How to Promote Music on Youtube in 2024?
Music promotion on YouTube is not something new. This practice has been used for years and every time people find new strategies and techniques to make it more effective. More than 2 million users come to YouTube to listen to music. Numerous artists use this platform to showcase their songs and albums to increase engagement and get more followers. People with similar interests will be excited to see your content in recommendations. Moreover, they will probably follow you if they find your content engaging.
In 2024 YouTube became a platform where human creativity was boosted by AI-powered tools. The platform was optimized to support musicians and content creators, primarily focusing on improving engagement. For example, artificial intelligence boosts YouTube shorts by recognizing top creators as the most engaging accounts. This means more people see them in their recommendation lists, leading to higher engagement.
YouTube TV and Music Premium were impacted the most as these areas faced significant audience growth. Could someone imagine that YouTube shorts will reach 70 million views daily? The platform transforms into a video-centric multimedia digital ecosystem that does everything to improve their experience. It slowly turns into a platform for social media cross-promotion.
Key insights from the YouTube updates for creators in 2024. Source: https://eightify.app/summary/youtube-and-video-creation/youtube-s-exciting-updates-for-creators-in-2024
Still, you won’t be able to showcase your music to a wider audience without a proper promotion. YouTube is a competitive platform where thousands of musicians want to draw attention and push their content to the top of the chart. You won’t surpass them unless you know how to promote music on YouTube. Luckily, we are the ones who’ll help you with content promotion. Keep reading because we are going to discover the essentials of music content promotion on YouTube and give you expert tips to build an effective campaign.
YouTube for Artists - Effective Promotion Tool
YouTube has a tool that allows creators to improve their campaigns. It’s called YouTube for Artists and it allows you to promote your content, find a target audience, and discover insights. If you are only starting on YouTube, it’s OK. On the platform, you will find detailed information about how to prepare and start your official artist channel, set an avatar, manage your profile, monitor your performance, and use other features to show great performance.
With YouTube for Artists, you also get access to multiple charts, being able to see top songs in different sections.
Another bonus for creators is the ability to use various resources, including guidebooks, strategies, and other useful materials. For example, you can learn about multi-format release strategy, including guidelines for using different types of content (regular videos, shorts, and live streams), developing audience engagement, and analyzing case studies.
How to get your music noticed on YouTube - Start With Your Profile
The first thing to do before launching music video promotion on YouTube is actually setting up your profile. First impressions are extremely important, so ensure your account looks great. Create a brief and engaging bio to show users who you are and what’s your genre. Include as much information as possible but don’t overload the profile description.
Do not skip the “About” section because it’s important for the YouTube algorithm as well because it scans the description to define what’s your channel about. That’s why you should write your “about” part using the keywords related to your genre and personality, so more people will be able to find you.
Other essential elements are a profile image and a banner. Visuals should represent you or your band and be related to your genre. Later, when your audience will grow and your presence will be more powerful, people will recognize your profile through visuals.
Disturbed has a photo of themselves as a main image and their branded-design banner that immediately draws attention.
High-Quality Content Is Your Main Goal
If you create content for YouTube, quality should always be in the first place. Whether you have a video clip for your music or not, the quality of the video content should be your priority. A high level of music quality is also required. Whether you launch a live stream, ensure you are prepared well: check the lightning, test the microphone and the camera, and get started.
Focus on creating videos with high-quality special effects, transitions, and other additional effects that match your music content once you decide to create your own video clips. To get people to watch the video until the end, you have to keep their interest until the very end. If you don’t feel confident about creating such content yourself, hire a professional editor to ensure you’ll have the needed level of quality.
Boost Your Promotion With Annotations and Cards
Annotations are clickable links that could be added to the video. When the specific timing in the video comes, the annotation shows up, recommending users to click on the link and check another video. You can put a link to your social media accounts or music platforms like Spotify. To add annotations to your video, go to the “Edit” page and select the tab “Annotations”. After that, pick the annotation you want to add and insert the link.
This video explains the difference between annotations and cards. You will understand what’s best for your music videos and learn how to implement features.
YouTube cards are similar to the annotations but could be used for cross-platform promotion. For example, you can use such cards on Spotify or SoundCloud. To add cards to YouTube music videos, access the “Cards” section and choose the needed type of card. Create a description and add the needed information to the card. After that, select the timing for your card to appear and implement changes.
Add Thumbnails to Your Videos to Draw Attention
Engaging thumbnails are game changers for content creators because these elements help them to draw attention and force users to watch the video. You stir interest by revealing something from the video so people will get excited about the topic and click on the video to watch it. Once you add text to your thumbnail, use fonts that are comfortable to read. Select a background that matches your style and reflects the mood of the song.
You don’t need special skills to create thumbnails for YouTube videos. Use tools like Canva to unleash your creativity and come up with an eye-catching preview. If you will collaborate with other musicians and create songs together, consider changing the concept of your thumbnails to previews that draw the audience’s attention and make them stay with you.
