I was thinking the other day how could I help a friend of mine that has started a music YouTube channel but wasn´t gaining any traction.

So, what I did was conduct a little research to find what are the KEY elements most successful music YouTubers have in common.

And in this article that´s exactly what I´m going to talk about!

If you are interested in or thinking about starting a music channel then you MUST read this.

1. Number 1 Tip To Get Started

YouTube is an excellent place to get discovered as an artist, as you might know it is the second largest search engine in the world, so it´s no surprise that many great artist were found through YouTube videos.

Although the idea of being discovered after uploading a good music video or a cover sounds appealing it doesn´t necessarily work that way.

In fact.

That is what most people do, so you´ll be basically competiting with almost everyone.

Unless you are pure 100% talent and you can rock the hell out of people´s mind with your music you depend entirely in the fact that they give a damn about who you are and what you´re all about.

So, the first thing most music YouTubers (with large audiences) I´ve researched have done is to TEACH people first.

They´ve shared how to sing or play the guitar, piano, the ukelele, or whatever it may be.

TIP! Those where actually the most common ones so if you play the banjo it would certainly make you stand out! 😉

They basically provided some value first, by imprinting they own personality and helping people out they GAIN EXPOSURE and subscribers.

If you do just that for a while you´ll gain some traction, and when it´s time to release your song/album you´ll already have raven fans listening to your music.

If there´s any HUGE factor that I´ve discovered on my research and not all artists are actually doing is this:

They teach people how to do what they do. How to play that song or cover, they make sure to be extra helpful and motivate people while doing it.

Basically, they GIVE value first and then they ASK for some attention in return.

YouTube Recommendation

I think one great suggestion the YouTube team gives is to make a personal connection with your fans, not just by providing some value with your videos but also creating more personality based videos.

They even stated that in the Creators Academy:

As you can see, the main purpose is to CONNECT with your fans, make they feel they can get to know you by giving them access to the backstage.

For example, a video where you show how you record your music or how you go about your songwriting process, or simply sharing something about your personal background might do the work.

2. Go Live!

If there´s something that can certainly make you stand out from the croud and that not many YouTubers out there are willing to do is leverage with Live Streaming.

YouTube rewards live streaming by giving you more exposure and it builds up the more engange you create with the viewers.

So, make sure to take advantage of this strategy!

Here are some cool ways you can try:

• Live show online. Imagine how GOOD it can actually be for your fans to get you performing for them from your own living room and engage with them in a more direct way.
• Q & A. Dedicate one day of the month or week to answer some of your fans questions, try to build a relationship with them and establish a real human connection.
• Just go live! The purpose is to connect so just by making some time to be there and show up will make a difference for sure. Whether is to answer some questions, make an announcement, provide some more value by showing some of your backstage tools, almost everything could work pretty well.

3. Useful Advice From YouTube

As I´ve mentioned early on, the Creators Academy gives a lot of great advice when it comes to growing an audience and a YouTube channel.

Now, for the purpose of making a great music and artist channel there are some things you should check out.

1. Be aware of channel art. From the name of your channel to the banner art you set up it all matters and gives away a “look” to your persona and art. Make sure to be purposeful and don´t let anything to fate, make it count and craft a beautiful design that actually represents you, it doesn´t need to be fancy, it just needs to be YOU.
2. Pay attention to Thumbnails. There are too many people that don´t pay enough attention to the fact that thumbnails can make or break your channel. The first reason why people notices your video is your thumbnail. So, make sure to take some photos during your video shoot and use them to create a nice thumbnail pic.
3. Make use of playlists. Another great way to upgrade your channel and use your most successful videos is to get people to watch your other videos and that way increase your watch and session time from one strategy. Create some playlists and put them on top of your channel.
4. Your end-screen matters. This feature is what makes people click over and keep watching your videos one after the other. It is also a great way to make people subscribe to your channel.
5. Sometimes less is more. I´ve found so many YouTubers that have built up a great channel through simple cover videos, you can simply start by doing some covers and record yourself without much that taking care of the audio and that will have a more authentic vibe, which also makes you more relatable.

4. How to Deal With Copyright

There´s a common topic that most YouTubers nowadays manage pretty well, copyright.

Properly dealing with these kinds of issues will surely fasten your way to music success, as you won´t get sued as a result. 😬

You can´t afford not knowing how copyright laws work on the platform and what can you do.

You should get familiarized with topics like what is fair use and how you can use other people´s work according to the use you´ll give it.

So, in order to be as brief as possible, if you´d like to protect the cover of a song you make you should get a sync license. (not a mechanical license which only covers sound recordings, not images)

What´s that?

A sync license is a type of license that you get from the publisher of the song allowing you to pair their composition with images in your cover song video.

Now, YouTube´s solution to this is to create a Content ID, which is a system that basically allows the platfrom´s algorythm to recognize content by analyzing certain factors.

That way they get to know who´s the rights holder of that song and helps to split the ad revenue accordingly.

Although it is not a perfect solution it does work!

So, you can cover songs on YouTube and still get away with it but you should also be aware of possible copyright claims by reading some of the basic guidelines the platform has established.

Here you can learn more about it: YouTube Copyright.

5. Possible Income Streams For Musicians

• The YouTube Partner Program. Your first step would be to join the program and get some ad revenue from the advertisers that show up on your videos, now keep in mind YouTube´s rule for this:
  “In order to be eligible to apply to the YouTube Partner Program, a channel must have 1,000 subscribers and received 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months.”
• Find a distributor. Another great way is that you find a good distributor that can put your music on different digital platforms like iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play, Spotify, and others so that you gain more exposure… and revenue!
• Leverage with sponsorships. Not many YouTubers take advantage of the reach they have. Even if you don´t have a very large audience you can find great sponsors that will pay you to show up some of their products, just make sure you don´t support any product, try it first, don´t sell yourself.
• Promote your live shows. Simple yet effective. You should promote your tours and shows whenever you can and gain more attention while you increase your credibility as an artist.
• Sell merchandise. Finally, sell your merchandise. Maybe not at first but if you get some traction with your channel this one might be a good way of monetization you could explore.

Now, there are even more ways you can make money with your music and your channel.

For example, two great ways you can easily take advantage of this simply by offering an online course where you teach people how to write a song, or how to play the guitar, or whatever it may be.

People will pay for your expertise and knowledge, although it might sound counterintuitive as they can find great content on the platform for free you´ll find how profitable it can actually be.

Finally, you can use pure and simple affiliate marketing to your favor.

How?

Just let people know what your favorite instruments and software tools are, then add a link so they can check out the price on Amazon and if they buy you get a comission!

Final Thoughts

Now that you know how you can start growing a loyal fanbase on YouTube you can try out some of these strategies yourself.

Remember that your main purpose is to connect with your audience at first and then ask for attention in return.

I´ve said it before but I´ll say it again, provide value first, ask second. Period. That´s it.

If you want to learn more about how you can grow on YouTube then head over to some of my other articles.

Have a nice one!

Matt.