The following is a very rough guide to how you should be using any music videos I have made for you. I apologise for the rough nature of the explanation, I wanted to get this out as soon as possible, rather than wait a long time to get it out in a polished state.
I will just very, very briefly outline what I think you need to do:
1. Make friends (to influence/maintain followers);
– Try and create a mini-network of at least 4-5 fellow musicians, bands, venues, etc.
– Make sure you can make reciprocal agreements about supporting what you do; i.e. posting each other’s videos, notification of shows, track releases, posts, etc.
2. Be on as many Social Media platforms as possible;
– Have your own website (can just be a hub to all your social media), YouTube Channel, FaceBook, Bandcamp are the main ones (but ReverbNation, Soundcloud, Twitter, etc, are important).
– You need some kind of ‘hub’ (a go-to place that links to all your social media); your best bet is a website.
3. With the above in place; Make lots of media, regularly (and share it with friends)
– At least something every week (image, playlist, text post, track review, notification of show)
– At least 1 quality video per month (well filmed/edited, or at least high standard audio when using a smartphone at a gig or rehearsal video)
And a warning;
Be aware this doesn’t make you money in itself (you use it to support touring, recording, whatever you are doing);
– Decide what you want to achieve with social media/promotion, and keep it simple (BandCamp sales? selling tickets to gigs? selling t-shirts? start off with one goal, or very few goals).
– Consider reducing overall goals you expect viewers to support to something simple but tangible (e.g. annually recording an album, or stage a fans-only show, etc).
If you feel you can skip any steps, especially because you think they don’t apply to you, I’ll urge you to go through the notes below. At the very end, I will provide a “to-do list” of things you could/should do. The list will only make sense if you have read through the notes.
Explanation
Filming and editing a music video is just part of the process; marketing, promotion, is an equal part of the process. Unless you just want to make videos for fun, then you need to understand music video is as much a marketing tool as it is can be an artistic expression. You can make videos for fun, for artistic self-expression, but if you are doing this, you may as well you make sure what you are doing also helps with your self-promotion.
In other words, it is not enough to make you look good, you must been seen looking good as well.
You may also want to think about who you are looking good to; ‘target audience’ is a soulless phrase, but I am going to ask you to think about who is watching your videos, if you take the time to promote, market yourself. Who are you talking to? It really helps if you stop to think about who exactly is coming to your gigs, and, who may or may not be aware of what you are doing. You are trying to make sure people know who you are, have heard of you, or are just coming across you casually, are drawn to you. That you capitalise on the videos you make, the FaceBook pages you, the gigs you stage. I would ask you to think that
– casual viewers sent your way by YouTube, Google, FaceBook
– loyal fans who want to keep up with, re-visit gigs, ultimately buy tracks, t-shirts
– other bands, performers (who you may want to do gigs with, tour with)
– promoters, bookers, for venues, gigs, festivals
– traditional press, YouTube commentators, specialist or fanzine websites/FB pages
Why it is worth asking “What kind of person likes your music?” – it is also a reality that, because of FaceBook referrals, YouTube Recommendations, Google search results – your music, your videos, are been shown, pushed, recommended to a wide number of people. If you follow the advice below, they may even be very large numbers of people (from around the world) – of which a minority are more than likely to start following your regularly, but only if you follow the advice below.
If the following advice pays off for you, you should be able to guarantee that well-made videos, supported by your friends/network, garner a lot of attention from YouTube, Google, FaceBook – and pushes, recommends a lot of viewers toward you. Where previously you may only had 100 view for a video, you can now have 1000. If you keep at this, building on what you do, that may rise to 5-10,000 in a year; really popular tracks could easily go past 10,000 views.
Two caveats – this isn’t necessarily something to go crazy over, as national and international acts will easily achieve this daily. However, we’re talking about a local music scene. You would normally be incredibly lucky to get 500-1,000 views. If you can get that as a minimum for any video you post – and a lot more for the tracks/videos you really work on – then you can aim for 1,000-5,000 as a minimum. As you are a ‘local band’, this becomes a way of self-promoting yourself to the local venues throughout the country. It is bragging rights to a promoter; you not only have a video of you performing live to an audience, for instance, but that video has a sizeable audience of its own. Your YouTube Channel can be filled with content and acts as a calling card to not just promoters and bookers, but anyone, paid or unpaid, involved in talking about local music.
The other main caveat is that these large numbers of views are a superficial popularity; they are casual viewers who have been thrown your way by YouTube, Google, FaceBook. Only a small minority of those viewers will go onto follow your regularly (boosting all your viewing figures, likes, subscribers) and only a tiny minority will actually do anything like buy a track, album or t-shirt from you. You have to keep in mind that; you are doing this to make yourself look good to other people you need to work with (other bands, promoters) or make money from (loyal fans). On the other hand, it should be pointed out that if you follow the below advice, for example on YouTube, in the way you tag and describe your videos, like videos, link to other videos and build playlists – then YouTube will, more likely than not, be recommending your videos to like-minded people.
If the following guidance sound like a lot of effort for little return – that’s your call. However, a lot of this is work you should be doing anyway, just for basic self-respect. Make sure your YouTube Channel is properly organised into sections, playlists, even if you don’t have a lot of videos (there are ways around this, discussed later). Make sure you have your FaceBook page (or any social media you use) properly set-up and Make sure you a proper biography, self-description, music explanation, however brief, that can be used for FaceBook, YouTubem etc. Also – if you are not ‘networking’ (i.e. making friends, co-operating with other musicians, acts, venues, promoters, etc), how are you going to be able to do anything?
The following are a list of suggestions I have given to others, that I am also trying out myself, and I would ask you to go through these ideas and try and do as much as possible. The more you do, the more viewers, followers you will attract to your videos, music.
Before that advice, I do need to discuss why I think it works, why I do the things I do. I need to give you a short preamble about how YouTube (and Google/FaceBook) recommends your to other people. This is mainly aimed at YouTube, but it is also applies to your websites and FaceBook, and to a lesser degree other social media like Twitter.
The way in which internet search engines have historically rated search results, and which is still fairly true with modern Google and YouTube, is that they notice activity and connectivity. This is a simplistic reduction – and there are, obviously lots of other factors. However, the way in which Google and YouTube (and other social media or search engines) create their algorithms for suggestion websites, new friends, or videos to watch is still based around: your activity (i.e. do you post content, frequently, or periodically, randomly – and is it consistently the same kind of content, length, quality?) and your connections to other people (who are you connected to? who do you work with? who likes you? who watches you? who do you link you? who links to you?).
