YouTube is a platform with an incredible reach and a place where you can locate, engage with, and develop your own audience. One of the most important things to do to achieve healthy and consistent engagement on YouTube is to come up with a sustainable weekly or monthly video schedule within your marketing campaigns.
There’s no one size fits all for this, and you may change your strategy a few times after analyzing the data and audience behaviors with different content after understanding what works best for you.
- Which videos should you upload on YouTube?
- Maximize your video discoverability.
- Engage with your audience.
- The importance of playlists.
Which videos should you upload on YouTube?
YouTube can be used to upload a variety of content. You shouldn’t upload exclusively Official Music Videos on YouTube, as this is a space you can use to share different audiovisual content with your fans. Some of these videos can include lyrics video, visualizers, art videos, acoustic versions, but also non-music related videos, such as behind the scenes, Q&A, or documentaries.
Tip: It’s worth considering releasing different videos (i.e. an Official Video, a visualizer, etc.) attached to the same recording so that your audience can engage with your content in various ways and you can showcase your project and personalities as you may do on other platforms.
Maximize your video discoverability.
For any video you upload it’s important your fans can easily discover your content, but also discoverability plays a key role in garnering attention from new fans. Here are some tips to maximize the discoverability and presence of your videos on YouTube:
- Title: Use concise titles that clearly describe the content of your video, e.g. Artist Name - Title (Version).
- Description: Add an accurate and complete description of the video, including artist name, track title, album if applicable, smart-links or pre-save links to an upcoming release, contributors’ credits, and other relevant information about the video such as production credits, storylines, etc..
- Tags: Use tags on your video to provide the necessary context that helps viewers find your content. List your primary target keyword first and e be sure to include translations and misspellings of your name. Avoid adding misleading metadata tags in the description as this goes against YouTube’s Community Guidelines and can cause your content to get flagged as spam.
- Hashtags: Use relevant hashtags to your content, popular hashtags, and remember that the first three hashtags will be shown above the video title as well.
- Thumbnail: Choose or create a thumbnail that fits well in your Channel’s imagery and that can be easily recognizable. These assets should be catchy, and if you use text, make sure this is readable across all platforms.
- Subtitles: With Analytics, you can discover where your fans are located globally. Make sure to include relevant subtitles so that all your audience can easily access and enjoy your content.
- End Cards: You can use end cards in your videos to redirect audiences to other videos or playlists, as well as remind viewers to subscribe to your channel.
Engage with your audience.
Make sure to engage with your audience by replying to and liking their comments on your videos. If you have over 1,000 subscribers you will have access to the Community Tab in YouTube Studio, which enables you to share more content with your fans such as polls and pictures.
Tip: Audience is key. Encourage your fans to create User Generated Content videos with your music. If you’ve opted in for Content ID delivery, you can receive royalties from the placement of your recordings in these videos.
The importance of playlists.
Create Playlists to organize your videos and make sure to also create some which feature other artists, such as an ‘Inspirations’ or ‘Favourites’ playlist. Playlists can not only increase the viewers’ watch time but also improve an artist’s discoverability on the platform.
YouTube put together an incredible set of helpful resources to learn more about making the best out of their platform and optimize your video strategy. To learn more, see YouTube Creator Academy and YouTube Artists Resources.