tool to do this). You can either pose for thumbnails before you upload a video or take a still from it. It can be made more interesting, informative, and eye-catching by editing. This will result in more clicks.
End screens can also be a great way of keeping people interested in the channel. After watching a video, you can link to another (similar) video. You can also subscribe to the channel.
Interact with the audience
The musician cares about viewers and makes them feel connected by liking every comment and responding where appropriate. This relationship builds viewership and keeps subscribers happy.
YouTube’s community tab allows creators to post photos and messages and take polls. This means that interaction doesn’t have to be limited by video.
Be consistent
Nobody likes someone they don’t trust! Musicians need to post content regularly and adhere to an upload schedule. This is a great way to show your content to more people. YouTube’s algorithm also loves creators who upload frequently and will promote them even more.
Collaborate and network
Finally, musicians should be friends with YouTube. It is a social platform. Support for other community members is shown by subscribing, commenting, liking, and liking their content. You might even get some reciprocity. Collabs could also be possible, which can help bring other channels’ viewers to the artists.