With regard to how the different companies use their algorithms to treat search results or recommendation results – Google, for instance, is on the look out for fake connectivity. In the early years of Google, an attempt to ‘game’ Google was to have huge number of links from different webpages (and the more of those the better, even if they served no real purpose, were to people you maybe even hated) within your website. These were links both to more popular websites and other websites you may own, or have friends who owned. You may end up with dozens of webpages on your site each having a link to the same, more popular website. Attempts to ‘game’ or ‘hack’ Google in this way were initially successful – then Google employees noticed this and improved their coding and tweaked their algorithm accordingly to try and trace only actual, followed links.
YouTube also has to play this game of ‘catch-up’ with people trying to game or hack how their algorithm recommends videos. These changes, to try and counter fake likes/viewers, are continual. However, there is a difference between how Google and YouTube operate in relation to these changes and tweaks. Google, which is trying to genuinely find the most relevant links to you, makes money from being able to connect you, whatever your likes are, to your search terms, and then relevant advertising or sponsored links. At worst, if you want to get the best out of Google, you have to be prepared to look through YouTube, however, is dedicated to trying to connect you with content it monetizes (i.e. can show targeted advertising to you before, during and after the video you are watching). It will connect you to videos it thinks you may like, but which don’t fit it’s criteria (e.g. it’s not watched a lot), but that will be way down it’s algorithm’s priorities.
So, unless you are already popular, it’s hard to get noticed. If you are already a successful performer or band – you can guarantee 100s, 1000s, or millions will view your video as soon as it uploads, and, in turn, it will recommend it to 100s, 1000s, millions more. That’s a bit of a Catch-22 situation; you’ll only be popular (successful) if you’re already popular (successful).
Reminder: you have to fulfill two main criteria to gain attention (from YouTube) – activity (regular uploads of content) and connectivity (who is viewing you? you could also call this networking).
I’ll come on to activity in a second. (Short answer: do it regularly, even better if you can do it a lot, regularly.)
The main way to ‘game’ YouTube into getting you noticed (and recommended) is to try and make sure your videos area as described and tagged as well as possible. In this way, YouTube (and also in Google searches) can ‘notice’ what you are and then attempt to recommend (or with Google, link) you to people with similar interests. Put simply, if you put ROCK down as your genre, but your channel has few viewers (likes, followers, subscribers) – it’ll put you as a low priority on the recommendations list of anyone else who regularly watches ROCK tagged videos.
This is how you need to ‘describe’ your videos;
In the title of the video: don’t be afraid to make it long, but make sure your have your group and song name first, e.g.:
You can get too involved and lengthy, but this is absolutely fine:
Band “My Song” (Live at the Manchester Pit, 15th March 2019)
Band “My Other Song” (Official Music Video, from the album )
Depending on the song, you can start being more specific (space allowing):
Performer “My Song” (5th song from my live set @Hellhole ’19, Glasgow)
Performer “My Song” (singalong excerpt, 6th song in my live set @Hellhole ’19)
Description: this is where you may need to take time. (In all of the below, always be thinking 3 things – 1. Links to your own videos, 2. Links to other videos, websites, 3. Consistent relevant keywords.)
Title of the song (now be verbose if you want to):
Band “My Song”, Live at the Manchester Pit, 15th March 2019, from the album “My Stuff”, part of my “My Stuff Rocks” 2018-19 Tour (featuring a particularly great solo from me, but some idiot singing along in a drunken slur) [Make sure you have a consistent naming scheme for your band, songs, albums, titles for songs in a session.]
Describe the song. Or the situation of the performance. Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself. If this was from a gig somewhere – write a small self-review and highlight all the songs performed (link to them from within this section of text, or at the end of this text). Don’t be afraid to discuss influences on this song; link to them (if not the song, the performer or group who inspired you). Discuss how this related to your other work, and link to it: it’s a live version of a song you already have an official music video for (link) from a specific album (link, link, link). [Main aim; keywords describing song, link to your own songs]
Describe your group or yourself – feel free to again write a standard ‘this is who I am’ or ‘this is who we are’ mini-bio that you can copy and pasted into every posted video. Keywords are to the fore here; are you a post-punk/ambient/classical/mumblecore/agitprop/punk trio? Are your influences Nirvana, Barry Manilow and Daft Punk? Again, think through for yourself what you want to describe yourself as, and try and be expansive – the more you can describe yourself, the better the algorithm can connect you to like-minded people. Also, really feel free to add a lot of links here. [Main aim: really work on a solid, consistent set of keywords for yourself.]
Describe the musical history your band fits into (or doesn’t). This maybe something specific to you, a local band that hasn’t fully reached national or international recognition. This heritage needs to fit two themes; musical heritage (if you are blues-based band, discuss the blues and how you take inspiration from it, and how you or your band fits into it) and geographical situation (i.e. the local music scene; you may not be proud of being in Leicester, but there is a certain appeal to an English/British band – outside of America, people are more likely to search for, or pay attention to, a UK band. Discuss yourself in terms of World/British trends. 60s British Invasion. BritPop. Garage. Grime. When doing this, don’t be afraid to link to performers or groups you don’t like: “From LEICESTER, ENGLAND, the city that bought you both ENGELBERT HUMPERDINK and KASABIAN, we prove there is always redemption in Hell with the sound of our post-punk/ambient/classical…” or “Whilst our bluegrass isn’t informed by toiling in the fields all day of rural America, which is OK since it was a genre only invented in the 1950s, we are fans of Americana and take great pride in mastering this ‘flatpicking’ style county music played exclusively on acoustic instruments, made famous by such artists as…” Whether you like them or not, try and work in names, descriptions, keywords associated with anything successful linked to you, your band, your genre, your locale. By all means, if you pathologically hate Kasabian, don’t mention them, but even if you are in a music genre that doesn’t link to then in anyway, mention them tangentally. [Include important keywords about Leicester, Britain, both local, national and global music history, trends. Also, keep adding links. Even if it is to a wikipedia page on bluegrass.]
At this point, a short section asking people to like/share/follow/buy merchandise – and then list your website, channel, FaceBook page, social media links. “Do you want to see more of us… why not visit… you can find us here at…” [You should be on as many platforms as possible; SoundCloud and BandCamp, Reverbnation, FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, etc.]
(An aside: in all of this description, but especially here
After this, you may want to have a short section more formally stating who your favourites are. [Lots of links; remember, this is allowing the YouTube algorithm to try and gauge who you are and who may like you. Even if you don’t like a band who is huge, if they are popular and sound like you, you may want to include them in your list, even it means saying you think they are crap and you think you do what they do – but better.]