Optimize Your YouTube SEO
Search engine optimization is a key for organic traffic and increasing the follower count. Once your titles and descriptions are optimized and meet basic criteria, it will be a positive signal for the YouTube algorithm. The main idea is to make your music videos easy to find. Users enter the first words of the song name or lyrics, and they see your track in the top positions. Search engine optimization consists of several major components
If the song name has nothing special in the context of SEO, the description should be worked out better. You have to make it catchy and engaging, so it reveals the tone of the song and some of the details. Users will find it easy to find your track in case you have a well-optimized description with keywords and YouTube hashtags for music.
Component |
Description |
Keywords |
Specific words or phrases used to improve search visibility. Include in the video title, description, and tags. |
Video Title |
The main text viewers see before clicking on a video. Should be compelling and include main keywords. |
Video Description |
Provides context on what the video is about. Use keywords naturally and include links to social media and websites. |
Tags |
Help YouTube understand the content and context of your video. Use relevant keywords and phrases. |
Thumbnail |
The first impression of your video. High-quality, engaging thumbnails can increase click-through rates. |
Video Quality |
High-definition (HD) videos are preferred by viewers and can influence ranking. |
Engagement |
Likes, comments, and shares can improve a video's visibility. Encourage viewers to engage with your content. |
Watch Time |
The total amount of time viewers spend watching your videos. Longer watch times can lead to higher rankings. |
Channel Authority |
Channels with higher subscriber counts and consistent uploads are often considered more authoritative by YouTube. |
Closed Captions & Subtitles |
Improve accessibility and can also be crawled by YouTube for SEO, potentially improving visibility. |
Video File Name |
Including keywords in your video file name can help with rankings, as it gives YouTube another relevancy signal. |
Playlists |
Grouping videos into playlists can increase watch time by encouraging binge-watching of related content. |
Audience Retention |
The percentage of your video that people watch. Higher retention rates can lead to better visibility in search results. |
User Interaction |
Calls to action in your videos can increase engagement, influencing your video's SEO positively. |
This table contains core components of YouTube SEO that should be optimized
What’s also important is to add links to your social media accounts. Followers who’d like to follow you on different platforms will find your real profiles, which also builds trustworthiness. The musician needs to build credibility with the audience because the more people know, the more they trust.
Create Playlists to Unify the Tracks
When listeners find your music and enjoy what they listen to, they will be willing to hear more of your tracks. However, it may not be comfortable to search for another song through interviews, vlogs, previews, backstage episodes, and other videos. That’s why unifying songs into playlists is a wise decision. By organizing your content into categories, you make it easier to find the needed song.
You can create a playlist for each album sort your music based on the mood, or divide the content depending on the type of the video (Live music performances on YouTube, music video, or video with lyrics). Later, it becomes more useful for music promotion on YouTube. When you do cross-platform promotion, mention that the upcoming song will be placed in the specific album or related to the specific topic.
Watch the video below to discover more about the creation of playlists for YouTube music. You`ll also find out how to optimize these playlists for better engagement.
Take Advantage of Cross-Platform Promotion
One of the biggest benefits of YouTube is its compatibility with other platforms. You can share content without limits and make your YouTube music promotion more effective. Posting links to your songs on Facebook or Twitter will automatically generate a thumbnail, so people will understand what your video is about. Such visual representation doesn’t require any effort and makes your content more recognizable.
If you have a personal website, it’s also a place for promotion. Add links to your videos to the blog posts with a short description, telling what the song is about. Also, create a link tree and keep links to all your pages in one place. The German rock band Rammstein shares their link tree on every social media, so people can easily access every page and find what they need. They synchronize all the updates and announcements of the upcoming concerts/stadium tours so no one will miss the next event.
Link tree of Rammstein rock band
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Collaborate with others
A phrase that YouTube is a competitive platform doesn’t mean you have to avoid connections with other artists. This is a platform with dozens of opportunities where you can take advantage of cooperation and boost your promotion capabilities. Create challenges and quests where followers must subscribe to both profiles and engage with content (put likes and write comments. Such activities increase the visibility of your channel, giving you more capabilities to expand your audience.
The most common type of collaboration with YouTube music influencers is cross-hosting. You represent your colleague’s channel and publish content on topics that are interesting for both of you. By doing so, you present yourself to a wider audience as more viewers will be watching your content.
Another way you can collaborate with a blogger, influencer, or artist is by creating songs together. Decide the topic, write lyrics, do the recording, and release the song simultaneously to get maximum engagement. Today, people from different countries cooperate in an international music collaboration to promote songs and introduce themselves to the world.
Use Promotion Services to Push Your Content
All the points described in this article are effective and result-focused if you use them simultaneously. Still, you can achieve more by using promotion services. People skip this option because they don’t know if they can trust this service or not. However, it’s not a problem when you work with the ArtistPush. The platform offers several promotion packages. Depending on your budget and follower count, select an appropriate package and boost your music on YouTube.
Combine Music Promotion Methods to Increase Efficiency
All the steps described above are not very effective when you use them separately. They become profitable when you use them as a complex. You work on improving the quality of your content and optimizing YouTube SEO at the same time. With that, you create catchy thumbnails and find musicians for cooperation. Finally, you get a YouTube promotion package to get organic engagement and impact the algorithm.
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