Musicians on YouTube: Benefits and Hardships of Using YouTube for Self-Promotion

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YouTube has become one of the first social media platforms to support different artists in their rise, complementing their on-stage performances, open mic nights, and in-person gigs. Thanks to modern technologies, it has never been easier to create your channel and flood it with different video and content formats — live blogs, interviews, behind-the-scenes shorts, and so much more.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean YouTube will help you become popular as a musician in a day or two. While it is a powerful marketing tool for many, its ups and downs have to be considered in more detail to mitigate social media promotion risks and achieve music-related career goals successfully. Let’s check how you can obtain a great standing on YouTube with the ever-increasing fanbase, global network, valuable promo strategie and online visibility. Mind the gap!

YouTube Marketing in a Nutshell

Let’s roll straight into the reasons why YouTube is so good for musicians of any level:

Heavy traffic — with over one billion hours of video content consumed daily, this platform is a lucrative opportunity to establish its artistic personas and reach other markets remotely. Although YouTube channel promotion takes time and effort, the results might be truly spectacular. What’s more, it is available in over seventy languages and has a built-in translation and subtitle feature to streamline the connection.
Greater visibility on Google — if you work with YouTube, you increase the chance your content will be posted on third-party websites too. Furthermore, it is a mobile-friendly marketing tool, which is also a huge advantage for being highly indexed and promoted by search engines in SERPs.
Multiple video formats — from going live to shorts, YouTube won’t disappoint influencers in terms of content variety. Compared to images, text, or audio alone, this way of self-expression stands out with its appeal to end users. You can monitor each format’s efficiency with built-in analytics tools and decide what solution leads to higher viewer engagement and conversions.
Cost-effective — although some of your custom marketing strategies may not be free, the overall palette of services provided by YouTube is easily accessible for any enthusiasts, regardless of their budget and skills in the field. It is a great opportunity to experiment with marketing strategies and test a range of targeting options wth high engagement rates.

On the other hand, on top of being a time- and resource-consuming process, YouTube marketing requires an in-depth understanding of how its royalties work. For instance, you won’t get any of them without ads and with less than 4,000 hours of watch time.

Strategies to Promote Your Content on YouTube

You can level up your expertise in marketing on the platform if you stick to some simple recommendations below:

First and foremost, ensure your account’s credibility by getting it verified. When creating your profile, don’t leave any blank fields and provide additional data like links to social media accounts. With a blue tick, your channel on YouTube will seem like a space where interested parties can find relevant information — a little psychological trick.
Don’t hesitate to use YouTube ads. Despite people like skipping ads, your task is to work on their exciting nature and informativeness. Otherwise, you won’t get the result you want.
For beginners, collaborating with more renowned influencers on YouTube is a great way to say “I’m here!” — it can be mutually beneficial for both partners. YouTube is a wonderful environment to establish relationships with other experts in the music industry.
Of course, uploading an MP4 file with your song and a personal photo as a cover won’t be enough to make YouTube’s algorithms work in your favor. Begin with introducing attention-grabbing thumbnail images. Don’t forget about compelling metadata to hook potential visitors but always give people what you promise between the lines.

How Frequently Should Artists Post on YouTube?

There is no universal answer to this question. Some influencers publish content twice a week, while others do so every two weeks. The best recommendation is to avoid a random posting strategy when you create content for end users whenever you feel like it. To get satisfactory results in the long run, plan what stories and when you will release them on your YouTube channel. This way, you will keep your audience engaged and aware of what is going on in your professional life.

Try to work on future posts ahead of time — three to four next videos have to either be ready or planned thoroughly. Even if you won’t post every day, make sure your content is appealing enough to hook your audience. It would be essential to diversify your video formats with unique storytelling genres and advanced technologies like AI, VR, DS, and others.

What Are Good YouTube KPIs Musicians Should Track?

For independent artists, the style of music they work in, the kind of content they generate, and what markets they want to join will be the aspects to define what parameters to monitor to ensure their YouTube channel’s steady growth and promotional efficiency.

If you consider a few marketing channels, compare them by the indicators below to see what source brings more power:

returning vs. new visitors;
organic traffic source and related parameters;
retention and attrition rates;
average time of conversion;
cost per conversion.

In the YouTube realm, the following KPIs will also be a must-have to tune your promotional strategy as a musician in 2024:

Watch time & average view duration — keep an eye on this metric to see how much time end users spend checking your content. That’s how you can determine whether your fans stay with you till the end of your videos or drop them or you should better modify your strategy.
User subscription removed and added — to increase the number of followers and mitigate this “abundance” rate, you have to play with your content strategies. Thanks to modern AI technologies, for instance, you can easily create covers or unique versions of your songs. While you won’t spend an eternity generating new video ideas and formats, it will be a tactic tailored to modern trends as well.
Impression click-through rate — with this parameter, you will see how attention-grabbing the metadata you use for your videos is. Keyword research and other SEO tools will come in handy to navigate it and make your content more likable and worth it in the eyes of search engines and potential followers at the same time.

There are dozens of KPIs to choose from. Your task is to ensure that your tool stack sets realistic expectations for your channel’s growth and guarantee your progress is relevant, measurable, and time-bound.

Final Thoughts: Is YouTube Great for Musicians to Self-Promote?

Tuning your marketing strategy and establishing your brand identity as an independent artist will be the challenge you will definitely face and need to solve. As practice shows, YouTube is one of the best social media channels to transform your career and get your name known out there, regardless of how crowded the target field is.

Whether you are an aspiring rock star or songwriter in different music genres, you will have to personalize your strategy and put in maximum effort. Good luck!

Bernard - Side-Line Staff Chief editor

Bernard Van Isacker is the Chief Editor of Side-Line Magazine. With a career spanning more than two decades, Van Isacker has established himself as a respected figure in the darkwave scene.

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