There should be another formal section where you list, and link to Leicester/England/UK websites, institutions and bands. For instance: where do you record now? List your favourite studios. Where do you perform most? List all your favourite peformance spaces. Even if you don’t record or perform there – list the most well-known studios or venues in Leicester. Do you work with other bands? Tour together? Rehearse together? Borrow gear from each other? Share rehearsal space? Talk about it. Link to their website, etc. [Guess: links. Keep in mind the wide the association of keywords, descriptions, and the sheer quantity of links, helps YouTube connect you to like-minded potential fans.]
Finally in the description, but not least, have a section link to everything and anything you, or your band, likes, supports, follows. Have small sections saying what they are for. Do you have a favourite charity? Someone in the band’s mum had cancer – and you support Cancer Research UK (and MacMillan Cancer Support). Do you have a favourite YouTube channel? Link to it. You could easily re-use sections and links from above, with descriptions shortened, but links added to substantially. Again, this can be a section you can re-use for all your posted videos. [In addition to the above – try and include flavour of the moment videos you like, and, song/band/music links specific to that song.]
This is how you should ‘tag’ your videos:
Everything above – reduce it to a word or short phrase, and include it as a tag. YouTube allows the ability to have a ‘template’ of tags that are pre-loaded to every new video. A lot of the above can be text you re-use again and again. Therefore, the tags can be re-used again and again.
As with the above descriptions, this is about trying to flag up to YouTube’s algorithm who you are what you do. The more you can add, the better. Obviously don’t add material, and tags, that are wholly irrelevant to you – name check the Dallas Boys, Engelbert Humperdink, Shawoddywoddy, Kasabian, but don’t feel you have to include a full suite of tage that outline post-WW2 popular music movements. You’ll include someone like the Dallas Boys (to tag your UK/Leicester British music credentials), because you will also be a lot of links more relevant to you. If you a rock band of any kind – you might want to start by linking to early 60s metal bands like Black Widow, before including everything you feel is relevant to you from Black Sabbath to Biffy Clyro to whatever you’re playing on your PC right now.
Some examples:
[BAND NAME] [SONG NAME] [ALBUM NAME SONG IS FROM] [MUSIC VIDEO] [GENRE] [DATE RECORDED] [STUDIO WHERE MIXED] [LEICESTER] [ENGLAND] [BRITAIN] [UK] [BAND MEMBER NAMES] [ALBUM/SONG PRODUCER] [SONG ENGINEER/MIXER]
Some terms have multiple versions you could have: e.g. [UK] could also be [UNITED KINGDOM]
Some terms can be re-cycled to focus on specific words or phrases: e.g. [BRITPOP] should also be accompanied by [BRIT POP]
Another example: a song is called ‘I Will Survive You Hitting Me Like A Brick’ should not only have that as a tag but also [I WILL] [I WILL SURVIVE YOU] [SURVIVE] [HITTING ME] [HITTING ME LIKE A BRICK] [LIKE A BRICK] [BRICK]
[I can not stress enough that you include everything – even Engelbert Humperdink and The Beatles if you have managed to shoe-horn into the above description anywhere. If it has anything to do with you, your music, this song, this video, your genre of music and the history of Leicester/English/British music – make it a tag.]
Start/End Titles/Cards – make sure you include in-video self-promotion (but don’t go mad, they can be annoying).
You Tube gives you the ability to add in-video links to videos, playlists, and subscription requests. Take advantage of these, but try and avoid using too many of them – viewers already have to put up with adverts.
An aside: YouTube has certain settings you need to pay attention to – you should sit down and go through them one-by-one and make sure you understand them. One that I think I should explain is monetization; you need to agree to this. You need to avoid actually requesting advertising to be in your channel. It is intrusive and can be a turn off, but by flagging that you are willing to make money out of your YouTube Channel, the algorithm is a little more friendly toward you. YouTube will put adverts in and around your video whether you like it or not, so even if you are unable to make money from your videos (i.e. you have 100,000s of views per video, 100,000s of subscribers, to make paltry amounts like £5 per month), you at least more likely to get recommendations
Now we have your video – post it. I can suggest some ways to make sure you video is noticed by ‘Google’ and ‘YouTube’.
Before that, I need to have a discussion on something that relates to ‘activity’, but also features strongly in ‘networking’: making friends and working with your friends.
Making sure you have a little hub of media of your own (website, FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, etc, all about you, linked to each other) is important; but the main strength of this is how you then link this to others.
Websites that review or feature your music; studios or venues you perform at may also have websites, FaceBook accounts you can link to, but the real aim is to get them to feature and re-post your messages to their viewers, followers, subscribers. You may find that whilst it may be useful to link to NME.com – they will not reciprocate. Even specialist websites that feature your music may not have the time (or energy) to link to you and pass you on – unless you have some kind of following.
Your most likely to find ‘friends’ in two places; your local music scene, and, the genre of music you play. In all probability you know other groups in Leicester, Leicestershire, East Midlands. If you play a certain kind of music, you probably bump into similar bands, with a similar level of success, around the country. Make nice with them.
You need to ‘make friends’ by agreeing to re-post and re-tweet content they make in return for doing the same for your content on their website, FaceBook page, Twitter account. You will have to make some guidelines; at a minimum, you agree to send them something once a month, and they will also send you something once a month.
Ideally, this is a video – you allow others to also upload your video, but including your title, description and tags. If the loss of direct viewers bothers you – just file a copyright claim; and encourage others to do the same to you. The more ‘copies’ you can get out, the better; but just as good is getting your ‘friends’ to maintain a playlist on their YouTube Channel that features your music. The newest videos can go to the top of this list. There are different ways of doing this; it may be best to ask your ‘friend’ band or performer to put a playlist you have created onto their own YouTube Channel – in that way, all they have to do is put it in a section on their YouTube Channel, and you can then decide what videos go in that playlist.
As well as ensuring these friendly bands co-operate over videos, you make sure you co-operate and work out a deal with everything they do: FaceBook, Twitter, etc. Whatever you put out, whether it is on BandCamp or YouTube, make sure there are dozens of people prepared to pass on that information – and in return, you will do the same for them.
If you can find a close circle of ‘friends’ you should try and make sure you are supporting each other as much as possible. I will discuss in detail later what your ‘activity’ should look like, but for the algorithms to smile kindly on you, one aspect is that you need to do being doing stuff regularly, and, currently, the minimum appears to be once a week.
So, one thing you can ‘trade’ with ‘friends’ is that you give each other stuff regularly and your put that out to all your social media platforms, websites, channels. In other words, when somethings happens, multiple sources point to your video, or, if you allow others to upload your video, multiple instances appear pointing to you and your (original) video.
On allowing others to upload your videos: OK, if you are doing it, then it isn’t really a loss of ownership, especially if you are filing copyright claims that ensures ‘kudos’ for your video flows to you. However, the main reason you are doing this is to make sure that you can have as much content coming on to your channel as possible. Ideally, you are giving videos to each other – and if you have a large number of friends, that means you should have a steady stream of videos coming into your channel. Again, this kind of activity is something YouTube will notice and reward. If you can get a dozen or so ‘friends’ and they are all roughly giving you a video a month – that means you may be posting a couple of videos a month. That will get your Channel noticed and recommended – maybe not your own videos, but, then, your videos uploaded by others are also cropping up on viewer’s recommendations. That is how you are helping each other. You, on your own, may only be putting out something decent every month or so. With friends, you are managing to kick that up to weekly. You can make sure your own content features heavily on your own channel – and in return for making other sections of your YouTube Channel available to those prepared to work with you, you have a much larger presence on YouTube than if you had just one video being put on YouTube every 4-6 weeks.
OK, so you post your video – you need to upload it to as many places as possible and notify as many people as possible.
Upload to multiple platforms at once:
Once you have a video – make sure you post notices to all the social media platforms you have created accounts on. Post to as many as possible, but within reason. There isn’t a clear choice between, for instance, ReverbNation, SoundCloud or BandCamp. Join all three. It could be argued that if you want to sell music, BandCamp is the clear winner, but ReverbNation and SoundCloud also attract different people, age groups and countries. If you want to be seen by everyone – you need to be with all three. (But having said that, if time & effort are at a premium – go with BandCamp.) Again, YouTube and FaceBook – you need both. Twitter, Instagram and other platforms are optional – but the more you can commit to, the better for you.
Ideally, you also have a collection of friends – they should also be re-posting your posts, or, creating new ones to tell their own followers what you have done. Again, they need to have FaceBook, BandCamp and YouTube. If they haven’t, you are well within your right to -politely – tell them you won’t help until they get, for instance, a FaceBook account. It may be useful to actually discuss with your ‘friends’ what the group social media commitments should be: to Twitter or not to Twitter? What about new services like Discord? Decide – and make sure you post to all you commit to. Again, the more you commit to, that you can support, the better.
Upload to multiple channels at once:
As discussed above, and hopefully makes sense now, you need to make sure that as many YouTube channels (and FaceBook accounts) either post news about your video, or upload it themselves and link to your pages, channels, accounts.
As a minimum – and this may be for low-priority content that you are doing just to appear active (like publishing a new playlist of favourite songs) – you need to make sure you have much social platform accounts as possible and they all post at the same time with the same message.
Ideally – you do this, and all your ‘friends’ should be posting or re-posting messages in support of your video, or content.
What you should try and be aiming for is to get not just yourself and your ‘friends’ to post and re-post your content, but any websites, venues, studios, you have used or you know of you, if they have FaceBook, YouTube Channels, etc. This is more like old-school record plugging or A&R work – with the big difference you can post directly into the forums surrounding SB.tv is you’re into Rap/Hip-Hop/Grime/etc and maybe nothing will come of it, or maybe you get a flood of additional interest. Only you know how best your music genre is represented in the mass-media; metal, rock, of all types, used to dominate music with a handful of printed magazines you could point to as ‘I need to be seen in that’ (think Kerrang! for the UK) – now, as a UK rock band, you face many websites with not just Kerrang! being something you need to aim for – but also a myriad of forums, channels, FaceBook pages, around such websites as LoudWire. Still, it is now just the case that you need to take your already prepared posts used by your friends and toss it into a forum for a website, or into the comments on a Channel for a video of music similar to yours – the more considerate you can be, the more effective your efforts will be. But it is essentially a task of copying and pasting a message+link into multiple places.
With that – I am now going to fully address ‘activity’.
You now have connections between yourself and, hopefully, lots of other people. At it’s closest to you, with people you work closely with, or at least have amicable agreements, you have a publicity network. In addition, you hopefully have a lot more connections that, whether they are recording studios, rehearsal studios, venues, festivals, that will often feed off of your close network and provide a looser, but wider network of influence. In all, you are constantly creating new ways to connect to potential fans, and then converting those into actual FaceBook followers or YouTube subscribers. YouTube, Google, definitely ‘notices’ that network – but it is both you and the media platforms that need those actual connections. If you don’t have connections (lots of followers, casual viewers, or both) then you are nobody: your videos will not be recommended, no matter how good your support network is.
So, a pre-requisite is a network poised to make connections, to get in touch with people. Then what?
In short, and as mentioned previously, you need to post regularly, and, post decent content. I will now discuss that and make suggestions on the best way to do that.
Firstly, that regularity. YouTube is constantly making changes, tweaking, how its algorithm works. Sometimes there are broad policy changes they may not explicitly discuss, but may impact you – you need to keep an eye on tech news websites whether IT interests you or not. One such change: some time ago YouTube favoured long-duration content it hoped could grab people’s attention and ensure it would be easier to feed them targeted adverts. If you regularly posted 1 hour videos, and allowed full monetisation, then YouTube felt you deserved recognition about people pumping out 30 second videos of cats falling off tables or chasing laser dots. They could stick on adverts at the beginning, end, and every 8-10 minutes throughout the video – presuming people would sit through the adverts. Well, on the whole they didn’t. Firstly, not many people can produce content viewers are prepared to sit through for an hour, let an hour with additional adverts. And it’s those adverts that were really the problem; people want YouTube with as little adverts as possible. In response, YouTube shifted this to the current situation where they favour regular content of around 5-10 minutes. This is now the duration of media they support; they can stick on an advert at the beginning and at the end, and if the video is over 8-10 minutes, they can stick an advert in the middle. Viewers tend to watch 2-3 videos in a sitting before having a break to do something else, before going back into watch more videos. YouTube is now able to fit in as many adverts in an hour as it thinks it can; and there is more content available as most people find it easier to create content others will watch that is only 5-10 minutes long.
As you read this, the ‘make it 5-10 minutes long’ goal is still in effect; 1 hour videos have had their day, so have 1 minute videos. They are still there, but YouTube looks on with love at perfectly formed 5-10 minute videos. Music videos, clocking in at 3-6 minutes, may not be the right duration – but they are by no means the shorter 30 second or 1 minute clips they seem to have grown embarrassed of, but a lot of people still post. There is already an advantage there; a channel that publishes content that is consistently 3-5 minutes long doesn’t seem to be adversely disadvantaged by the way the YouTube algorithm calculates value to YouTube.
The factor that balances this length of video in terms of use to YouTube (and therefore how it will promote them) is if videos of this duration can be posted by the authoring channel with a regularity of 1 per week. It appears the minimum might actually be 2 weeks per 3-5 minute video. (By contrast, one 10 minute video per month is a minimum for the slightly longer duration videos.) If you, as a channel, appear to be committing to this level of content creation, you will be recommended regularly to people with, what it believes, share your likes and dislikes.
With the above in mind, there does seem to be an upper limit. If you post premium content every hour of every day, that appeals to every demographic, YouTube will probably hail you as the Messiah and not only promote your Channel, but make deals with you, and even provide staff and studio space. They will anoint you as a ‘winner’, and you could probably stab a child on a live stream and they would still be wondering what to star you in next. This is an extreme; for most creative YouTubers, posting past twice a week doesn’t seem to achieve much. There are many possible reasons for this; one of them is that the way YouTube gives back money to YouTubers who monetize what they do, there is a pittance of money to be made. With little or no money, or even backed by a Patreon account, going past 1 video a week is pretty tough. For most people, with a job that supports or compliments their YouTube Channel, they have to actually give up money to post more than 1-2 times a week. It isn’t worth it. There seems to be discernible shift in recommendations from YouTube once you get past 1 per week in posting content. However, past 2 per week, unless you are connecting to huge audiences (e.g. 100,000s), there isn’t much of a again.
Your aim, then, is to try and get something out once a month. That’s a pretty low bar; however, it really is the minimum. In order to make sure you are noticed, and gaining reasonable, consistent viewing numbers, you need to try and be aiming for something every week; or at least every 2 weeks.
Interestingly, this activity doesn’t necessarily need to be uploading a video – it does appear that any kind of activity on your channel. If there is lots of different kinds of activity, that is regular, this seems to act in your favour. Not much, but it is worth mentioning:
Videos are you main source of content, of getting yourself noticed. An absolute minimum 1 per month; ideally get 1 video goes out every 2 weeks. However, to ensure noticeable results, go for 1 per week. Nothing beats posting actual content, however simple, especially if you can get something/anything out every week.
Playlists – creating and distributing playlists are an activity. It will be noticed. It will appear in search results. Getting views on YouTube Playlists also counts toward your general level of activity (and these are not necessarily your own videos – this could a top 10 of your favourite ska-punk bands).
Discussion on your videos, in your ‘Discussion’ area on YouTube. This will count towards general activity. The difference between the two; the more discussion on a video, the more likely that will be recommended – the more discussion on a Channel’s ‘Discussion’ area, the more likely that Channel is recommended to others in searches, and, to a lesser extent, videos from that Channel are recommended.
I will now discuss these in more details, with suggestions of how to improve what you are doing.
Videos – music videos are you main interest. Either simple depictions of your gigging or rehearsing, or, more creative/personal music videos. These are the things people want to see, enjoy. They bring in new fans, reward new fans. However, you may want to consider that they are not necessarily the only thing you should be doing. Also, you need to think of the best way you use your existing videos.
I’ll start with what you are doing already; your probably filming yourself, or, thinking of filming rehearsals or more gigs. Here is how your should do this: let’s say you film a gig.
Firstly, take all the footage and split them up into individual songs. Let’s say you have a 5-song set. You now have 5 videos. You can release them individually, or, put them into a single playlist. You also have the option of releasing the original gig, later, as a single video. Secondly, take excerpts from each song – make clips lasting 30 seconds to 1 minute of the best bits of every song. Next, put those excerpts into a montage and call it something like ‘highlights of our December 2nd show’; you can also create a playlist featuring all the excerpts. Finally, you could pick the 2-3 best songs of the gig and make both a playlist and a short montage of the songs.
You now have, and in the order you should release them:
1-5 = Five short clips from you gig, of each song.
6 = A short montage of those best clips, a bit longer, from that gig.
7 = Add that montage to an ongoing “What We Did This Year” Playlist*
8 = Playlist of all the released clips (‘highlights of gig’)
9-13 = 5 live songs from the gig (don’t post a 30 minute video)
14 = Playlist of the full songs
15 = Release a ‘best of gig’ montage featuring 2-3 songs
16 = Add the full 30 minute video to an ongoing “Our Live Gigs” Playlist*
*These Playlist could be set-up to display as a Section on YouTube Channel main page
In this way, a single 30 minute gig could represent up to 16 events of activity that allow you to post messages, tweets, etc. Of these, the individual songs, possibly some kind of montage, and the whole show itself, represent 5-6 good quality posts; i.e. every 2 weeks, or, at least once per month. The short clips are teasers; also upload them to YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, or just to FaceBook, and tease that full versions will be available on YouTube later. (Or post to FaceBook and YouTube simultaneously.) This activity, depending on what you have time to set-up and post, is maybe 6 months of YouTube Posts, or maybe 1-2 months. A single 30 minute video of a gig could maybe provide you with half a year of activity to ensure you are noticed by YouTube/etc; with just two filmed gigs you have a full year of minimum activity.
If you wanted to do the bare minimum – film a couple of gigs per year and maybe make a decent music video, and that is the minimum. That’s not a lot to commit to. In fact, you can commit to this, and then, as opportunities arise, do more. But if you don’t – you know you have something coming out every every couple of weeks, every month.
In addition – you can film rehearsals. You can film one rehearsal and one gig per year – and that’s guaranteeing you a minimum of activity to feed YouTube and FaceBook. This is then the foundation for doing more interesting things – like a music video – that takes advantage of all this activity and is more likely to bring in more viewers, subscribers, likes, etc, to what you are doing.
With rehearsals, you could let yourself be more relaxed and do additional things. I am mainly thinking of doing covers. There are arguments against releasing 30 minutes of your material, even if you split them up and release them slowly. The main argument against is that you are giving potential followers less reason to go out and see you – gigs are probably the main way you are making any money. However, you do need to do this; to let people hear/see you in some form for free. And you should be in control of what people see of you – not fans, who are as equally likely to provide a really nicely shot video as something incredibly hard to watch. A good side-effect of all the activities I am asking you to do is that the videos you create are curate are the videos, even if you don’t make them or host them yourself, are the videos most likely to be recommended and suggested to other people on YouTube, Google, etc.
Filming both rehearsals and gigs gives you more options; you can record covers of people you like, to add to playlists of the people who inspire you. Those videos and playlist will ensure you pop-up into the recommendations/searches of those artists, bands, or just that song. Also, rehearsals are more under your control; the live gigs can be very poor for audio quality; even if not professionally recording and mixing your rehearsal sessions, you should be able to get a better sound. You are therefore able to combine the rawness of a live show, with a more representative version of your (live) sound in a rehearsal situation. This can also allow you to limit the release of your material by having not just a live version, but also a rehearsal version – in this way a full gig of material might take a year to actually release all the songs showcase. And you could stick in covers between your own songs, slowing down the release of your own material even more.
You may have qualms about doing covers, or doing too many. There is a pressure on bands, if they want more gigs, to give up on original material and just do covers. However, I want you to covers as an easy way of showing who and what you like – as a tool to getting you in touch with new audiences. The covers you do can be stuck in playlists of your favourite bands, influences, that you should be filling up your YouTube Channel with, and then posting to your followers about. These videos will then be popping up in the recommendations, suggestions of the people who follow these bands.
Properly putting out a cover in rehearsal may be considered as time wasted when either current or new material should be focused on. I accept that; do what you can. I would say that maybe 4-5 covers is a limit; doing more may be counter-productive as you may end up being lumped in, by YouTube/FaceBook, with the tribute bands. However, in line with some other things I am going to ask you to do, it wouldn’t hurt if you sat down and wrote out a short list of all the favourite performers/bands, influences/genres, your band has – and then reduce that to a short list of 3-5 songs. Also – one of your first steps as a musician might be to do a guitar/bass/drum/keyboard part from a favourite song. You may still do that as part of your personal rehearsal routine. Film it; maybe also film a short introduction to your performance. If each band member does that – that 4-5 videos you have generated together.
(This brings me to ‘vlogging’: if you want to post additional content, then there is no reason why you can’t do simple to-camera blogging with your smartphone about what you are doing and what you like. You can just do short 15-30 second “this is what we are doing this week/month” videos and post them on FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
One thing I am going to do in the next activity suggestion on Playlists is that you should try and create as many playlists as possible on all aspects of what the performers or bands like. What are you influences? You should create one main playlist – and then a playlist for every performer or band you like. Then, maybe, another playlist for each band member if you are a group. For one performer and band – someone say something to the camera. These videos don’t have to be long; they can be very short. 30 seconds, if you want. But they also allow you to post often and post a lot; you should be able to think of a topic relevant to your band and then put together a playlist for it, then, if only on a webcam or smartphone, film a short introduction to the playlist. That playlist, including an introductory video from yourself, can then not only go to your YouTube Channel, but to your FaceBook, Twitter, own website, before, if you push it to your ‘friends’, appearing on other FaceBook pages, Twitter accounts, etc. Yes, they are short, but they are regular – and they are complimenting your regular videos released every week or month. You are helping keep activity high.
If this sounds like a lot of work – it need not be. You can do this in a single rehearsal session. You can sit down and spend five minutes agreeing with your band-mates what your favourite bands are (or just spend five minutes with yourself if you are a singer-songwriter); you can plan to release one of these playlists per month – so it’s 12 bands you need to talk about and film an intro for. And it is just an introduction. You can keep it simple: “All of us loved Band X, so we wanted to share with you our favourite songs from this band…” It’s an excuse to film and release something – if you can put more effort in, like the band, or a performer, talking about this playlist (“I first remember hearing Marvin Gaye when I was eight, round my grandmother’s house…”), then that’s great.
If you do have significant, favourite events you plan to attend – there is no reason why you can’t film a short message before it happens. It goes on FaceBook, Twitter. If it is a gig you are staging – short before & after videos can go into the playlist of other videos for that event.
There is also no reason why you can’t film other bands – if you are at a festival, or a gig with other bands, you can stand with the crowds and film a few songs; record a short review of the band or songs you heard. Especially do this for ‘friends’ and encourage them to do the same for your gigs; you should be linking to each other. The next logical step is to film and review each other as well.
Film reviews of your favourite songs, albums – and then post playlists of these songs from around the internet (but try and keep with official/sanctioned YouTube Channels/FaceBook pages, or established YouTube Channels, like Trash Theory or Polyphonic).
‘Lyric Videos’, ‘Official Audio Videos’: along with publishing 30 minute videos of your live gigs or rehearsals, there are very good reasons, unless you are an established band, why you shouldn’t do this. However, if you are happily pumping out videos and want to make sure you are maximising incoming viewers – ‘lyric videos’ or ‘official audio videos’ are a simple way to ensure you are getting out your 1-4 videos per month. Of these, official audio is the easiest – you just need to make sure there is a pretty picture is shown while the song plays (band/performer logo/artwork, group shot, a shot of you from rehearsal or a live gig, or some scenery/imagery off the internet relevant to your song). Do yourself a favour; just pick one image. Unless you have a professionally edited montage – it will feel cheap and make you look bad. This is also a problem with the lyric videos; unless you are going to spend time and effort (or money) on the problem, they may make you look bad – time and effort (or money) might be better spent filming a rehearsal or gig. And if you are spending money – it would probably be better spent on an actual music video. However, don’t count these out; for tracks you don’t perform often, but have recorded, this may be a perfect way to have some content in reserve, to publish when preparing to publish live songs, etc.
More generally, and with smartphones now very common, think about how video could be brought into whatever you do. If you rehearse – film it. If you are recording in a studio – film that. If you are in a recording studio – why not mime to a finished (or near finished) track? Are you in a rehearsal studio? Can you mime to that recorded track the next time you are there? In this way, you have bits of footage of you rehearsing, recording, performing – and you can push out these different versions of your songs to all your different social media. They don’t have to be all the song – just a verse and a chorus, for instance. (In time you may even want to have playlists that just have different versions of you own, best, songs.)
I’ll stop with discussing videos: you get the idea – film, edit more stuff. Release regularly. Do this in addition to your main Music Videos, and, your more regular documenting (with good sound) of your gigs or rehearsals.
What then needs to be said is that, for YouTube, you also have Playlists as a form of media you can create. As long as you add proper descriptions, tags, and curate good videos, you can then post and use new playlists as if they were new videos. The best thing; you didn’t need to make the videos, just look for them on YouTube.
These are how you can use playlists on your YouTube Channel (and FaceBook, Twitter); have playlists on your YouTube Channel for each member of your band, for the band (as a whole) referencing your influences (favourite singers, songwriters, bands, albums, genres). These can be organised as the content of a YouTube Channel section, or, as playlists that appear in a section.
For instance, you could have a section that just says “Influences” or “What We Like”; then put together a list (as long as you like) of all your favourite music, bands, etc. You could end up with a playlists from a series of bands or singer-songwriters, albums from those singers or bands, and then genres (playlists of specific songs) you think influences your music, that is your favourite music. These playlists can be released to FaceBook, Twitter, as thinks you alert people over, get them to look at, as ways of getting them interested in your music: “Check out a playlist we put together of David Bowie…” What you could also do is then film a short “This is our David Bowie playlist. Bowie is an influence because…”
In curating playlists of music, artists, etc, you like, this is not just helping YouTube and Google link you to like-minded viewers; you are linking yourself to more popular artists, content. It is the followers of these popular artists (or popular content) that YouTube is eager to link you to, to maintain their loyalty, attention of these viewers, to the platform so they can target advertising at them. If, for instance, the form of rock you feel you are a part of, or is inspiring to you, involves grunge – the must-have part of your ‘inspirations’ sections and playlists must be Nirvana; it can then be debatable who are the ‘best of grunge’ – but research who really are the most popular on YouTube (Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, etc). Then include bands you can stomach as well as the bands you truly love. Then include Butthole Surfers, Sponge, Mudhoney, etc, who may not be as popular but are dear to you. A big part of this is including videos not just of popular artists, bands, but their videos which have high viewer counts (e.g. millions).
The next step should make sense; make playlists that include any highly viewed video that you are interested in. You should be thinking of creating sections/playlists about not just music, but, for instance, favourite movies (clips, trailers referring to your directors, actors, genres – and this has the added benefit of having new trailers you can regularly add to your playlists). If you can think of anything you as individuals in your band are interested in or links to you, create a playlist or section and fill it up (e.g. do you have a favourite venue where you like to attend, and can fill a playlist of people’s videos of bands performing there?).
A final word: YouTube Subscriptions and FaceBook likes – and links in general (on your ‘hub’ website). I am just going to sign-off this off with how you should work with friends. YouTube Subscriptions and FaceBook Following also factor in to how any Recommendation (from Google, YouTube or FaceBook) get generated. So spend time following-through on any bands/genres you like by formally subscribing to their channels, following their FaceBook pages, and even ensuring they go on to such things as YouTube video ‘Cards’. You may actually want to ‘shout out’ on Twitter, FaceBook, your friends/favourite bands – it’s an excuse for another post.
This is part of how you should be co-operating with other bands, venues, performers. You are probably doing something like this already, but you may just need to do that as part of a routine of activity on YouTube and FaceBook.
Here’s an example of how you would get Channels to co-operate;
BandA has 3 new videos coming out in the coming month (from a gig or a rehearsal).
BandA makes sure BandB and BandC can also upload these videos.
BandA Channel;
Upload BandA Songs 1-3,
one at a time, releasing one video a week,
adding them to their ‘Featured’ and/or ‘Recent Activity’ and/or ‘Uploads’ playlists ans sections,
and after all three videos are uploaded create a “Three Songs Playlist”,
which also goes into different sections.
In short: for every video, then playlist, make sure they can be placed into as many playlists/sections as possible.
This should include playlists and sections that cover the local, national and friends’ music scene. In these playlists, include uploads of BandB and BandC of your BandA’s own music.
As importantly as allowing them to upload the videos, BandA supplies very specific descriptions (with copious links) and tags that must be used when the upload is actually made public.
BandA will also post on FaceBook, tweet and maybe put images from the video in Instagram, for instance.
BandB Channel;
Uploads BandA Songs 1-3, which is all they shot at a rehearsal or took from a gig,
and as each one is released, they will go straight into playlists/sections that revolve around local music, national music, friends of the group, etc. There should be one “The Friends of BandA!” type playlist or section featured prominently on the channel; that contains BandA’s own uploads. Other sections relevant to that song, or how you look at local music, can contain BandB’s and BandC’s uploads of the same song.
BandB creates YouTube End/Beginning ‘Cards’ linking to BandA’s Channel.
In relation to these videos BandB will have their own posts, and will re-post BandA’s posts on FaceBook, tweets and maybe put images from the video in Instagram, for instance.
BandC Channel;
Does exactly what BandC did, using their own, BandA’s and BandB’s uploads of the songs, as well as their own uploads.
BandC creates YouTube End/Beginning ‘Cards’ linking to BandA’s Channel.
In relation to these videos BandC will have their own posts, and will re-post BandA’s posts on FaceBook, tweets and maybe put images from the video in Instagram, for instance.
BandA, BandB, BandC should have the following kind of playlist/sections;
“Stuff Happening Now” (a kind of recent activity that isn’t about you)
“Our Friends” (i.e. people you formally co-operate with, or, you just really like them)
“Leicester Music Scene”
“Bands in the East Midlands”
“The UK in Music”
These could be sections, in which you have a playlist for the band into which you dump all their activity (whether you have uploaded it or not), or, you have a section where this is a playlist just for songs for that session of three songs. You are trying to create a series of playlists where these videos (whether uploaded by BandA, BandB, or BandC) can make as many appearances as possible.
When BandB releases a video, or has a series of videos (from a gig or rehearsal), then exactly the same logic applies;
BandB uploads and makes public the video, adds to multiple playlists, posts of FaceBook, etc.
BandA uploads and makes public the video, adds to multiple playlists, posts of FaceBook, etc.
BandC uploads and makes public the video, adds to multiple playlists, posts of FaceBook, etc.
The main reason I have given to you for doing this is that having friend’s content to upload and post relieves any anxiety you have for keeping regular activity going on your own YouTube Channel that can then feed into FaceBook, Twitter activity. The next reason was that the network, the relationships, creates associations Google/YouTube/FaceBook will ‘notice’ and use to connect/recommend you to others. It’s worth adding that building a history or such activity, of having an archive of playlists and videos has a weight all of it’s own. It’s hard to put a number on it; but I will call it a 100 playlists of your own and other’s videos, and 100 uploads (of content of any length). Having 100 videos and 100 playlists, with proper descriptions, tags, etc, seems to create a momentum of their own. And I have to stress “of any length” because it seems even short 15-30 second video, like I have suggested you make to introduce and front your playlists, make an impact on Recommendations, Suggestions, etc.
If this sounds daunting… it needn’t be. Following the above advice, write down for yourself a routine of things you could do, and then just try sticking with it. Again, it’s hard to put a number on it, but you should be able to see some kind of result (like increased views on your videos) in around 6 months. I think you may have to wait a year before you can see how your work is paying off. (It also depends on what state your YouTube Channel or FaceBook Page was in beforehand.) As for forming a network – it’s best if you formally knock-out an arrangement with your ‘friends’, making simple lists of exactly what you will do for each other. This probably means agreeing to have similar sections/playlists for “Your friends” and “Local Music Scene” etc, and agreeing where the original upload goes and where the friend’s upload goes. But having done that – it should make things a lot simpler to follow through on.
Summary
With the above in mind, you can think of this as a ‘to-do list’, as a summary, of things you could be doing with your music video, and also with all of your social media:
Goals:
= we want to get noticed by the YouTube algorithm (and also Google) so that like-minded users of YouTube (and Google) will be referred to
– (we’re maximising views; we’re demonstrating people watch, like your music in large numbers)
– (money can not be directly made from YouTube; but key to gaining/maintaining viewers and any money you currently make is in maximising your views)
= as a secondary goal, you need to turn your YouTube channel as a resource that helps support FaceBook, Twitter, BandCamp, etc, in gaining/retaining viewers
– (the more platforms you are on, the more people you can reach – and the best way to get views is to show/share videos; since you are making videos, playlists, etc, you may as well re-use them over different social media)
= this will work best for you if you have clear goals for what you are doing; videos, your YouTube channel, etc, need to be supporting aims, e.g. recording an album, promoting a tour, etc
Take TWO basic actions for gaining views/viewers;
= ONE make friends;
– (agree to co-operate with other YT Channels, FB pages, uploading and posting about each other’s videos)
– (an aim; create a small formal network of YouTube Channels, FaceBook pages, Instagram/Twitter accounts so that when someone/anyone does anything copies/announcements appear on 4-5 other friend’s own YT/FB/etc accounts)
= TWO release content regularly;
– (at least once a week do something/anything; YouTube bare minimum is once a week post a video or a playlist; ideally your minimum should be once a week across all social media)
– (you should release an interesting video at least once a month; but other activities need not cost you money – e.g. releasing a playlist of a favourite band; re-posting details about a friend’s band, knowing they will do the same for your shows)
Warning, be clear on what you can achieve;
= this isn’t going to make you money; it is going to ensure lots of people see what you do, are aware of you
– (think of how best to ‘show off’ what you do, e.g. bragging rights for “I have 1000s of people watching/following us’, e.g. evidence: show clips from filmed gigs where you have big audiences)
= this will make sure any fans, followers you gain remain with you; from this you will be able to plan other activities that pay the bills
– (1000s of views may not translate into a lot of BandCamp sales, but, it should ensure that those that follow you remain loyal, plus, other activities like tours, Patreon goals, etc, can be properly supported and promoted)
Release video regularly
= actual good-quality video should be released at least once a month
– (can be expensive or time-consuming, but you need to provide ‘quality’ content that makes you look good)
= other quality video can be used to meet weekly deadlines
– (film a gig – first release 30sec to 1min clips of songs, especially get friends to re-post/tweet about them; then start releasing fuller tracks later; much later release the whole gig, plus a montage/medley of the best performances)
– (film a rehearsal – again, first release 30sec to 1min clips of songs, especially get friends to re-post/tweet about them; then start releasing fuller tracks later; much later release the whole rehearsal session, plus a montage/medley of the best performances)
– (recording music in a studio; in the studio, make sure you film rehearsals or actual recordings – using rough audio in footage recorded there before releasing final audio)
= someone in your band should have a decent smartphone
– (it may be an idea to appoint a band-member to make sure they film everything you do)
– (a cheap tripod, tablet/smartphone, can be bought to make filming regularly easy)
= your fans can provide footage and images for you to re-use
– (encourage/invite fans to post to FaceBook videos, images they take of you performing)
– (encourage/invite fans to upload videos to YouTube, that you can like/refer to, then also incorporate in FaceBook, your own YouTube Channel)
– (you may find you have several regular fans/followers recording video, taking images; make friends with them, encourage them to post/upload regularly)
Be on as much Social Media as you can;
= be on everything
– (to be clear; a website, FaceBook, Bandcamp, ReverbNation, SoundCloud, Twitter, Instagram, Patreon, keep an eye out for new trends, e.g. Discord)
– (must have; website, FaceBook, YouTube channel, Bandcamp)
– (website: doesn’t have to be fancy, but acts as a ‘hub’ for any social platform you are on, a repository of links to other/friend bands, venues, etc)
– (website: look into platforms like WordPress, Wix, SquareSpace, etc, e.g. a post in WordPress can be set-up to re-post to FaceBook and other social media, reducing the level of work in using multiple social networks)
= What I am outlining for YouTube, do so on all social media; FaceBook doesn’t allow you to create playlists in the same way YouTube does, but you can like/follow FaceBook pages of bands you like, venues you like, etc, and you can post links to YouTube Playlists (on of the reasons you should create playlists is that it becomes something you can share on social media platforms).
Make friends you can rely on – and who can rely on you
= you probably need to make ‘friends’ with 4-5 other bands, websites for the following steps to have any effect
– (Google/YouTube recommend people to you based on what they think you are – and one way of doing that is looking at the links/relationships you have with others)
= you ask them to re-post videos of yours; you re-post theirs
– (this means your channel posts a lot of videos; i.e. instead of 1 per month, with 4-5 friends you can post at least 4-5 videos per month)
– (you won’t be posting everything; agree to post good/relevant media; more if you have time; with appropriate tags, these help YouTube/Google understand who you are/recommend you to others)
– (you need to amass a large collection of videos to your own channel, properly tagged, help YouTube/Google understand who you are/recommend you to others)
– (also helps: you need to amass a large collection of playlists for your own channel, properly tagged, help YouTube/Google understand who you are/recommend you to others – friendly YouTube Channels putting out lots of content allows you to make & update regularly media like YouTube playlists/website posts)
= these kind of arrangements need to be stuck; otherwise they don’t work
– (you may need to get into a rhythm of releasing video before committing to others)
– (even if it is just 1 video per month; make deals committing to take other’s one-video-per month in return for yours)
Make detailed video descriptions, comprehensive tags
– tags, meta-tags, keywords re-occurring within and across videos fuel associations YouTube, Google will throw up to recommendations, searches
– make sure you have a clear description of who you are and what you do
– make sure this includes widely recognised terms for the music you are making, well-known name
– make sure you mention more well-known, famous, bands, performers, etc, regardless of whether you like them or not; are you a grunge band? You will mention Nirvana, maybe even link to them
– include a comprehensive list of links to friendly bands, local studios, and bands that reflect your video (again: are you a grunge band? Link to Nirvana, Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters)
– make sure YouTube cards, links to channels, link to your friends’/allies’ YouTube Channels
– write as much as you can (link to anyone/anything that is relevant to you and/or more popular than you)
– make sure whatever text you come up with is then pasted consistently into every video you release, whether it is on your own YouTube Channel or uploaded by someone else
– in addition to a more-or-less set ‘description’ for all your videos, try and add links that are unique to that video (were you inspired by a specific song or topic? link to videos, websites, etc)